I’m finally in a positon, I’m able to sit down for more than 30 seconds before my backside starts to hurt, to write a few lines on my experiences in hospital. As I have mentioned elsewhere I have had a pan proctocolectomy removing my whole large bowel, anus and rectum. I have had what used to be my bum sewn up (hence the issues with sitting down) and I now have a stoma.
Pretty major stuff but I have to tell you I have not felt so good for many, many months.
I can now eat a meal, small I’ll admit, without the dread of being in prolonged agony for several hours. I’m a bit sore where I’ve had the incisions but nothing like the constant pain I was enduring before my surgery. This was always going to be a long journey but I feel that this surgery has been a huge step, if not the biggest step, along that journey. I know that I’ve still got cancer in my liver but we’ll deal with that in due course. One step at a time!
The day itself. I had an early 7:30 start at hospital where, once booked in, I met the anaesthetist who explained that they would be using an epidural for pain relief. Fine but very painful to insert. I went down to surgery at about 9:30 and woke up in the recovery room around 3:30pm. I’ve no idea how long I’d been there but a 6-hour gap in my life. I was also in a great deal of pain. The epidural had apparently shifted so the wrong part of me was being anaesthetised. This couldn’t be corrected and it was decided to put me on morphine and I was sent up to the high dependency unit.
Gradually over the next few days I had drains and catheters removed and then on day 4 I was unhooked from the morphine pump. I was then moved to a general surgical ward. I was encouraged to get out of bed and my first few steps were very unsteady but it was wonderful to be up and about. The physios even had me climbing a few stairs in order to replicate what I’d have to do at home.
With the surgery and hospital food I managed to lose a total of 26lbs over the week I was in hospital. I would not recommend this as a weight loss program though. It has meant that a lot of my clothes no longer fit me but I have invested in a pair of braces which are better than a belt going across my bag. There was one patient on the ward who did manage to put on 2 kilos in hospital but I think he must have been on intravenous pies.
I did have considerable trouble sleeping once off the morphine. Not due to pain, paracetamol was fine for that, but insomnia brought on by the morphine. It really messed with my brain. Simple thought processes like retracing my route to work went off at some incredible tangents when absolutely nothing made sense. When I did manage to sleep, I had the most awful dreams. At 3 o’clock one morning I found myself Googling ‘Morphine induced insomnia’. It is a recognised condition but has made me very wary of using the liquid morphine I have at home. But as I’ve said I am relatively pain free.
I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to ‘Beryl’. Beryl is the name I have given to my stoma. Our relationship didn’t get off to the best of starts mainly due to my diet whilst in hospital but this has now settled down. The stoma nurses have been absolute angels giving me little tips and tricks with changing bags and diet. Beryl has shrunk by a third since my operation which has meant a change in bag type and recutting the bags to Beryl’s new dimensions. Emptying and changing bags has now become part of my new ‘normality’. It took a bit of getting used to but this is part of the life changing surgery.
As I’ve said earlier I haven’t felt so ‘well’ for months. I’m still in some discomfort and my scar does itch on occasion. But and it’s a big but, I’m still looking forward. I’m getting fitter by the day and starting to think of all the things I want to do this year. I‘m so looking forward to a trip to the seaside. I managed a visit to my allotment at the weekend. It was very tempting to get a spade out but I resisted the temptation and instead sat in my chair and listened to the birds singing and watched others do the hard work. I’m signed off from work for 10 weeks but I have to remember that I’m not Superman. I’ve had major surgery and need to listen to my body and rest when I need to. I find it very frustrating but it’s something I need to deal with.
One day at a time.
