ITU

The first day after my ventilator had been removed was extremely bad. Despite being full of drugs, everything hurts. Now what no-one ever told me was that there is a positive and negative side to pain relief medication. The positive...well that’s obvious! Less pain, hurrah! The negative? Nausea. When you take anything stronger than Ibuprofen your head just starts to spin and everything makes you sick. In ITU I was given a nurse whose job it was just to look after me and no-one else. The first thing she tried to do was to get me to sit up. It took such a long time because it feels the weight of the world is pressing down against your shoulders to keep you in bed. Eventually with some help I managed to move into a chair. Bad move because that was where the nausea kicked in.

I started to throw up on the nurse and a physiotherapist who was younger than me (keep in mind I’m 22!). What makes it worse is that when you feel nauseas, everything makes you sick. Even the bowl they gave me to throw up in smelt bad and made me throw up more. This was the point I hit the floor and started to cry. Something I didn’t think I would actually do, but I was naive to think I could go through such a major surgery without getting upset. I told the nurse I wanted to go home and she did her best to comfort me. Luckily my family weren’t around to see that. Eventually I managed to apologise to the nurse and physiotherapist for throwing up on them and they helped me back in bed.

Later that day people came to visit and I think it was good for them to see me able to speak. My recovery seemed to be going well because at the end of the day they moved me to the High Dependency Unit, which is a step down from ITU. Basically there is one nurse per every two patients. Things seemed to float along here and I don’t remember too much about this. I was then moved to the second floor later that night, and told that the higher up the building you go, the more progress you’re making!

The operation will take a lot out of you and you really lose your appetite. I struggled to eat anything. I think I managed one bite of a sandwich before throwing up. The problem is that you’re weak, but you don’t want to eat which will make you even weaker. Eventually in the middle of the night they moved me to floor 3, the ward I initially came to the night before my surgery...

Patch Adams and ....Swine Flu

A week and a half away from surgery and the updates I can make regarding the wait is a little thin at the moment. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about something related, but also different: Robin Williams. How is this related? Well I'll come to that in a second but can I just say that he is the funniest man alive! He's a brilliant actor (c'mon, don't tell me you weren't moved by that film Jack!) but the best of him is his interviews and stand up. He's so full of life and energetic. Well a few weeks back I found out that he also has Aortic Stenosis. For those of you aren't patients of this heart disease I'll quickly remind you that it's the narrowing of the aorta and if left untreated it will close up completely. He had his surgery a few weeks back and is apparantly making a good recovery.

I think for some reason it's reassuring to know that someone you admire has gone through what you are about to and made it out okay. No I'm not one of those crazy fans (I realise this post might make me sound like one). I'm sure thousands of people are in my situation at the moment and 95% of them will make it out of surgery, but as I said it feels different when it's someone you're a fan of. Given his age, and the amount of energy he has (the guy literally bounces off walls) it's that cliched thought of - if he can go through it and recover, then so can I.

On a different note...what a time to go into hospital! I heard that there are around 800 suspected cases of Swine Flu in America at the moment. God knows how many there are in England at the moment. Knowing that you're going to have your chest cut open, the sewn up again and be susceptible to infection has made me very cautious. I'm literally ducking out of the way every time someone sneezes. Knowing my luck I will catch the damn thing then infect everyone in intensive care unit at the hospital.

Or is that all a myth and you only catch it if you have sex with a pig?

I joke of course.

No really, stay away from the farmers.