Straight after coming round from surgery I braved a trip to the loo on my crutches. It was terrifying. The combination of dizzyness post GA and total lack of crutch experience made me very slow and unsteady. A very humbling experience for me. I'm very active and physically fit, so take movement and dexterity for-granted. Now I feel like a total invalid - everything is an effort.
In addition, the pain is fierce. About 4 hours post-op the local anaesthetic injected while I was under General anaesthetic wore off.
Morphine is a great drug, but the accompanying nausea and dizziness are awful. I spent one night in hospital, completely off my face on morphine and temazepan, alternating between throwing up and sleeping.
Note my intact pedicure! A girl friend who is an anaesthetist informed that there's absolutely no need to remove nail polish before GA - there are plenty of ways to ensure a patient is oxygenated.
The following day I came home, and am now settled into my 'home' for the next few weeks: the study downstairs. Our house has terrifyingly steep stairs, so there's no way I'm attempting those on crutches. Our bathroom is, luckily for me, downstairs, so easily accessible on my crutches.
The children and J are being amazing - fetching me stuff and attending to my needs. Not sure how long the novelty of having an almost bed-ridden mother will last.
I seem to have sorted out my morphine dosage so that I'm taking enough to dull the pain, but not enough to make throw up.
The other very glam thing I have to do every day is inject myself in the stomach with Clexane.
This is a drug to prevent blood-clotting in people post-operatively. It's a good job I don't mind needles.....
Only 4 more sleeps until I return to hospital to have this cast removed. If all goes well, I'll have a boot instead, which will make showering a lot less of a faff.
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