Hospitalization

This morning I left the hospital after staying overnight; a requirement of the procedure I had received yesterday. It’s nothing serious, so I apologise if you weren’t informed previously and are now worried about my well-being.

Now that we have that out of the way, I can continue my little story. Many people are complaining about the state of the public health system in Queensland at the moment. While I would say I agree to a certain extent that it could be better, from my experiences it wasn’t too bad at all. There were some hiccups along the way, and I’ll get to those, but in the meantime I would simply like to say that I have a great respect and admiration for the people working in the public health system. Despite the seemingly lacklustre equipment and apparent poor state of some of the facilities, the fact remains that the staff are able to get the job done, and get the job done well. I’m very pleased with the treatment I received and the way things were handled, but that’s not to say that things were perfect.

I was due to have my operation starting early morning on Tuesday just gone. However, after arriving at the hospital at 7AM, going through all the pre-checks and donning my lovely hospital attire, I was told that I would have to go home because three anaethisatists and two doctors were off sick. It was Melbourne Cup day, though …

I’ll be honest, it was very annoying. I had plans and they were upset. It wasn’t really anyones fault (unless you’re cynical, which I can sometimes be), but it was still annoying.

My procedure was resheduled for 8AM Wednesday, and at around 11AM I actually went into the preparation theatre. It was at this point, while I was laying in bed, hooked up to the saline drip and wearing my ECG tags, that the fire alarm went off. For 15 minutes. I was informed that the procedure wouldn’t start until they were sure it was a false alarm, and it turned out that it was. But that didn’t stop the alarm, mounted in the roof not two metres from my head, from pounding electronic thumps through my already stressed mind.

After that though, I was given the anaesthetic and went to sleep pretty much immediately. I remember the doctor injecting it into my drip, and then a nurse infront pushed through the door, another started pushing my bed from behind me, and I don’t remember anything after that.

I woke up in the recovery room, and surprised myself by not being surprised. They had warned me that when I woke up I might think that I was still waiting to have the procedure and be very disorientated. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t. I woke up and I remember thinking that I was in hospital; I could see a nurse checking my vitals, and then I remembered that I’d had an operation. I fell in and out of sleep for the next few hours while we all waited for a bed to become available in a ward.

Eventually I was placed up on the fifth floor in a ladies ward because there weren’t any spaces in a mens ward. It didn’t really matter that much; in fact it was quite amusing as I was put next to the cutest (yes I just used that word in this context) old lady who so innocently peeled away her bandages “just to see what the doctor had done”.

Mum came to visit me and sat with me all afternoon while I continued to drift in and out of sleep. The painkillers they were giving me made me quite drowsy. Dad and my sister came to visit in the evening, shortly before Annie and Kate. Everyone stayed for a while, but it was a little crowded, so the girls all went to get food while I hung out with mum and dad for a bit. Then Kirsten came back, took herself and my parents home, so I was left to enjoy the company of Kate and Annie for the rest of visiting hours, until 8PM. Actually, they left at about quarter past eight when the nurse informed them to say their “final farewells” — busted! I’m glad everyone came to visit though. I would have been bored shitless otherwise.

After everyone left I had a choice of television (which I paid $10 for the privelidge of using), radio, mp3, book or laptop to keep me entertained. I ended up watching TV for a while, then listening to music, and then at about 10.30PM I went to sleep. I slept quite poorly because I only had one pillow, and the night lights kept me awake as well.

This morning was the most eventful part of the visit — after my surgeon came to check I was OK, I was told to have a shower and then the dressings on my wound would be replaced. I wasn’t too sure how to go about this because I knew the wound was a hole. You see, the operation required leaving an open wound in the small of my back. I knew roughly how large it was going to be, but after the operation, during sleep, and during the checking, it hadn’t pained me one bit. I made the mistake of removing the bandages, and then the packing (bandages placed inside the wound) and checking it out in the mirror in the shower.

Although I knew what to expect, the reality of it hit me at this point. I started feeling ill and I began hyperventilating. Thankfully I was able to ask one of the other patients outside to fetch me a nurse. I tried to control my breathing, and I tried to assure myself I was OK, but I believe I was in some kind of shock situation, and I lost control of rationality while waiting. It got so bad that I felt light-headed, and in turn ill. My arms and legs were trembling with pins and needles because I wasn’t breathing properly. The nurse finally came in, sat me down and calmed me down, while washing the area of the operation, which surprisingly did not hurt at all.

After she settled me down and washed me off, I tenderly dried myself and got back into bed for another nurse to redress my wound. She was cute as a button, softly-spoken and very nice, which helped a lot. Maybe they sent me a cute one on purpose after my little episode. Anyway, the most painful part of the redressing was not when she physically cleaned out the hole in my back, but when she had to remove some sticky residue from around it which was caught on my hair. Sigh.

So, I went home, and I’m alright now. The wound is a little painful when I sit the wrong way on it, but I have pain killers. Though they do make me a little drowsy.

Despite my thinking that some of the equipment looked a little old, that some of the facilities looked a little dilapidated, these are both gross overstatements. The staff at the hospital were lovely and helped me out as much as they could. I greatly appreciate everything they did for me, and I think, even though it’s highly impersonal, I will send a ‘thank-you’ card to the hospital addressed to all the staff. Though it’s probably the best I can do as I think I would’ve come into contact with no less than twenty or so people, not even a quarter of whom I can remember their names.

Thank-you, staff of the hospital. Thank-you very much for your time and care and helpful attitudes!