DAY 1Wednesday 12th
I am in CCU gradually waking up through the night. Such is my expertise I recognise the unit having been the first patient in this new state of the art unit, some 4 years ago. At some point I have been given my phone and have since learnt I sent a few gobbledy gook texts through the night. Goodness knows how. I do recall trying to read a message from D, just could not get my eyes to stay still long enough to read, what a later saw was ‘night’. In a deja vue moment I sense major preparations around me. The 6 a.m. bath. Goodness how on earth the wonderful nurses do this I do not know. Dignity, empathy, are adjectives that spring to mind, as they circumvent the many lines, remove the bright orange surgery paint, change sheets, gown and even remember that essential, toothbrushing normality begins to beckon until at their suggestion the press of the psa brings oblivion once more. Surfacing at some point my legs feel like they’ve been attacked by 100 mosquitos itching and itching. Nurse B hurried to my side. No problem that the morphine itch. We will soon sort that. In seconds the magic potion is added to one of the lines and all calms down. The day floats on. Its great. No one else in CCU. Nurses there just for me. D pops in. Surgeon 1 pops in…he explains the operation, all I can remember of that is the words tricky and oozing. With no idea what that means I float off once more. This bed, I am sure I wrote about in 2011. Its a sort of air bed which mattress moves pocket by pocket keeping a massage effect constantly, legs encompassed in massaging boots which similarly keep squeezing the legs all the time on off on off. Brain cells begin to reattach and I realise D has returned with some of the children. Their worried looking faces peering at all the jiggery pockery…I summon some inner humour and talk about swimming in wet suits through the fug of morphine I hear them giggle and start a new story. Remembering not to hit the psa so that I can stay sort of with it…we laugh and chatter…at least I think we do….not forgetting that once more those magical paper knickers have disappeared once more. It really is extraordinary.

The food situation: Nil by mouth 2 cm water sipped over the day. More than that causes throwing up. As I soon found out.
Physio: Hold pillow over scar and cough. Just do it. Forget the pain. eek.
Surgeon 1, S1, visited. Cannot remember anything but tricky op and ooze…but not more than that at all.