Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Bed pans and hunger pangs

Hmm.... basing on the traffic, guess quite a number of you are interested in my little experience. Sorry, couldn't post last night much as I would have like to. I'm still not totally 'normal' as I do tend to feel waeker and more tired than usual. ^^

Anyway, back to my experience.

After I don't know how long, I was being awaken by sentences like: "It's done.", "How do you feel?", "We're going to push you back to your ward." etc. Frankly, I could only remember vaugely what they were saying and all I remembered doing was shaking or nodding my head slowly.

As I was wheeled back to my ward, I saw my aunt. Boy, it sure feels nice to see someone familiar. It was 4pm and she had been waiting for 4 hours... Oops, well that was partly my fault as I was so sure I would be out about 12+. I found out later that my operation that was supposed to be only about 1 hour, took about 2 hours in the end as 'it was more difficult' than expected. Oh dear, I hope there wasn't anther patient waiting for an hour like me.

I was put on the drip as I wasn't allowed to eat or drink. Sigh...

Personally, I find being on the drip more painful than going for the operation. Especially when they have to do what is called 'flushing'.

What's that?

Well, that's when they have to clear the tube of the blood that had clot.

Eg, when the drip runs dry and there's no more glucose water running into my veins, the pressure flows the other way....ie, my blood is being sucked out, upwards. Sounds pretty gross? Well, it's a little less scary than it sounds but yes, a small part of the tube had my blood in ti. So anyway, the blood has to be cleared and are thus vacummed or sucked out.

Let me tell you, that's when I almost cried.. it was so painful. And it happened a few times. My hand still feels bruised where the drip was.

And bed pan.

Gosh.... it's really awkward using this little pan. (wonder why they call it a bed pan and not a urine pan? Of course bed pan sounds better than urine pan. Hmmm....). I only used it twice but each time I had to use it, I felt as if I was going to wet the bed. Plus, it's pretty difficult to do it when the nurse is hovering around, asking: "Are you done?" and lifting the bedsheet to take a look. Most undignified. Utterly no image at all. Sigh... and double sigh...

I managed to speak to my hubby over the phone and mumbled something (can't remember what) and then sent my aunt home. I slept till nearly 7pm when hunger pangs woke me up. Yee Lee was so kind. She insisted on coming over to visit even though I told her not to. She even offered to buy me some food but alas... no food allowed. (I did ask the various nurses a few times, in hope).

And then I had to go toilet again... because of the %43@*&^% drip.

Abd that was pretty much the rountine for the whole night.

Hunger pangs.

Toilet urge.

Followed by occasional 'flushing' of the drip.

Luckily, they sorted out the drip rate later and I didn't have to go toilet so often. Speaking of toilet. You know it's quite a feat to do it whilst on drip? Trying not to get entangled with the tube whilst trying to err... 'drop one's pants'. And trying to draw one's pants up as well. All the little things we take for granted. Maybe the Japanese should invent a little machine that will do it. Hmm... an idea right?

Of course I didn't sleep much lah.

Anyway, hospital life begins very early.

I figured I ought to be able to loose some weight through this?

2 comments:

marissa said...

Hi Tiff,

Hope you are taking things slow and enjoy some downtime while you recover from your operation.

I had to smile while reading about how you always need to have a go while on a drip. Hope a handy invention will come out soon.

tiffany said...

Hi Marissa. Thanks for dropping by. Am much better now.

Yeah, you would have thought that someone would have invented something useful by now right?