carved up at last

Actually it's a bit unfair to say carved up as the surgeon did a fantastic job and I imagine in a years time you'll barely be able to see I had an operation - even though the scar is about 20 cms long (had to go off to find a tape measure and piece of string there.) I had my op on the 16th March, with my nice consultant and an audience of hundreds - it felt like anyway, given the number of students who came on the ward round beforehand. One of the nurses said they liked having max facs patients on the ward as the doctors were good looking. Glad I helped make someone happy.

The op lasted 4 hours - it's a weird sensation to go up to theatre in broad sunshine - not that you could really see it through the grime of the hospital windows - and come back down as it's getting dark. The op was fine, I was relieved when the surgeon came out and told me the muscle in my neck was still there and he didn't think he'd damaged my voice or calcium producing parathyroids. But I woke up with drains coming out of either side of my neck, an oxygen mask on, a catheter in and a drip going into the back of my hand. I was pinned down on my back by the tubes and didn't dare move in case anything came loose.

Bang went any idea of a nice cup of tea when I came round. In fact, bang went any idea of sleep for the night. Hospital wards are noisy places and you get very closely monitored all night - not helped by the panic that set in every time they found my temperature raised, pushing my heartbeat up. I was terrified of catching something whilst I was in there and not being able to come out for days. No idle worry as it turned out - two weeks after I was in there 8 wards in the hospital had to be closed because of infection. Yikes! I got off lightly...... I won't go into details as its not very interesting, but the nursing care was excellent, the other patients were nice and we were all very supportive of each other. Good to get out though - I had the op on a friday, they let me go on the Monday.

My tips for quick recovery from an op - if you get a chance to prepare beforehand - take arnica for 10 days or so before and a few days after, take mega amounts of Vit C and don't take refuge in alcohol as a coping mechanism - just in case you were thinking of it. I'm healing up well, despite a uncomfortable feeling in the muscles in my neck still. I could drive and cycle fairly soon after, but the feeling still hasn't come back to the skin in my neck, which is a shame as I liked that bit. It may do, it may not.