Day 1 after surgery and going home !

The picture is pretty much how the ward round felt from my perspective and was so short!

I was very keen to get out of bed but it was not happening. Around 9.30am the ward round took place and my bed became surrounded by a surgeon, doctors and nurse.

I was expecting to be examined but no they was a 2 minute conversation mainly wanting to know how much my drain has let out - 295ml and on that basis I was told I was free to go home that afternoon! I had not even been out of bed yet!

I asked if the 295ml was normal and told it was slightly higher than they would like but happy that I could go home.

I checked if getting out of bed had any issues I could stay and that was confirmed and at the end of the Ward round the consultant did come back to check I was happy with his decision.

Around 10am the nurse was able to get me out of the bed much to my relief.

We ordered lunch and then went walking around the wards we were in. We were meant to do 160m and walking with my neighbour we easily achieved that before lunch.

We had lunch then went for a longer walk. When we got back I was tired and went to sleep for an hour in the chair.

Even as I write this I find it astounding that once I woke it was not to long before my wife turned up from work.

At this time I still had the drain inside me and yet I was being released within 90 minutes as it transpired.

Once the nurse has the paperwork from the doctor he took me to the bed and redressed all of the wound bandages and removed the drain.

At the end of this I was able to get dressed just over a day after waking up from the surgery.

We waited to be discharged and were provided with extra dressings, clip removers, a discharge letter, 28 Cialis which becomes a repeat prescription, 28 days of Fragmin injections and a disposal case for the injections,  Extra catheter day and night bags and extra relevant  attachments, extra TED stockings which again you need to keep on for 28 days. Also some notes on how the catheter works.

We were told we would be contacted regarding catheter removal and for me it will be 2 weeks and 1 day after surgery first thing in the morning.

We had to book up the wound dressing check with our local district nurse who conveniently is at our surgery. That took place 5 days after surgery.