Going In, Surgery, Coming Home

It's done and I'm back home!!!

I can't follow the obvious pattern of making a post for each day as I wasn't in a position to take notes and by now some of the separate days have merged together in my memory so what I'll do is post stuff bit by bit over the next few days hitting a theme each time.

Today I'll give a general schedule of events and try to fill in details as we go on.

I went into hospital on October 24th, a Sunday, which was a day early but I was told that that would give me the best chance of a single room but much more about that later. Surgery was on Tuesday October 26th and I spent a couple of days in a high dependency unit until there was a bed available back on the ward so I didn't get back to my old room until late the Thursday evening. That would be October 28th, just in time for my birthday on the Friday.

The epidural pain-management system was disconnected on the Sunday, october 31st and I used a morphine based system until the Tuesday morning after which ordinary OTC tablets were quite adequate to control the pain.

Around the middle of that week they set me up with a leg bag so I could start to move around more freely and on friday November 5th I had my first lesson in bag-changing. I did my own bag changes over the weekend and on Monday 8th I demonstrated my skills to the specialist stoma nurse who sanctioned my release into the real world.


My son brought me home on Monday afternoon & I am already feeling so much better.
Since I came home I have been managing my bag, making mistakes but improving my overall fitness as I move around the house. I still get tired pretty easily but I know I'm on the way up again even though I am sure it will take a while.

I think that will do for today as I can feel myself tiring so more tomorrow.