It was a lunchtime check in, they asked me what newspaper i wanted in the morning. A little odd I thought as I wasn't planning on staying that long.
A porter collected me and took me to my room (307), slightly cruelly for someone who has been told to fast, we had to walk past the dinning room.
It was a nice single room right at the quiet end of the hospital. A nurse checked me in asked me loads of questions and left me to change into a gown and a set string net knickers, nasty.
Someone popped in and asked me what food i would like later. I figured chicken soup as I was in hospital and some ham sandwiches.
At about 2pm the consultant (Mr Kitson) and the anesthetist (can't remember the name) visited. Kitson marked me on the leg with the same marker pens which we used to use to mark the frozen chickens when i was working at Salisburys. so I was happy that they would operation on the right one!
I was then left to sit waiting watching daytime TV and reading some seriously boring stuff from work about doing testing. I was starting to go a little nuts when I was finally called at about 4:30 and started my long walk to the theatre. It was slow going and the doctors were wondering where I was so much so the anesthetist came looking for us!
I was told to lie down on a trolley and they put a needle in the hand without (I think) any pain (I was expecting this to be the most painful part of the whole experience) we talked about skiing and scuba dives for a bit while they injected some stuff in my hand until I passed out.
I woke up at 6:10 from having such a lovely dream
An hour and 40 minutes, this is a very long time for the op which I had been told would be about 30 minutes. Kitson came in and explained what happened to but of course catching me a bit away with the fairies so I didn't take much in. He said he didn't do anything to the cartilage, there was no damage and in the end he just cut away the ACL stump. So ACL was causing the pain and clicking.
So, although it took me while to realise, it this was great news. No cartilage damage which means less long term problems and I should get a good knee back once a new ACL is put in.
They wheeled we back to the room.
OK, the next parts are a bit confused (I was on drugs!!)
They brought me some food.
Said that i should stay in over night as it was getting a bit late and I should see the physio who had already gone home.
I rang home a couple of times to tell them how it went.
Got a bit sick eating chicken soup. So I asked for a shot of anti nausea stuff which went in my backside and was the thing that hurt the most of the whole visit.
Keep failing asleep eating my ham sandwiches.
Watching TV with the nurse coming in to take my blood pressure and rate on a regular basis.
Kept drinking the water and refusing the painkillers.
Remembered at some point that I had brought my pyaminas so didn't need to still be wearing the frankly quite scary gown and pants combo.
Phoned home to fix up being picked up the next morning (someone must have told me about checking out by 10am at that point).
Took some pics with my mobile
Watched the Terminator and then when to sleep.
I woke up at 3:20 and 5:40 and then just before 7. That would have been my body clock thinking it was time for work. The nurse turned up shortly after to take my readings and give me some pills (painkiller). This was quickly followed by another nurse with an more pills (anti inflamatory), a lady with my breakfast (a vague memory of filling in a form about
what I wanted when I got my ham sandwiches) and a porter with my free newspaper.
So by 7:30 i was sitting up in bed with breakfast and a newspaper watching breakfast TV.
I did the sudoku and word puzzle to make sure my brain was more or less back working.
9:30ish the physio turned up and took me thru a similar set of exercises to ones I was given in Canada. The three exercises where;
with the leg flat try and push the back of the knee to touch the floor
with a towel rolled under the knee tense the thigh muscle, curl the foot up and then slowly lift the lower leg off the ground
with the leg flat and straight gently lift the heel 10cm off the ground
The result of these should be to get my leg straighter and build up the muscles a bit.
The physio also checked out how I was walking and told me off for using the walking stick in the wrong hand (it should be the opposite hand to the problem leg) and was kind enough to get a new rubber foot for the walking stick (called a ferrel) as I've worn the current one down
quite a bit.
So it was just left to the duty nurse to get me some drugs and leaflets to take home and to check me out. My dad had kindly taken some time off work to come a drive me back. he had a bit of fun trying to find my room and we hung out in the room until a porter with a wheelchair arrived to take me to the car.
The sun was shining unlike the cloudy day when I went in and all in all I think it was a very peasant way to get operated on.
Back to the House, Ivy was visiting and I think she was a bit impressed with my bandage.
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