I'm home!

Hi there!!

So I am home from the hospital, I got home last night about 7pm (so much for the pre-op nurse who told me I would stay for 4 nights - what a fool I looked with my giant hold-all).

So.... what happened?

Right, I got to the hospital at 7.30am and was seen straight away by the anesthetist who was lovely and had much better people skills than the one I saw last time I was there! Then I met my pre-op nurse who was called Victoria and was lovely, she was really friendly and funny. She did the pre-op questions (which are the same as the ones the anesthetist asks and the same ones I have already been asked 70000000 times elsewhere!) There were 2 other people having surgery with my surgeon and they were both having knee replacements which take 3 hours each. A random man named Ian came along and spoke to them both, I was sitting there waiting for Mr Bartlett, but apparently Ian is on his team so he came with the consent form. Asked questions (that I had, of course, already been asked) and marked my leg with a giant arrow! The woman who was next to me waiting was 92 years old and so with it! She was great, she told me to leave the doctor alone because he was her toyboy!! She was saying that she'd had her first operation when she was 79! She was amazing, born in 1915! Thats so crazy! Anyway the nurse got her ready and I didn't have my attractive robe on yet so I was asuming I was last, which meant loaaaaaaads of waiting. Suddenly Victoria popped her head round the curtain and said "Quick get ready get ready!!!!!!" I was like, "Oh really? ok!" So I put on my pretty robe, and my mum did it up for me, I looked HOT!!!! She took me and my mum round to the theatre and then I think she took my mum to the ward I was going to afterwards. I went into, well I guess the theatre waiting room, where I laid down on the trolley. It was so very cold in there and when the door to the theatre open it was like an icy ice block! The theatre nurse hooked me up to the monitors and then left me. I was left lying there for about half an hour listening to my heart rate on the monitor! HA! That was scary. The anesthetist came back and put my IV in, and then gave me my medicine and the last thing I said was "I like this bit!".

I woke up and was shivering so Jo the nurse made it very cosy with a hot air blanket. She was so fun! I don't remember it completely but I know I was in pain because she gave me Morphine. She gave it slowly and I remember asking for more because it was still hurting. But the pain did wear off and it was just an ache really. A strong ache but an ache nonetheless. There were other people waking up there but they all seemed quite drowsy. Jo kept on telling me to snooze to make the medicine work better but I didn't feel sleepy really. I was just loving the blanket that was keeping me warm, it was inflated with hot air, it was great!! I kept on asking Jo if I could take it with me. She was saying "they don't have these luxuries on the ward". Rubbish. I also remember her telling me she didn't do sports in case she ended up in hospital so while her friends do sports she looks after the plonk! Ha! Then, about an hour and a half after I woke up I was wheeled up to the ward. I was in a side room, so I didn't have to share (thank god!). The nurse came and did my observations, which they did every 15 minutes. I remember having a drip and drifting in and out of sleep. My leg was still aching.

My mum and dad arrived for visiting and suddenly the nurse started going on about me going to the toilet and how I must, but no one had asked me if I wanted to! They made me really upset for some reason and then she started fiddling with my DVT stocking which upset me even more because I'd put it on myself and no one had bothered to check it! Then she gave me antibiotics through my IV which really really hurt. A lot. Then she gave me paracetemol through my IV which worked so quickly and a codeine tablet and my leg stopped aching for a while. As you can see they kept on putting another bag of fluid up and my hand got really swollen and painful! :o(

When my parents had gone they started nagging me again about going to the toilet and brought the bed pan. Good grief, going to the toilet on a bed pan was the most interesting experience of my life! I'll say no more, but I wasn't allowed out of bed until the physio saw me the next day, and so yes, the bed pan was my friend. And I guess it was a better experience than the campsite toilets at Leeds Festival!!!

Ok, so the night was alright. The nurse on the nighttime shift was really lovely and apologised everytime she had to do something. She told me to to sleep but then she or someone else would come in to my room every hour or so to give me drugs or take my blood pressure. She came in and said "Aren't you sleeping?" I was thinking well I'm trying love but you keep on coming in!! She said my blood pressure, oxygen and temperature were all steady so once she'd given me drugs at 4 o'clock she would leave me until 8 to sleep. So someone came in at 6 to do obs! And then breakfast arrived at 7.15 then my doctor and his mate from the day before came at 7.30. They said it had gone really well and told me about the "cricket splint" that I had to wear and that I would be on crutches for 4 weeks, which I knew already. They also said I'm not allowed to jump for 6 months. How weird is that? I find it very odd. So yes, they came and so I didn't really get much sleep. A lovely nurse (I'm not sure if she was a nurse or like an assistant) came and she was really lovely, she had a chat with me. I was so bored in the room by myself. There was no Patientline thing which has TV and I tried to read and play on my DS but it kind of tired me out. So yeah, I just snoozed really. Oh and lay there listening to this woman who was in the room opposite - she was quite something. Had an opinion on EVERYTHING!!!! If I was allowed out of bed I think I would have gone and told her tp SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Grrrrrr!

Anyway, the morning continued the same, just sitting and waiting, then Andy the physio brought me my cricket splint... It was cool coz I knew him from my Physio classes at Northwick Park when I first hurt my knee and he remembered me which was nice, I said I really wanted to get out of bed so he said he would come back and see me soon. About half an hour later Lucy a student physio came and put the brace on for me, we were joking about how I will make everyone jealous with my sexy knee brace. It really is HUGE, it goes from the top of my thigh to my ankle and is very thick. Then she went away without giving me crutches so I was stiiiiiiiiiiiiill stuck in bed. FINALLY Andy and Lucy came back with my crutches and I got out of bed, walked to the door of my bed, said it hurt, which it really did and then they said I had to go back to bed. Wow, the excitement!

The sister "Sister Edwards" she was very serious, came and took some blood and I asked if I was allowed to go the toilet by myself, she said yes and it was like the best news I had ever heard. So I got up and went to the toilet all by myself! HOORAH!!! Then I had some more medicine and some lunch and did some more waiting. Then Andy and Lucy came back and we went to practise stairs! Woo! I thought it'd be really hard but actually it was simple! Then Andy went away to get me my appointment for physio and guess what... I did some more waiting!!

I was only waiting for my medicine from the pharmacy but Sister Edwards said that everytime she took my sheet to the nurses station someone brought it back into my room. I asked if I was allowed to get dressed and they said yes so I got up, did my hair (well sort of) and then got dressed. I was still waiting. Then at about 5.15 Nenneh my nurse came and did my discharge questions and the student nurse went to collect my medicine! Yey! Do you know what I had been waiting for... paracetamol! Great! And some codeine - which is nice and strong! Then Nenneh asked if I minded waiting in the day room, and suddenly I was there and there were 2 more people being brought up to go in my room and one other!! Talk about last minute.

So yes, that was it really my dad came to pick me up and I was out! I put on shorts coz I think I would have looked ridiculous trying to put trousers over the splint, everyone was telling me I was going to be freezing. I got outside, I wasn't cold, it was quite nice to feel fresh air. I had to keep my stocking thing on, and I have to keep it on for 2 weeks! How sexy! Giant brace on one side, stocking on the other.

Yeah, so basically I got home, Laura came over (YEY) and brought me magazines and chocolate, and in one of the magazines was a lovely article on being addicted to codeine! Great!!! Lol! So yes. I have to set my alarm for every 4 hours to take my painkillers. The nurses told me to take them and not to wait until I'm in pain. But actually I do feel like I should be taking them, I can always feel my leg, I think its the stitches I can feel more than anything inside. I have to keep my foot moving and every couple of hours I have to try bending my leg and straightening it. Both are quite hard but Andy said he thinks in 2 weeks time when I have my first physio I should be able to straighten my leg and bend it to 90 degrees! Hmmmm - we shall see!