As promised, I'm back following my meeting with DaVinci. The op took place a week ago tomorrow and I arrived back home last Friday afternoon, so here I am 3 days later quite honestly feeling that I've not been through what I obviously have been through. Not without a few hiccups of course but I'll come to them in a minute but in the hope that my experience might be useful to someone else choosing the path I chose, I'll bring you up to date with my journey.
All went as planned last Tuesday - the op day - and having arrived at the hospital early, as you do, I wasn't kept hanging around to my allotted time, the wonderful medics started preparing me straight away, the only blip being that having the op in a different area to mine, they couldn't find the documents that had been faxed over by my hospital. This was soon resolved thank goodness and everything went ahead as planned.
After the op, on waking up and finding myself on my way back to the ward, I couldn't believe how well, although a little groggy, I felt.Then of course I became aware of the "dreaded catheter" ! That said I always knew it would be there and put up with it I must.
To be honest, over the next couple of days, the catheter and the shoulder pain from the gas plus constipation were the 3 things that caused the earlier mentioned "hiccups". Thanks to the help of pain killers and laxatives and teeth gritting, all three became manageable.The shoulder pains had reduced by the end of Thursday, with occasional reminders BUT constipation remained the biggest villain.I had been told I could go home on the Thursday if I'd wanted but I decided against it hoping that by Friday, the problem would have been dealt with. It well and truly was ! From about 6 a.m., things began to happen and continued at regular intervals throughout the morning, so much so that I was terrified of getting into the car for the one and a half hour journey home until I was absolutely sure I could make it and eventually left the hospital at around 1pm. At the same time, I remembered well Dick B's wonderful description of his journey home ,which resulted in finding a convenient farmyard to empty his catheter bag. Knowing there was no such safe haven on my journey we attached a night bag for the journey as a safety measure and it worked a treat.
Since being home all is going ok and once again the only hiccup has been the catheter, which tends to overflow at times when there's a visit to the loo to deal with bowels. Fortunately not every time but being a bit concerned I contacted my hospital urology nurse who told me that is a number 1 complaint with many patients and is quite normal, although annoying. It's being removed a week today -Yes !
So there we have it and here I am. Once again I'd like to thank you all for your kind messages of support and invaluable advice, particularly the advice from those of you who have also met up with DaVinci - your experiences have helped me enormously in dealing with the op and aftermath. I've no regrets choosing DaVinci and I feel very lucky and fortunate as I know many don't have that choice and opportunity. I've also learnt that a little snooze and rest each day, something I've never done before, are a great help.
Thank You All Again, Keep Well, I'll keep you posted.
Cobbles