I spent my days in a routine of sitting up in bed and progressing from bed baths to washing myself, with a little assistance from the nurses. I progressed from being catheterised to being able to get out of bed with assistance to use the commode. Not glamorous but an achievement nonetheless. I was still in hospital gowns due to the ease of use, but felt positive and upbeat. I chatted to the nurses, had visitors most days; Mark mainly, but then he or mum and dad would bring Laura to see me. My cousins came to visit and cheered me up no end with so much laughing.
One of the nurses ordered me a new mattress, an air flow one which made me much comfier, as long as it didn’t get unplugged and deflate!!! It was a little uncomfy therefore when I went off ward to have scans and chest x-rays to see if the lungs were working properly. They were still draining into the chest drain so it couldn’t be removed. It took longer this time to recover and attached to me for a longer time.
I remember being on the high dependency unit one night; I was on my own so it was quite nice and peaceful! I was chatting and laughing with the nurses and the anaesthetist came down to see me, he was amazed at how well I looked all things considered and I felt great. That night my nurse wired me up to the ecg which worried me somewhat. Why? What was wrong with me? Was something going wrong? I started to panic; he then placed his chair at the end of my ward and sat monitoring me. Every time the machine bleeped he got up to look, I was getting more and more paranoid and panic stricken to the point of hysteria. I was scared to sleep in case I was going to die, I wasn’t sure what was happening and they had to bring the ward sister down to calm me down. Gradually, I drifted into sleep for a few hours and woke at 2.30am (ALWAYS that time!) and my nurse came and brought me a cup of tea. I apologised to him for over reacting and being silly and we laughed about it; I guess the morphine does things to your mind and sends it into overdrive.
Mr B came to see me to let me know the outcome of surgery two. His words “you don’t do things by halves” - you think?!
The original surgery which had been only 80% successful to remove the disc. He had grafted the rib but on the second surgery had to remove everything and remove the remained of the disc, There were two surgeons dealing with this and they were confident now it was sorted. I was not able to have a further surgery no matter what. He had drilled and smoothed the part of the disc which he had to leave attached to the spinal cord. He described it as a floating island now totally unattached to the disc and the spinal cord. Now I had to wait and see the progress.
As the days went on, routines were formed and life on the ward was habit. I had given up the idea I would be leaving any time soon!
Eventually, the day came when they clamped the chest drain and it was ready for removal. It didn’t hurt as much this time and I was stitched and free of one tie.
I then had the epidural removed and as the pain increased, the morphine was gradually reduced before being removed from my hand. I was totally free from all machines now. A sense of relief. I was able to get out of bed, sit in the chair, physio tried getting me moving but it was slow progress. I lay in bed every night looking at my left leg, willing it to work, trying so hard to make the toes move. I spent a lot of the night awake and tried tirelessly trying to get a response. One day the big toe moved. I was ecstatic, the nurse saw it and we laughed about it, but it wouldn’t move on demand so I just kept going until there was movement. I cant explain the excitement of knowing that there was something working in there!
When I moved onto N2 I was on a ward with three others. Two were stroke patients but lovely, unable to communicate though. The other lady was elderly and although she was mobile and able to talk, she wasn’t particularly nice and made comments to her family that I was always using my phone. She had visitors every day and sometimes twice a day; some days I had none and my phone was my lifeline. The feeling of sitting on a ward and not talking to people all day is very difficult and I was very upset by her hurtful comments. I didn’t have anything to do with her after that.
Mark brought Laura over on several occasions, she had called at the house and got some belonging for me so I looked forward to seeing them. It was also nice for them to have the journey over to chat and build a bond – I think the whole episode has brought us all closer together.
We had a few misunderstandings throughout all of this, I am afraid the combination of medication and texting people doesn’t always work and I said a few things I probably shouldn’t have. The sheer frustration of not being able to walk and being stuck in a hospital bed with no date of when I could leave was taking its toll.
 |
| All the get well cards |
No comments:
Post a Comment