Coming Round

As I came round in the recovery area my first thought was that there was no pain. You have no idea what a huge relief that was. I felt quite good, all things considered, though the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth was a damned nuisance as it was very noisy and made hearing what was said to me difficult.

It seemed as though I had wires and tubes sticking out all over my body. There was a central line into my neck, another line in my hand, a drain for the operation wound and, of course, a bag to hold my urine draining into a larger vessel beside the bed.

was soon being wheeled down to the high dependency unit where patients spend up to two days until they are fit enough to return to the ward.

My wife had tried ringing the ward to find out how I was but without any success and finally my elder son took over and got through to the HDU where the nurse in charge said I was already fit enough to return to the ward as soon as a bed was available and asked him if he would like to talk to me. So I was quite amazed when a phone was thrust into my hand & I was able to talk to Ian. Later he said he was amazed at how bright I sounded and I actually did feel really good.

Shortly afterwards they exchange the oxygen mask for a pair of small tubes which fitted into my nostrils and that for me was a far more satisfactory system of delivering the oxygen.

The HDU was very relaxed with beds being well spaced compared to a standard ward and staff always in calling distance. It was a pretty pleasant environment.

The next day, Wednesday, I was helped out of bed and into a chair. That was not without problems as my right leg was numb from the epidural and collapsed under me. When the time came for me to get back into bed several hours later they used a sling to move me.

While I was out of bed my wife and son turned up to visit and I think they were both surprised to see me looking and sounding so well. Granted my temperature was slightly elevated and my blood oxygen a bit low unless I was using oxygen but I felt pretty good.

They had allowed me to take small sips of water immediately I came round and by Wednesday afternoon they said they needed to get some calories into me and gave me a very sweet apple flavoured drink to sip. Sadly that gave me terrible indigestion and I had a lot of reflux that night. I was reluctant to try it again the next day.

They were worried about my not eating so decided to feed me through a drip for a couple of days. Sadly the central line which had been fitted before I came round was not suitable for this so it had to be replaced. This procedure took about half an hour and although not painful was uncomfortable and tiring. When my visitors came that evening I was pretty washed out.

Late on Thursday night my old room on the ward was available & I moved out of the HDU and back to it.