I’m back from the hospital. Hmm, let me try and get down everything I remember.
Tuesday 29th April 2008
I got up, got myself in the shower and hibiscrubbed myself nearly half to death. I was determined not to pick up any nasty hospital bugs. A friend came and picked me up to take me to the hospital and I ended up arriving at 7.30am, half an hour early! I was booked in at the admissions desk and given directions to the admissions ward (which was one hell of a walk away). I was the first patient to arrive so for the first few minutes I was on the ward on my own. Each little mini-ward had chairs and a TV for people to wait to go for their operations. After a while, the surgeon came to speak to me and asked me to sign the consent form - there was only one problem, he said, in that they weren’t sure yet whether there were any beds for me after the operation. If they couldn’t find a bed for me, they couldn’t do the operation!
I saw the anaesthetist and had a very worrying hour or so not knowing whether the operation was happening or not. I was all ready and changed into my hospital gown and sexy anti-embolism stockings (see pic below) and had my blood pressure and temperature taken. After so long on the slim fast and after so many set-backs, I figured that if the operation got cancelled, I could walk into town on the way home and get the sausage roll I had been dreaming about for the last two weeks :). It was only when the surgeon’s right-hand-man came to say hello that I found out that there was indeed a bed and the operation was going ahead!!
Oh, yeah! Look at these sexy beauties!
The theatre nurse and her student nurse came to get me and went through a check list about allergies, when I had last eaten and drank and then we set of for the short walk to the theatres. I remember the nurse saying “Don’t look so worried!”. I had thought that they would knock me out in the anaesthetic room, but I walked into the actual operating theatre. I got up on the table and they attached electrodes to my chest and one of the anaesthetists (there were TWO!) started stabbing my left hand with a needle. She couldn’t get a vein first of all, so she put some local anaesthetic into my hand (I was so impressed that they did that - it really helped) and had another go. In the end, her boss (the anaesthetist who I saw on the admissions ward) managed to get a vein in my wrist. I remember having a chat with the boss-anaesthetist about someone we mutually know through where I work, which helped to relax me a bit. The last thing I remember as they knocked me out was the oxygen mask going on and me not being able to breath in as much as I thought I should be able to. This was 10am.
I woke up in recovery at about 3.15pm I think. All I remember is retching. Lots of retching. I honestly started to worry that I was going to split all the staples in my stomach with all the fake-puking that I was doing. I think it mainly had to do with the tube going to my stomach through my nose. It was attached to a drain and this blue gunky stuff was working its way down the tube. At about 3.30pm, they wheeled me out of recovery and onto the ward I had a bed on. I was in what they call a “nurse enhanced unit” - somewhere in between HDU and a normal ward I think. I slept a lot. I really mean a LOT. I remember asking the nurse to get my mobile phone out of my bag so that I could send a text message out to friends and family to let them know I was OK.
The main problem I had the first night wasn’t the pain (I was on IV paracetamol), it was the fricking air mattress I was on. It was the only mattress on the bed and it kept deflating and alarming. At one point, I spent so long lying pretty much on the metal of the bed that my arse hurt like hell and my spine was compressed at one point making my right hand go numb!! The nurses had to roll me onto my right hand side to make sure that my arse wasn’t hurting because of a pressure sore and when they rolled me I thought I was going to hurl. The only upside to thinking you’re going to puke when you’re not allowed fluids? Your mouth floods with saliva. Bliss. They rolled me back onto my back and said my bum was a bit pink and they were sorry that they hadn’t realised I was lying on the metal frame of the bed. They did some maneuvering and managed to get me out of bed and into the chair and immediately put a standard issue hospital mattress on to the bed. It wasn’t much better than the non-air-non-mattress, but at least it didn’t hurt my bum! The nurses told me that they had sent a formal complaint into the contractor who supplies the mattresses so at least someone would get a telling off for me being so uncomfortable and nearly getting pressure sores on my first night.
Wednesday 30th April 2008
I was in a bit of pain that morning, so they gave me a tramadol. I didn’t have the energy or heart to tell them that tramadol does absolutely bugger all for me. Not a flicker of pain relief, so back on the IV paracetamol. I had barely slept all night and had ended up clock watching and sleeping in little 20 minute bursts. I remember the student nurse helping me have wash while I was in bed. I also remember my surgeon checking on me at one point and me asking when I could get rid of the stupid nasal-stomach tube and he said it could come out that day - the student nurse did that one, it was weird, but not painful. I also got moved into the regular ward one room down. I *think* I walked there, but I honestly can’t remember!!
I got sitting in a chair on the normal ward while they sorted out my bed and put a new air-mattress on it that would hopefully work. I was due to go and have my barium swallow at 4pm and, me being me, I was determined to stay in the chair until then. However, I had to relent at lunch time as I was so tired. Into the bed I went and the air mattress was SO comfortable. THAT was how I should have felt on the first night! I slept on and off until the porters came to take me down to the X-ray department in a wheel chair. The trip to X-ray was weird as I was clinging on to my catheter bag under a blanket, I was still attached to a drain and I still had my oxygen on (my sats kept dropping to the low 90’s so they wouldn’t let me off the oxygen). People kept looking at me like I was some kind of freak show. The barium swallow wasn’t painful at all, just tasted disgusting (aniseed, yuk) and I was scared I would drink too much! Luckily the consultant told me there and then that there were no leaks, which was a great relief. I then had to endure the return trip through the hospital getting gawked at while struggling to breathe properly - the 3ft walk from the wheel chair to X-ray machine was too much exertion for my body to take it seems.
I slept much better that night due to the new mattress, but it doesn’t help that the nurses come and do your blood pressure and obs every 2 hours 
Thursday 1st May 2008
Bizarrely, this is where my memory gets a bit fuzzy. The days started to merge into one. I remember the doctors doing a ward round and me being told that I could stop the IV fluids now I was drinking sips of water; that I could start on pureed food; and that I could get my drain out. The only thing I was worried about before the operation was the drain. I was convinced it was going to hurt like hell to get removed and that I’d be in pain and I don’t like pain. When they did take it out, it was nowhere near as bad as I had imagined. It didn’t hurt, it was just a bit uncomfortable and weird - just like having the nasal-stomach drain removed. To think that at one point, I had thought that I might not be able to go through with the operation because of that bloody drain! It was also mentioned that I’d be getting discharged on Friday - woo hoo!
My first pureed meal consisted of a scoop of mashed potato, a tablespoon of mystery-meaty-mush and a tablespoon of pureed carrot. It was lovely, but I could only finish the mystery-meaty-mush and the pureed carrot with the tinest bit of potato. I was totally paranoid that if I ate any more I’d do myself an injury. There wasn’t a pureed meal ordered for me for that evening, so they just gave me some mashed potato with some gravy and a tub of ICE-CREAM. Yes, folks, that’s right: Ice Cream. WTF? By this time, I was starting to think that the nurses were trying to do me in. They kept offering me sugar in my tea. They’re giving me full-fat ice-cream. Surely the fact that I’m morbidly obese might have tipped them off that I was the gastric bypass patient they had on the ward? Nosiree, they kept offering me sugar instead. Us fat girls like our sugar, see. I’m a good gastric bypass patient though, and kept refusing the sugar and didn’t eat that bloody ice cream!
Friday 2nd May 2008
Still no pureed food ordered for me so I ended up having some porridge. I kept having to filter the oats out with my tongue a bit so I wasn’t swallowing too much solids. Yet again, they asked me whether I’d fancy a touch of sugar in it…. sometimes I wished the nurses would just switch on their brains from time to time. It was like an episode of Coronation Street half the time listening to them all gossip on the ward. The doctors came round at 8am and told me that they were discharging me that day, but that I’d have to wait for my pills to arrive from the pharmacy. And so I packed up super-quick (thinking they might need the bed and that I’d be dumped in a discharge lounge), got dressed and waited. And waited. And had some lunch. And waited. And waited. And then about 5pm, by some miracle of science and hospital portering, my pills arrived on the ward. Then I had to wait for a sick note for work. I kid you not, I waited NINE HOURS for some pills and a sick note before I left the hospital. That seems like one great big kink in the NHS system to me.
Pills I have to take for the rest of my life:
1. 30mg Lansoprasole. It’s a proton pump inhibitor that reduces the amount of acid produced by the stomach. Strawberry flavoured and melt in the mouth. Not as bad tasting as you’d imagine with a dissolvable tablet. Only once a day.
2. Daily multivitamin (NHS cocktail). Was surprised to see this as I had assumed that I would be buying Sanatogen for the rest of my life. Only once a day.
3. Calcichew. Contains a LOT of calcium in the right format for gastric bypass patients to absorb (can’t remember which one that is right now). Orange flavoured and like the Lansoprasole it doesn’t taste as bad as you’d think. Have to take it three times a day.
4. Iron syrup (sugar free, of course). Is red and doesn’t taste too bad. Have to take it three times a day too.
Mmm, yummy.
Implement of torture. Apparently they’re going to use it to remove my staples…
So, that’s the end of a very long, very rambling post about my time in hospital. I’ve been home for three days now and it’s going well. I’m sure i’ll blog more on that later. I’m exausted from all this typing!!
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