After ten days in hospital, I was home, at last. And what a difference it makes.
To start with, home is much quieter. As I said in one of my previous posts, I didn’t realise just how noisy hospitals are, I think the staff become quite blasé about their speech levels, they also don’t seem to worry about banging cupboard doors and trays around. And then there are the various bleeping machines measuring life signs, pumping fluids and inflating air beds.
On the subject of machines pumping fluids i.e. saline drips etc. The nursing staff seem to be immune to the sounds of the various alarms emitted by those machines. For example, I was hooked up to a saline drip and my pump started beeping. Nobody came but, luckily, I was able to see the small display screen which was indicating air bubbles in the line. I’ve seen enough crime dramas to know that air injected into your veins doesn’t end well. So I had to press my help button and a nurse duly arrived to redo the connections.
Anyway, being home means I don’t have to contend with the noise anymore. Another positive for being home is being in your own bed. My first night home I got seven hours sleep. Amazing, considering I don’t think I had a decent night’s sleep all the time I was in the hospital.
Sad to say I wasn’t able to match that in the days that followed, typically only getting three to four hours each night according to my smart watch. Having consulted “Dr Google” it seems that lack of sleep is not unusual after significant surgery. Thankfully, my sleep patterns have, slowly, returned to normal.
Another big difference between hospital and home is the attitude of the staff versus friends and family. In hospital the staff, whilst caring for you, encourage you to get up and about. The want you to walk the corridors, go and have a shower, and so forth. Movement helps with the healing process and also helps get the digestive processes going. Apparently it also helps dissipate the gasses in the abdomen. These are the gasses used to inflate the abdomen during the laparscopic surgery. Once home I found that, family in particular, were very protective of me. Every time I moved, someone was asking am I all right, do I need something, when all I am doing is adjusting my seating position as my bum has gone numb.
I did find that, as predicted, I was quite tired and dozed during the day. But that wore off over a few days and I was soon able to help with meal preparation, despite my wife intercepting me at every opportunity.
Of course I had to be careful about what I attempted to lift, push or pull. The standard “boiling a kettle” to make a cup of tea for two was a definite no-no. However, I am beginning to question the advice I was given. I think the advice about lifting and bending etc. is somewhat generic and based on old surgical practices. That is to say, based on abdominal surgery, which involves being cut from stem to stern with massive intrusion to the muscles. My surgery was robotic laparascopic, so I only had a few holes where the rods were inserted, so minimal intrusion to the abdominal muscles. Yes, there is a letter box cut below my belly button, where they extracted the tumour and colon after it was cut away. However, I felt no muscular tensions down there. Rather, all muscular sensation tended to be in the upper abdominal area.
The point I am making is that I did not feel any kinds of pain, soreness, or any other sensations around the wound site’s while I was moving around. Obviously, I didn’t want to do anything extreme but was I being too cautious!
I was also told that I shouldn’t drive for six weeks. Or, at least, until I was able to perform an emergency stop without any pain. Also I had to be able to make rapid turns of the steering wheel. What wasn’t clear was who decides that I am fit, and how do “they” decide?
With driving, there is always the question of insurance. I had read that you are supposed to inform your insurance company that you have had major abdominal surgery. However, my insurance company does not have that requirement, but recommend getting your doctor to write a letter stating that you are fit to drive.
Getting to see a doctor might be a bit of a challenge here in the UK at the moment. I am told I will have a meeting in surgical outpatients in five to six weeks. That would tally quite nicely, if it happens.
I did phone the colorectal team and was informed that the decision, of when to drive, was down to me. I was also advised to practice braking in my car whilst stationary on the drive. If I experienced any pain, that would be a good indicator that it was too soon.
Another positive aspect to being home was having proper meals, with more solid foods on the menu. During my time in hospital I transitioned from clear fluids, free fluids, nil by mouth, clear fluids, free fluids and finally on to low fibre meals. On discharge I was expecting to be given some dietary advice, but that didn’t happen. So left to my own devices I have pretty much reverted to my previous foods. I have had jacket potatoes and ate the crispy skins, had roast chicken pieces and ate the skins. Also my daughter cooked us a chicken curry, medium heat. Oh what a joy as these were all things I had to avoid, from the day my tumour was diagnosed, up to the day of the surgery.
A few days after discharge I received a call from the colorectal team. The purpose of which was to inform me of the histology findings.
Firstly, the tumour removed was confirmed to be a carcinoma “something or other”. She did say, but I promptly forgot the name. Anyway, they took the tumour with good margins which were found to be clear of cancerous cells. So good news.
Secondly, they took out sixty five lymph nodes, of which two were found to have cancerous cells. Again, good news, but followed up with a precautionary offer of a consult with an oncologist. Heavy emphasis on the “precautionary” statement.
So it is likely I will have some chemo. What form that will take I have yet to discover.
In the future, after five to six weeks I should have a Surgical Outpatients appointment. Six months down the road I should have a virtual (telephone) consult to see how I am fairing. At the twelve month point I will probably be invited in for a colonoscopy. It is also anticipated that I will have an annual CT scan for the next five years.
So watch this space, for future developments.
WrAnTz 