The Day of My Surgery...

I'm planning on doing a blog of my entire surgery and recovery process, partly for posterity and partly because I hope it may help others make the choice of whether to go for the surgery option or not.
I'm gonna have to do it in parts because I am not allowed to sit for more than 10 minutes at a time and at the moment it's too painful to sit so the only way I can type on the laptop is to lie on my back and have it on my knees, and I can only stay in that position for a certain amount of time.

So, the day of my Surgery....
I was admitted to The Clementine Churchill Hospital at 7am on the Thursday, and was shown to my room. It was really nice and had a wonderful view of two 800 year old oak trees and there were foxes and birds etc, and at night there was an owl. It was really nice. The room had the bed and the medical stuff behind it, then 2 chairs and a foot stool, and a flat screen TV, a bedside table, a hospital bed table and a vanity and wardrobe, then the en-suite bathroom.

I was admitted and the forms all filled and 100 questions asked 100 times, then I was asked to change into the hospital gown and I got into bed and relaxed for hours and hours waiting for the operation. The nurse put the ID band around my wrist and then another one saying I was allergic to mayonnaise! LOL!

I waited from 7am until around 2pm for my surgery. But in between that time my anaesthetist came to see me, my surgeon came to see me and nurses popped in and out. I had a nap, fiddled on the ipad and Carl was on my laptop using the hospital wifi. It was ok, it was probably best that I was able to relax to be honest!

They came to get me and walked me down to theater, where I was put onto a theater bed and this nice theater nurse spoke to me, she was talking about tattoos and she was really nice. I had to put my hair into a hat thing and I had already taken my ring off and my belly button bar out. They wheeled me into Theater 3 Anesthesia room, where a male nurse took my gown off to attach me to several machines before putting it back on and then the anesthetist came in and inserted my cannula. He put a small syringe of clear liquid into it and after about 10 seconds I had the nice pre-op floaty drunk feeling. I was enjoying that while he sorted the rest of it out, they put a clip on my finger and a ribbon under my neck. The nurse put an oxygen mask over my mouth and as the anesthetist put a bigger syringe of cloudy liquid into my cannula, he told me to take a few deep breaths, after maybe 15 seconds I can't remember anything else.......

I woke up in recovery, with an oxygen mask over my face in alot of pain feeling sick. I don't remember much but I know I felt sick. I was in and out of consciousness so I only have snapshots of what happened. Apparently they put some anti-sickness into the cannula. It must have worked because I didn't feel sick after that. A male nurse or doctor, I dunno which, came over and I asked him if it was supposed to hurt this much, it felt like they hadn't given me any pain meds at all, and it felt like my back had been sliced open...oh wait..it had! He then injected a small clear syringe into my hand. I must have passed out again, but when I woke up he was asking me how it was and I had to admit that whatever he had given me had done nothing, I was still in alot of pain. Two more syringes later and I was finally feeling ok, the main reason was that I had asked him and that nice nurse from before who was back, if I could turn over, I remember asking "Do I have to be on my back?" I just knew it would help to be on my back. They turned me over and I felt way better. I was still in and out but I remember my nurse from my ward that my room was on turned up and they connected me to portable oxygen and stuff and wheeled me up to my room. I remember pieces of the journey, but I was not spaced out, I was totally fine in terms of my mind etc.

They pushed my bed into my room and I said to the nurse "I thought this was my bed I was on, I was really worried that you guys were gonna make me move to another bed" and she was like "of course not! We would never do that!" I was just remembering from my epidural that they did that to me then. I guess spinal surgery is a bit more serious!

Mum, Dad and Carl were all there when I got into the room, it was about 5pm, and after disconnecting me from the oxygen and testing various things, they left us for a while to talk etc. I felt ok at this point, the nurse pointed out that in recovery I had 2 syringes of morphine and 1 syringe of pethadin! So I guess that was why!! :)
We chatted and the nurses were in and out doing constant tests, checking the wounds dressing and doing my blood pressure and stuff. They made me start trying liquids, in sips, about 30 mins after I came back up to my room. I must have been quite a while in recovery, I mean firstly I was intubated so they had to take me off the ventilator and take the breathing tubes out of my throat, and then monitor me etc for ages, I don't remember that, thank God, as those tubes down my throat was probably my worst worry about the whole thing! Haha!

About an hour after, my dinner arrived and I was a bit sceptical, I think it was too soon...which it turned out it was haha. I ate half a sandwhich and half a bowl of soup, and some water.
Mum and Dad left about an hour after my dinner, as I had started to feel sick and Carl had got the nurse to come in. She was injecting some more anti-sickness into my cannula, of which I now noticed I had two! (I'll go into that later!) and they didn't wanna crowd me, I said they weren't but it turned out to be a good thing as about 10 minutes after they left, I had to ask Carl to grab those thick cardboard bowls and I was sick. To be fair, I was on so many drugs I wasn't overly suprised. I was more worried that it would hurt my back but it was ok. I had already had one drip, but they came and put me on a second drip. I sipped some water, and then went to sleep, Carl went home, as much as he didn't want to, and I tried to get some sleep.

A nurse came in and started to take the drip out, so she could replace the empty bag with a 3rd full one, but she forgot to plug the cannula, and blood went everywhere, all over my bed, my hands etc! She was really apologetic but I didn't mind. She then gave me some more anti-sickness and I remember looking at her and I could literally see two of her. I looked around and there was literally two of everything, and no matter how I tried, I could see two of everything...it was really weird!

I was boiling hot and shaking and the nurses came in, two or three of them this time, and they were obviously a bit worried. They got me a fan, checked my temperature and started me on antibiotics straight into my cannula. I assume maybe they thought I was showing signs of infection and they wanted to be on the safe side. Luckily though, after I had the fan and a nap, I cooled down and stopped the shaking, they still carried on thr anti-biotics until I left, but I had no infections.

After Carl went, I tried to sleep but the pain and sickness kept me up pretty much all night, I lay and every hour looked at the clock, drifting in and out of sleep, but never sleeping properly. I was drugged up on so many drugs:

Morphine x2
Pethadin x1
Tramadol x2
Cyclazine x4 syringes
Paracetamol x1 Drip Bag full
Nurofen x2 tablets
Anti-biotics x2 syringes
Not to mention all the anaesthetics in my system from the operation!

During all this downtime and non-sleeping night time depair, I had time to look around and take everything in,
I noticed that I had one normal cannula. And one massive one going into the side of my wrist on the same hand, which had two ends and a tap in the middle with a long tube taped to my hand. Weird, it was strange..that was the one my drips went into and the normal one on the top of my hand was where the anti sickness or antibiotics etc were injected into.

At about 10pm my surgeon came in, obviously on his way home as he had his bag and coat, and asked me how I was. I said that I was okay, a bit sick etc but my back was feeling not too bad, and more importantly my leg had improved massively, and I could not feel any pain, except when stretching. He was really thrilled, and rubbed my lower leg and said he was so happy and that it had gone well.
He said he removed a really big portion of disc and that the herniation was massive. He said it was not the worst he had seen but it was getting there. He said that my leg was still going to hurt sometimes as the nerves have been bruised for so long, and also they have to pin them back to do the surgery and they end up getting poked around etc, so I shouldn't be so worried about that, and it should be gone by 6 weeks time.

Once he left I asked the nurse if my lights went any dimmer, and she turned them all off, I figured that might help me sleep but it didn't. I texted Carl goodnight but then I put my phone away and just lay there, I gripped the bed rails with the hand with all the cannulas in, because I was worried I would knock it. I just lay there, and lay there, and lay there.....

I didn't even have the energy to check my phone when it buzzed, or to watch TV. I just lay there. Listening to the sound of the owl in the tree right outside my window. If I wanted to change postitions, I had to do it the way the physio had taught me, and I could only lie on my back, or on either side but with my knees tucked up so my hips and shoulders were in line. I could only move all at once, and that is still the case. I have to be really careful, as it's a big part of the spinal recovery and care!

That night was a long one........