raising willow… and dexter!

Current Mood: Sickly

It’s now 24 hours since my operation and I’m still in hospital. I expected to be discharged this morning, but I think my surgeon is erring on the side of caution.

To my delight, A brought home my new laptop the day before I went into hospital, so that is what I’m typing on now. I still have a jelco in my wrist, which makes it difficult to write. It is a 14in Toshiba Satellite Pro and it is running Windows 7, so I’m getting used to that. Love the sticky notes!

I saw my surgeon this morning and according to him, the operation went well. Now I am the proud owner of a sample jar half full of what looks like river stones. Of course, they are the little devils that have caused me so much pain. There are two that are about 4cm in circumference, a couple of broken ones that were probably about the same size and the rest are +/- 1cm in circumference. Some of the smaller ones are almost square. All of them are a medium to chocolate brown in colour.

I have another sample jar with one of my teeth. Apparently when the anaesthetist was removing the breathing tube, I bit down on it and my tooth, well, I think it is actually a crown, broke. He called my dentist and she will fit me in sometime this week. Fortunately his insurance will cover it! It feels like there is a lump in my throat too, but I suspect when I bit down on the tube, it scratched my throat. I want to cough it up, but I can’t!

Apart from that, I have 4 incisions in my stomach, including through my belly button. The surgeon repaired my mysterious umbilical hernia while he was there, so I got a two for the price of one operation!

I’d never been under a general – the last thing I remember was lying on the operating table, telling the anaesthetic nurse that I felt like I was having a panic attack. Then I woke up in the recovery room. It’s amazing how thoroughly it worked! I have no memory of the operation whatsoever.

My drip got removed at about 1am, I had this machine that was compressing my legs and that was taken off this morning, then this afternoon the nurse took the drain out. The drain was quite painful and it felt like it was irritating my diaphragm – like I had a stitch. I have just taken off my compression stockings, as sexy as they were!

Funnily enough, my blood pressure was quite low (for me!) when I was first admitted yesterday – numbers I haven’t seen in ages! Apparently some of the pain relief medication might have kept it down. Then this evening it went back up again, but I’ve taken my (Coversyl) medication, so hopefully that will sort it out. Speaking of blood pressure, A saw his doctor for a script yesterday and his blood pressure is on the high side too. We might be able to share medication!

With the help of a friend, A brought the kids into see me at around lunch time and they stayed for a few hours. It was so good to see them, I’m missing them desperately now. Dexie wanted to snuggle up in bed with me, which was so sweet. I’m bored now. I’ve watched some TV shows that A put on my laptop, there is nothing interesting on TV. I’ve read today’s paper, two trashy magazines that A bought for me and now I want to go for a walk – there is a maternity ward in this hospital, so I wanted to go for a sticky beak, but I don’t know if the nurses would let me. When A and the kids were here, we went for a walk about found the hospital’s museum. All I could think was that I am so grateful for modern medicine!

I can’t complain about the level of service here, the food has been pretty good for hospital food and I even got to have a wine with my dinner tonight. I have a large room to myself and the nurses and other staff have been, for the most part, quite attentive. No request has been too much trouble. Makes the excess and PHI we pay all seem worth it! The only complaint is that they don’t have wireless internet available here, so I’ll post this when I get home.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 11th, 2010 at 12:28 pm and is filed under life, jim, but not as we know it. You can follow responses to this entry through the Comments RSS Feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.