diffrentcolours | I Ate'nt Dead

Today has been a bit of a weird day. Me and cosmolinguist got up at 6am, were out of the house for 6:45am and at the hospital by 7am. The Elective Surgery Unit wasn't "properly" open, so we got let into the reception area and just wandered around until we found some people who told us where to go sit down. By 8am I was on the ward, I'd been briefed on what was happening, and E knew when to come back and collect me. He went and caught the bus home and had a nap, having done the most important job of getting me to the hospital on time. I was visited by the anaesthetist and the surgeon, both of whom were confident in the procedure.

The apprehension of mortality which had ruined my Friday Yoga had pretty much dissolved by this point and I was determined to just get through it. I was second in the queue of six patients, so I got changed straight away into incredibly snug paper pants, and two surgical gowns - one worn with the flap at the back like usual, and a second opening at the front like a dressing gown over the top to protect my modesty as I walked to the operating theatre, literally at the end of the ward. With 6 patients in a ward designed for 24, CO2 levels were low so I didn't have to mask. I dozed for about an hour and a half, using my rucksack and hoodie as a makeshift pillow. By this point, around 9:30am, I was feeling OK, just exhausted. I think I was too tired to be worried.

I had to sit around outside the theatre for a bit, and get fitted with a cannula by an anaesthetist who was rather brusque. Fortunately such things bother me less than others, and he might have been kinder if I'd made more of a fuss beforehand. The nurse weighed me and said I don't look as heavy as I am, and I bit my tongue rather than go on a rant about the BMI bullshit which has denied me this surgery for years. I got asked what I did so I started talking about apprenticeships and how they're useful for people for whom academic paths don't work out - and how many people with dyslexia or other support needs we find once they've been pushed out of traditional schools, because testing for functional skills is mandatory in an apprenticeship. Turns out I'm still pretty passionate about that, even though it's far removed from what my job actually entails.

I went into the theatre, got settled on the table, started breathing in gas while they injected the general anaesthetic... and woke up in recovery, at about 11:30. I was wheeled back to the ward where they needed to take several sets of observations (blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature) over the course of about 2 hours, and I needed to pee before they'd let me go. Having been nil-by-mouth since midnight, I guzzled as much water as I could get my hands on - the anaesthetic also makes your mouth dry, as does the breathing tube they use during the operation.

I started letting people know I was OK via Signal, and E planned to come pick me up and escort me home about 2pm. I lifted up my gown to inspect the site - they'd shaved my dark belly hair around the navel, looking a bit like a monk's tonsure, pasty skin revealed. There was just a 12cm long scar, slightly curved "like a smile" as the surgeon had said, immediately below the navel, and held together with surgical glue rather than stitches. They had applied local anaesthetic before taking me off the general, which meant it was still painless, but not without discomfort - something definitely felt wrong down there.

One of the ward nurses brought me tea and toast which was gratefully received and scoffed. I dozed for a bit, but the guy in the bed next to me, who'd had his inguinal hernia surgery (a complication from a hip replacement) before me, was waiting for his wife and bored and chatty. So I talked with him quite a lot, he's in his late 70s / early 80s, retired from doing computer stuff back in the 1970s. We talked about the changing face of technology over the decades, such as how a modern $1 embedded system can emulate an original Mac Classic. He had military tech experience so I talked about some of my programming jobs in the 90s on classified projects, and also about ISO26262 and MISRA, both standards in functional safety which came about from real-world errors such as the fighter plane which flips upside down if it crosses the equator on autopilot. We talked about dogs and horses (he keeps some where he lives in Altrincham). Lovely conversation but utterly knackering when I was a couple of hours behind him on the recovery from anaesthetic.

Just after his wife arrived to collect him, E arrived to collect me. He helped me get changed out of my tiny paper pants and gown, into the clothes I'd arrived in. By that time I'd had my last set of obs and the water had worked its way through my system so I had a successful wee. So the nurse brought over discharge paperwork, went through some of the details with me: no shower or bath today, no baths for a couple of weeks, no driving for at least 48 hours and until I can safely do an emergency stop without pain; no lifting more than 5-8kg for 4-6 weeks. Then we headed out and grabbed a taxi, getting home around 3:30pm, about 9 hours out of the house.

I've spent the afternoon chilling out on the sofa, drinking 2 litres of apple squash and just starting to feel rehydrated. I was too tired to play games or watch much of anything, until I had a little nap while E was out walking the neighbour's dog. E let me sit at his end of the sofa so I could stretch my legs out, and V lent me their weighted capybara plushy which was comforting. This evening we watched Team GB vs USA in the World Baseball Classic, which was an interesting game for the first 4 innings until the Americans woke up and walked all over the Brits. I'm still feeling tired and woozy - clearly too tired to write a concise DW entry, so well done if you've persevered this far. I'm glad the surgery is over; I hope the recovery is mild because I've got a lot of work to get done by the end of next week! I'm not looking forward to going weeks without any gym though...