[WARNING! If you’re squeamish about medical details, this post might make you squeam.]
Well Friday was the day I thought I might just be able to go home. Certainly I woke up feeling much more human. Muzzy, and weak, but human. I actually felt well enough to read fiction, as long as it was short. The nurse took off the compression bandages of my legs, I got out of bed (with help) and managed to get to the loo and have a shower. Wonderful!
Then I catnapped until the nurse came along and did things to my four sets of stitches – staples actually, and I read a bit more, and napped a bit more, and my husband visited and I dropped off to sleep again.
And I actually got some lunch. The same dishwater soup and apple puree, but I didn’t have much appetite anyway.
The surgeon came back and examined me, and said I could probably go home. They did the paperwork and took out the drainage tube.
I was horrified when they did that. Of course, if I’d actually thought it through, the exit hole was on the side of my waist, and the gallbladder used to be up under my ribs, just beneath my right breast – of course it had to be a long tube. But watching this thing come out, more and more of it, came as a shock. It didn’t hurt a bit though.
They put a bandage on it, and told me how to look after myself at home for Saturday. I got dressed and packed my bag.
My husband came to fetch me, and as I got out of bed I noticed a wet patch on my dress. The pad on top of the drainage tube was soaked.
We called a nurse, who changed it, and said I’d better not go until she talked to the surgeon. I said that sounded sensible. So she phoned, and the unsurprising verdict was that I’d have to stay until morning.
I was disappointed, but I don’t think I’d have felt safe going home. And I was pretty hopeful it would be OK in the morning.
Dinner was a small helping fish and more apple puree for dessert. I quite enjoyed it, but I didn’t finish it.
And this time the sleeping pill stayed swallowed, and I went out like a light.
