Post-op day #5

I can't believe it's already been five days since surgery! I attended my BMI hospital today to see my surgeon, with much apprehension about their awful nurses, knowing that I would need my dressings done because I am just post-op. I was given the *worst* nurse; I'm surprised I didn't scream when I saw her. As my surgeon says, she's "old school" and wants to get jobs done ASAP, regardless of anything. I bit my tongue and decided to let her have a go even though I knew it wasn't a good time, being post-op.

She took a foot-long pair of plaster scissors and tried to cut my dressing, hacking through the bandages roughly. I told her to stop, but she just told me to let her get on. She then started to remove the dressings themselves with tweezers. I tried to get my other hand in and remove them myself, but as I moved away from the dressings table, her tweezers followed suit and she was adamant that she wanted to remove them.

Just as we were waiting for my surgeon to come, another nurse came to get something from the room. Later, evil nurse left and I was left with the nurse who had come in to get something, as if by telepathy (or magic!)! I was in so much pain and was bleeding my this point and trying so hard to hold things together. My surgeon came in, and awkward conversation ensued (with me half-in-tears...). After 30 minutes of discussion, we decided to try new dressings and my surgeon left, telling me to go and see him again post-dressings.

Later, my surgeon asked if I was alright and commented that I looked really upset earlier on. Embarrassingly, I burst into tears and explained the situation - he agreed that it wasn't right and we ended up laughing about it.

He isn't too happy about the state of things, I am already growing back dodgy tissue and we might have to repeat/revise the surgery. He has also referred me to a plastic surgeon and I should get a call about that tomorrow - he wants to see if I am a candidate for synthetic skin or cell culture which is a very exciting prospect for now. I should get an appointment next week depending on when and where he runs his clinics and I am seeing my orthopaedic surgeon again on the 7th September.

For now, I have been prescribed some marcaine/bupivacaine HCl (I think they're the same thing) for pain relief as the codeine has been making me vomit badly. He wants me to start building up my appetite again as I have lost some weight over the last week or so, which was part of the reason why I was kept longer in hospital than I should have been. I ended up leaving the hospital at 9pm but I'm pleased to have seen my surgeon today. Hopefully it's good news from here.

Surgery, 24th August 2012

I went into hospital on Friday, 24th August at around 1pm for the afternoon theatre list. My theatre slot was actually booked for 6pm but I had to arrive early for the usual proceedings to take place. I was allocated my room on the orthopaedic ward and was seen by my surgeon at around 5pm, as he had just come from the usual clinic that I attend as an outpatient. He explained all that he would do, and it turned out that the surgery was due to be a bigger one than I had expected. He would perform a total debridement and remove what tissue was left, and proceed to electrocoagulate the vessels that were still causing problems.

I spent a total of two hours in theatre, excluding the prep time, and all I can say is that the experience was one on the traumatic side. At times, I felt like they were treating me as an asleep patient and at other times they spoke to me like I were an infant. People were telling me that "this is normal" and stroking my hair and all sorts, when they knew full well that this was my thirteenth surgery and I wasn't really scared. Prior to my surgeon beginning the actual operation, it took five nurses to remove my dressings, one of whom decided to cut it off on the side of the wound, thereby pressing the scissors right into it. The surgeon had already infiltrated the area with lignocaine and was later going to use a long acting agent, prilocaine, I believe.

Anyway, so after the havoc that was removing the dressings, he began the surgery by applying a tourniquet and stopping the initial bleeding that was caused by the dressing's removal. In total, I believe he used around 100ml of anaesthetic, but it certainly looked like more when I looked over at the swollen mass that was my hand! So he began, using all sorts of knives, needles and scraping utensils, to remove "stuff". I don't really know how much he removed as I haven't seen the wound since pre-op. Two hours of cutting and scraping ensued, ending with a few minutes of electrocoagulation, by which point the anaesthetic was wearing off, resulting in a few mishaps as I flinched and couldn't keep still due to the onset of pain.

So I went back up to the ward, at around 8pm and was told that as long as I ate, drank and passed urine, I could go home. I was exhausted, however, and just wanted to rest. I was dehydrated already, as I hadn't eaten since lunch time on Thursday (the day before) but I was so run down that all I wanted to do was hide away. I can't say that the hospital did the best job at looking after me, for many reasons, but I'll go into that another time. Before I'd eaten, drunk or passed urine though, they were already telling me to leave the next day at around 2pm. Of course I wanted to go home, but home was an hour away on public transport but nonetheless I left anyway. I am doubtful that it was the right decision, as I have not been well at all since.

It has also come to my attention that people who I thought were my friends, are not my true friends and instead are egoistic, self-centred individuals instead. People who talk to me with the sole intention of telling me things and who aren't ready to listen and people who think that they are dealt the worst cards in life, all the time. I am so lucky, however, to have a few very, very close friends who are wonderful to me and I just hope I succeed in being as good to them as they are to me. Sorry it's been an extremely long post, but the last few days have been equally as long, if not longer. Love and hugs to all xxx