Walking...

It's Saturday, and what a week I've had.

I woke up sometime after the operation on Tuesday afternoon, in a lot of pain.
The first thing I did was check to see I had both feet, yes! they're there.

Karen and Tara were both beside me and I found out later that I talked a load of gibberish (no change there then) while the nurses tried to sort out my painkiller levels, this was complicated by the fact that they didn't have the notes on what I was taking prior to surgery!

I then slept until Tuesday evening in CCU (Critical Care Unit) and when I woke up I had a different nurse, Iain, who was brilliant and talked to me and looked after me superbly, he rolled up a towel and bound it with Sellotape to hold against the wound when I coughed, to stop the pain.

I fell asleep again. When I woke up I was in a huge dark room with hundreds of people in beds. I couldn't make a sound and noone seemed to notice I was there, I slowly became convinced that I had died and they were waiting for the Gurney to take me away. That was a wonderful feeling....not - I can only assume it was the bloody Morphine!

I fell asleep again and when I woke up I realised how bad my hallucinations had been, the CCU had 10 beds and I was still under one-on-one care.

I was transferred to a normal ward on Wednesday afternoon and said goodbye to my last (useless) personal carer. I was given a bed in a private ward because my care was of the level that I needed checking very 20 mins instead of continuous care.
They managed to get me out of bed during Wednesday, a day after my operation and over the next few days I improved quickly, by Friday I could walk up and down a flight of stairs unaided.

Friday was also the day that my last tubes were removed, the main drain was a real pain: as the nurse started to remove it I could feel part on my internals coming out, the pain was unbelievable and I screamed out so loud that she got really upset and refused to try again without talking to a consultant first.

Eventually some of my surgical team arrived and after trying themselves, they decided between them that the drain had attached and the only way to remove it was to surprise me, I was tensing so much every time they came near me that it was making it even harder to remove.... Prof Thomas injected local anesthetic around the entry point and down the drain and handed me an Entonox inhaler, said he'd be back in 2 minutes and instructed me to breathe through the inhaler.
One of the nurses was in on the plan and while she distracted me, Prof Thomas sneaked around the curtain, grabbed the drain and ripped it out of me.
SHEEEEETTTTTT, that hurt... but it was out - crafty bastard!
I thanked them through my tears and off they went to get on with more important things.

I'm still in a lot of pain when I cough and first straighten up from sitting
I'm ready to go home now, I just need to pass some solids and they'll let me go.