If you recall, I was going in for a heart valve operation. I went on the 9th and they operated on the 10th. All went well! A very frightening yet fascinating experience all in all. You are admitted to the ward the day before and meet everyone involved (oddly not the surgeon, although I had met him before.) I slept quite well the night before after relaxing with my 'Look Around You DVD'!
Had a cup of tea, some soup and buscuits and no knowledge that the next time I'd eat/drink these items they would nearly make me sick! I am woken at 6 am (!!!), shower, and pre-med given. I lay on the bed, trying to take my mind off things by thinking of old TV shows and stuff, all the time thinking the pre-med isn't working as I thought it was supposed to send you to sleep. I'm told that it doesn't always but might make me feel woosy, which I wasn't either. The trolley arrives for me, and I'm still certain the pre-med has had no effect at all. I get up and collapse into the arms of the porter as if I'd had 18 pints. Wheeled down to the theatre, they say they are going to top up my pre med. That's the last thing I heard. Crafty sods. Bet it wasn't pre med at all.
This is 8am. I awake at nearly 5pm in Intensive Care, parents there telling me all was successful. The only complication, if you can call it that, is that the heart valve couldn't be repaired as originally planned. They had to replace it with a 'porcine' valve. Yep, there'll always be of a porker in me from now on... Tissue valves won't last forever I am told, though no-one has returned to get theirs replaced yet. Mechanical valves are the alternative, although these tend to make a 'clicking' noise. With a tissue valve I can come off Warfarin in 6 weeks which means I would theoretically no longer have to watch the booze, though I don't think I'm ready for a heaving drinking session just yet!I was in intensive care a relatively short time. I'm told most people aren't supposed to remember anything about it at all. There I am, having a TV wheeled towards the bed so I can watch 'About a Boy'. The person bringing me the set couldn't believe that it was for me. I'm not supposed to be *that* alert so soon following such surgery! As it happens I wasn't really as I did drift in and out of consciousness a great deal. The next morning, the drains come out! What fun! I can only describe it was feeling like a boa constrictor is being removed from your chest. Twice. The nurse even had the nerve to say that "the second drain feels 'nicer' than the first." Yes, I was having a whale of a time! I'm taken back up the ward, drips and other smaller drains still in til the morning (yes, one *up there*! - saves getting up to the toilet anyway, I may market a home version!) Weird thing is, I didn't feel too bad for the first few days. What I wasn't expecting came a few days later. Due to effects of the morphine, I start having very vivid dreams. One involved being accused of stealing money from a shop while they were cashing up for the day. My money was my own, I'd only laid it on the counter temporarily. Another, more weirder dream, involved myself visiting a cafe entirely run, staffed and populated by different eras of Rod Stewart.
'Maggie May' era Rod Stewart is enjoying a cup of tea at one of the tables. Rachel Hunter-era Rod Stewart is a waitress etc... WEIRD!!! I start to eat my first meals. But there is a problem. Due to being on the by-pass machine (remember the heart is actually stopped) your whole blood cell structure changes. I'm on iron tablets now because of it, but more worryingly, all your taste buds disappear. So everything tastes vile. And I mean vile. I must have lost half a stone. The taste still isn't back now. I'm eating simple things like cheese-on-toast, but I can't even drink tea right now, it just does not taste right. It should be resolved soon, I damn well hope so! I've been surviving on tinned fruit and mineral water for a week!Last Thursday was the weirdest sensation post-op so far. I awoke at 3 in the morning unsure not of where I was, I knew that, but what the year was. I was *convinced* it was 1999. Even looking at the paper I'd had the day before on the table next to me didn't convince me. OK, I decided, even if were are post 2000, we're not *THAT* far into the decade surely? Then I remembered 9/11. That still didn't convince me. The next day, I shower, go down for breakfast (what I could eat of it) with my mum, and then go back to the ward where I see the corridor wobble and I promptly collpase into the wall. All these things are said to be normal post op! Going back on a tablet I'd been off a while may have also contributed to it. I only went down for breakfast as the catering team can't cook toast for me as it's... wait for it.... "a fire hazard". Now that's weird, I had toast at York and Newcastle hospitals earlier this year. The alternatives were Weetabix, which I've never liked, or a plain cold bread roll.
Anyway, I was discharged yesterday, with far less tablets (or lower doses anyway) of what I was on. (I was on 6 Frusemide a day, now just 1!!! - No more excessive pissing!!) The scar itself is quite neat. Long, but tidy. Besides when my chest hair grows back you'll hardly see the thing!
Well, that's my news, glad it's out the way and looking forward to the future!
