I probably stayed awake way too long into the early hours of Thursday morning. After uploading the previous blog I started getting some messages from the other side of the world, and in all honesty I couldn't sleep in any event. The nurses kept coming into to check vitals and I didn't feel all that tired.
Around 6am, I was officially woken up with breakfast (a hearty feast of a slice of toast, a mug of tea, and a couple of paracetamol). Doctors, nurses and other staff wandered in and out during the morning, and it soon became obvious that one of the issues of major importance was now my toilet habits. The British are renowned for their toilet humour, but bowel surgery takes it to a new level. At that point, the surgical catheter had been removed (itself a pretty harrowing experience) and I was being encouraged to drink jugs of water like Justice Kavanaugh necks beer.
When not encouraging me to head to the bathroom, the other focus was getting me out of bed. I was nervous about taking that first step, having no clue as to how it would feel. Happily those fears proved somewhat groundless as I got out, slowly shuffled along the ward corridor, and then returned to the high chair in the room. I don't know what everyone else was thinking, but I was astonished to be moving about in less than 24 hours following invasive surgery.
My wife and sister arrived as my first visitors of the day, just in time to see me tuck into lunch, and we sat and chatted for an hour or so. As good as I felt, I still needed to crash every now and again: at some point I was going to hit a wall. All afternoon I was asked the same question "have you peed?" Still loads of water going in, nothing coming out. My wife popped back, and at this point I had taken to leaving the sink taps running and playing YouTube clips of flushing toilets on my phone to get me over the line. Nothing. By early evening, I sensed the entire ward was waiting on news, and it got to the point that I had a couple of ultrasound-type exams to check how I was filling up. The clinical staff took the decision to take action, and I reached possibly the lowest point of the hospital experience when the nurse announced that they were going with another catheter and she summoned an appropriately trained colleague from a nearby ward. As one of the 2 nurses unfurled what looked like a firehose, my mother-in-law appeared at the door. I suggested to her that she wait down the hall until this was over. Neither of us really needed to see what was going to happen. Still, they worked their magic, and finally I peed. What a sense of relief. Things were on the up, I thought. How wrong I was.
During a very fitful night's sleep, it was clear the anaesthetic had finally washed out of my system, and by the early hours of Friday morning I was throwing up. Vomiting is no fun at the best of times, it ramps up a level when you have no particular ability to cough/splutter/bend over etc. I staggered back to bed, but was soon back out when my bowels decided to wake up, Staring back down into the abyss I made the odd choice to photograph what had just raced out of me, since I had some notion that the nurses might want to take a look. At point of writing this blog, I just remembered doing that, and have now deleted the picture on my phone. It would have disturbed most people. The HCA came in and I brightly regaled him news of my recent bowel movements. "How much did you do?" he asked "More than a sparrow?". Yes, I replied, more than you'd expect from a normal sized bird. "OK" he said "Less than a shire horse?" Again a yes from me. Admittedly it was a pretty broad range of animal defecation he had provided, but at least I was on the spectrum.
After breakfast on Friday I decided to try and have a shower and shave. If nothing else, I needed to get out of the fetching hospital gown, and try and feel a tad more human. The moment the shower came on, a code red alert flashed to my bladder. This is what I should have been doing. Peeing on my own. Such a simple pleasure, and one more thing to report back to the nurses. The look of joy and pride in their faces was like watching owners see their puppy manage house-training for the first time. I then sat back in the chair, feeling somewhat sorry for myself. A friend from work called in to see me, I was sound asleep and I must admit I didn't even recognise him, I was that spaced out. He stayed and tried to brighten my day. My wife and MIL popped back, and they didn't end up staying too long: I was in pieces and needed to rest.
I crawled back to bed, slept through lunch, and was still drifting in and out when a school friend turned up. He shares a similar dark sense of humour to me, and we laughed as best we could about the situation before early afternoon I suggested he may want to take his leave, as I was feeling a disturbance in the Force. Another unpleasant episode, more puking, more blood, then I dragged myself back to bed. I picked my way through a tiny bit of tea (despite having emptied my body of anything and everything I had eaten) and then waited for my wife and niece to visit. They came, and again it was clear I was not bringing my A-game. At this point I was utterly wiped out, and really couldn't see a recovery light at the end of the tunnel any time soon. Also worth noting at this point that aside from one oral dose of morphine the night of the operation, the only medication I had been taking was a couple of paracetamol every 4 hours. I had taken the decision to try and deal with it, but at this stage I was wavering. Late at night a nurse came in to give me a lesson on self-injection: as part of national policy, I am now on a 1 month course of blood thinners, and would be going home with a set of syringe doses and a sharps box. I have never had cause to inject myself before, so this was rather daunting. Still, after a few false starts, I stabbed in, and got it done.
By Saturday morning things had, incredibly, turned around. I awoke with renewed vigour, had breakfast, showered and changed, and awaited rounds. My friendly HCA popped in to finish up his shift, announcing he was off for a couple of days. I said that it was possible I would be discharged before he came back on. I thanked him for his care, attention, humour, and shook his hand. "Get well soon, be strong" he said. It sent me off on a wobble. I have since Googled what the average annual salary is for an HCA in the UK. It is criminal. The care they provide, and the manner they provide it, is beyond belief. They provide a level of humanity that a sick person needs at what is possibly the most vulnerable point in their life. No-one will ever convince me that these people are not heroes, and for as long as I have a breath in me, I will argue anyone who disputes their true worth to society.
The surgeon came in, with his entourage, and found me sat up in the chair, feeling OK. He introduced himself, shook my hand, and basically just said, "looks like you're packed, you're going home today." And with that, pending results of today's blood work, I was discharged. I messaged my wife (she and our niece were on the way in), since now we had to scramble how I was getting home. Certainly the car we borrowed from a friend wasn't going to cut it, no way was I going to be bent double into a Mini. in the end I went back in a cab with my niece, and, some days earlier than I ever expected, I was home.
I spent a relaxing couple of days in the house, becoming reacquainted with our sofa, bed and stairs. Amazingly I was able to go up and down with minimal grief, and was also able to shuffle about the garden. A friend came over for Sunday lunch, and we also took a brief walk along the road (the flat end, it has to be said), but I felt like things were coming together.