Medication Overload
The first official day was all about medication. It was the hardest day by far so much so that I am struggling to recall what happened because I was out of it most of the day.
Thursday Morning
The clock makes it round to 6 am where I am greeted by one of the nurses who informs me that they will be removing my drips today. She alarms me that I've only used about 1/10 of the painkillers and that I have until 9 am to make the most of it. I quickly realised that the following few days were going to be incredibly difficult if I didn't use the pain killers they'd given me. For the next three hours, I set an alarm every 5 minutes to remind me to push that dreaded pain button. It was kind of ironic that the thing I'd been given to help also caused pain but only for a couple of minutes. It felt like when you have an injection and get that tiny scratch but that pain has been multiplied by 10.
Medication, Cannulas and Fresh Clothing
I didn't eat much breakfast that morning, in fact I hardly touched it. The nausea was extreme and quite frankly the thought of gloopy porridge wasn't at the top of my list. As someone who hardly takes medication the extreme amount was anything but normal for me which meant that my nausea was horrendous. In addition to the 2 drips I also had to have a blood-thinning injection in my stomach; a Naproxen tablet (for anti-inflammatory); some more painkillers; an Omeprazole tablet (for my stomach lining) and a laxative.
When they eventually came round to removing my cannulas I had to ask the nurse if it had happened because I hardly felt it. One was removed entirely and the other one left in but the tube attached was disconnected. I really didn't do much for the rest of the day apart from sleep, watch tv and occasionally talk to my family when I had the energy.
Around midday I was helped out of the surgical gown and into some of my clothes, a t-shirt dress and dressing gown. I also had a bit of a clean, well more of a festival-type wash. Special medical wipes were used to clean all of the bright orange iodine they'd rubbed all over my leg for sterilising purposes. The wipes had been heated up so they felt refreshing and gave me a new lease of life alongside getting changed into my clothes. Although it wasn't as good as a shower it definitely felt like a close second at the time.
An unexpected decline
The evening was long and uncomfortable. My stomach had started to ache like crazy from the medication they'd used in surgery to stop me needing the loo. Fed up and in pain, I called the nurse and she explained the two options I had: 1) To use a cardboard bowl that they would place underneath me whilst in bed or 2) make my way off the bed and onto a special chair that wheels you over to the toilet. Of course, I wanted to take the more dignified approach and so she helped me on to the toilet where I sat waiting for anything to happen.
We had spoken about natural laxatives beforehand that I could use due to having IBS, the conclusion we came to was prune juice. I took one large gulp of this vile-smelling juice and threw-up along with all of the food I had struggled to get inside me early that afternoon. Not much longer after that, I threw-up again and then again. At that point, I was exhausted had no energy and needed help. I called for my nurse and she decided it was time to abort said "toilet trip" and go back to bed. However, when you've had major surgery and can't walk let alone stand properly this is a lot harder than you think. So much so that I ended up putting too much weight down on my leg which I believe to be the cause of the seizure I then had. By far this had got to be the most terrifying experience of the whole procedure. I had no control over my body and the nurse stood in front of me was repeating "focus on me, look at me and everything is going to be ok" in her wonderful irish accent. My brain was still active at that point so I understood what was going on but just had no control over my body fitting. It only lasted about 15 seconds so as soon as I was back to normal she reassured me and called another nurse to help get me into bed properly that time.
From that point, I felt defeated. My head kept repeating I can't do this, how could I possibly do this? I have no energy I feel sick all the time and I can't eat anything, how on earth am I going to get through this? It seems that in life some days are going to feel impossible and that however hard you try it doesn't feel like it's going to get any better and that for me this was one of those days. However, in the words of a true inspiration of mine: "It always seems impossible until it's done" - Nelson Mandela.
