Hey guys, it’s been a bit longer than I intended it be between these parts. I do apologise, but also life happens and in this case, it REALLY happened. I wrote the last post from my hospital bed in McKissock Ward, St. Georges with a leaky wound…
This time, I write from my bedroom, sat at my desk in the bay window, looking out on the A24 and listening to music from my speaker. I have been at home for a week now, and it is looking promising, although still not simple. But why?
I’ll tell you why!
ps. this is also gonna be a longish, slightly gory one, I hope you’re ready for it.
First day home
After a VERY long 90 minute drive home, Dad finally pulled the car into the driveway. Exhaustion and pain got the better of me, I went straight to bed. At this point, I had no adjustments, but Mum had a pillow that wraps around you to neutralise the spine, so I sat in that.
I got relatively comfortable, and just watched TV for a couple hours. It was that point where I realised something crucial… I couldn’t roll. The hospital bed had a handrail that I could grab onto to pull myself over. How could I do that on my bed? Simple… I couldn’t.
Bless my Dad, he drove straight to Argos (the far away one) to pick up a bed rail, shower stool, and shower mat to help me over the coming weeks. When he got home, my brother, Charlie, put it together and shoved it under my mattress so I could get up to shower.
I couldn’t really move, but somehow, I managed it.
Showering for the first time
The shower was wonderful, a little bit of trial and error with mums help, but still. It was the first proper wash I had since the morning of the surgery a week ago. Still, a month later, I have to seriously space out my showers (gross I know). It really is something I took for granted, being able to hop in the shower like its nothing. Now it has steps to it:
- make sure the dressing is intact
- put a waterproof dressing over the top
- make sure it covers the whole thing
- get in the shower
- wash without over flexing or extending my back
- make sure I can sit down if I need to
- make sure I don’t slip
- get out and make sure I dry without flexing or extending my back
- get dressed while still damp because who can properly dry themselves without bending down
But that has been since coming home from hospital the second time. Mum helped me that day, she washed my hair, my back, and helped dry me because there was no way I could do it alone.
Later that evening
I can’t quite remember how long I was there for, but I sat in the lounge after the shower. Dad got me comfortable in the arm chair, with the footstool out and pillows helping to hold me up. I could barely put any pressure on the wound at this point, but family time was super important at that point.
Getting off of the chair was difficult, it is quite deep, so I shuffled forwards, but had very little to help me up. Dad let me use his knee in the end. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than being pulled up.
I went back upstairs to my room, Mum looked at my dressing… it was leaking. NOT GOOD! That hadn’t happened before.
Now here is where it gets really dramatic!
The last HCA to change my dressing had stuck it over a stitch. The one that closed the drain site to be exact. That drain had caused me a lot of pain in hospital, so naturally, I was terrified. But it had to come off. Mum took most of the dressing off, but the closer she got to that bit, the more I panicked.
So, what did we do?
We called all of our nurse friends… all of whom were unavailable. Shit.
I was neck deep in a panic attack at this point. One of our friends said to call 111, so that’s what we did. After a lot of back and forth with them, we decided the best plan was A&E. So that’s where we went.
Worthing A&E
For a bit of context, my dad was a football coach for almost a decade. Everyone loved him. After my brother quit to pursue music, dad left too. One of the dads from the team was a doctor in charge in the ED, that will become relevant.
I was in a state, but I calmed down when we got to the A&E. Dad has this strange way of making me calm down (also angry way but whose dad doesn’t). We were prepared for hours of waiting, as everyone is when they go.
Again, my memory is foggy, but Dad went out to get something from the car. What was it? No idea, but when he came back, he quite literally bumped into the dad from the football team. He explained the situation and the doctor said “let me see what I can do.”
I kid you not, 5 minutes later, I get a call.
“This is A&E, come through to room 7 in the UTC and we will sort out your dressing.”
I was terrified, but now it was in the hands of a medical professional. He’d done it hundreds of times before, much better than my parents total of 0. A pair of tweezers and gentleness later, the dressing was off the stitch, a new dressing was on the wound and I was on my way home!
I guess it really is who you know!!!
Finally Bed Time
It was finally time to go to sleep. I got back into bed, watched TV but seriously couldn’t get comfortable. I messaged my best friend and literally said:
“I’m stuck in bed, I can’t move.”
I have no idea what was different this time to last time. Clearly something because even with the bed rail I couldn’t move. The pain was awful, plus it was time for my pain meds.
My bed is pretty soft, it had to be before because of my back. None of us thought that it would cause me an issue. HOWEVER, when you are surrounded by a massive pillow and have sunk into a memory foam bed…
You can imagine how much it hurt. Another panic attack, tears that I didn’t think I had left to cry and about 30 minutes later, I got up. Dad and Charlie brought the mattress from the spare room in and sorted it out. I can tell you know, a queen mattress on a double bed frame is an entertaining sight.
Finally sorted. I could sleep.
My birthday!
The next 5 days were pretty uneventful. My wound would saturate the dressing in less than 24 hours, and my skin was getting super irritated by the sheer amount of times we changed it. My pain was really bad so after a fight with the GP, they prescribed me liquid morphine. Why it was so hard I don’t know but oh well.
My first outing was to the arcade, because why not. 2p machines and lunch in town wouldn’t affect me that much right. I won 2 shoe keyrings and a whole bunch of tickets, I was not leaving until I won the shoes (hahaha)
We left the wound to air for a bit while I watched the Hungarian Grand Prix at the weekend. Shoutout to Lando for winning by the way, my favourite teams and drivers have a habit of winning near/on my birthday!!! I laid on the sofa, watching the race, and the weeping was literally dripping down my back… I have a photo to prove it (gore warning).
Mum took photos everyday, she was worried about an infection (rightly so), and wanted proof to show the doctors. It also meant we could compare day to day. It wasn’t getting any better. We went to the GP on my birthday, 3 days before the stitches were due out.
The duty nurse looked at it, looked at the pictures, and wasn’t worried. He cleaned it, and redressed it. It was extremely painful, that should have been my first hint really. It was also covered by a million dressings (could one not have done it?). Anyway, my best friend came round to see me in the afternoon and my godmother stayed for a Chinese takeaway in the evening, all in all a good birthday.
Last day of freedom(ish)
I slept for so long that night (until 11am the next day). Mum and I were supposed to be going out for lunch with our closest family friends, Wendy, Elsie and Greta. However, I woke up feeling really sick and had a massive headache. Being the stubborn woman I am, I went anyway.
We went to Haskins cafe, I had sausages and mash, but I was feeling so sick that I ate super slowly. It was still nice to be out though, listening to the horror stories from the music tour I was supposed to go on! My headache hadn’t gotten much better, but I hadn’t washed my hair in a while, so I put it down to that.
When we got home, Wendy helped with my dressing. It hadn’t saturated this time, or at least not that we could see, but my goodness it was itchy. She’s a nurse so she did it all properly. My physio also arrived for my first session at this point, so two medical professionals had a look. It did not look good.
So I had my physio session, there wasn’t much we could have done. Simple hip movement really (not that I’d end up able to do them). After that, straight to A&E. Wendy had called her contacts, Worthing was packed. 130 people in the ED. Not good, I needed to be seen quickly. I messaged my friend who works as a receptionist at Chichester UTC, she said there was 75 people… perfect.
Chichester A&E
Mum drove me there, the 30ish minutes made the difference. It took 30ish minutes to be triaged… she took my vitals and then went to UTC to see if I could be booked in. I remembered that I had lost bladder control, I kept peeing myself, that changed everything.
They took me straight through to ED, to be honest I was waiting a while. They did a bladder test while I was sat in the chair, but I’d been sat for 5 hours at this point. I made them find me a bed, I couldn’t sit anymore. So they did, and that is were today’s post will end.
This is just a quick PSA, if you’re post surgical dressing looks like the following photo, please go to A&E, don’t leave it. It will end up badly!
Thanks for reading, I hope the photos weren’t too gory. I am currently running a fundraiser walking challenge which you can see on my social media, if you can spare anything, even a pound, it is greatly appreciated!
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