(To read my cancer story from the beginning start here – April / May 2018 – You Have Cancer)
Back on the Ward My 3rd Night in hospital
If you have read my previous posts you will know my 1st operation due to jaw cancer hadn’t gone too well, I had just had a 2nd, had been stuck in a lift in a hospital bed but was now back on my ward.
It must have been late afternoon when I got back to my ward, I was still feeling groggy from my op so just lay on my bed all afternoon.
By evening time I was already feeling a lot better so started playing around with
my bed controls more so I could be sat upright and look around my ward better.
It was a lovely ward, 4 beds, our own bathroom, nice big windows with lovely views and a great portable air conditioning unit which was a godsend as we were in a middle of a heatwave
3 of us had trachies so the only way of communication was by nods of the head, hand gestures and writing things down.
The nurses were all lovely, but some of the things they did weren’t 🙁
The 1st nasty thing, which became an everyday occurrence was the injection in the belly to stop blood clots, it wasn’t particularly the injection but the stinging afterwards, best way of describing it is like a bee sting for 5 minutes, despite the fact I was wearing a stocking 23 hours a day, I still had to have this injection every day.
The next nasty thing was the trachy cleaning.
I’d seen them doing it to the guy opposite to me but now it was my turn 🙁
They basically take the front part of, vacuum out the gunk with a suction tube then clean it like a pipe with a pipe cleaner, it was horrible.
By now it was getting late and I had to prepare for another horrid night of beeping, tubes, alarms, etc. including my feeding tube which was connected to my Peg and slowly feeding me for 9 hours throughout the night
I was also having the regular mouth inspections and 4 hourly temperature, blood pressure, heart rate checks.
It was nowhere near as bad as the previous night though and I think I actually got some sleep.
The next morning Mr Walton and his team came to see me again, he had another look in my mouth and though not 100% happy said it looked a lot better, boy was I relieved.
Next my nutritionist came to see me to see how I was getting on with the nightly feeds and show me how to use my PEG for fortisips, for the next few days my diet was an overnight feed through my PEG and 3 or 4 fortisips through the day.
After my nutritionist came my physio who gave be a walking frame, got me standing up and taking my 1st few steps, I was amazed really how easy this was, when I 1st learned I was having a bone removed from my leg I had visions of never walking properly again and being in a wheelchair.
She left me with the walking frame and some exercises to do and then my speech and language team came to see me. Although I had a trachy in still which meant I couldn’t talk they left me with some mouth exercises to do.
I was still very tired and spent all day in bed, but was already getting in to the routine of things and slept a lot better that night
Story continues here – The Infections and That Damned Heat
Recent Posts
- My Christmas Tree From Christmas 2018
- Nothing to Worry About
- Just Muscle and Fat
- A New Lump to the Collection
- 3 Years After Operation for Jaw Cancer
- 3 Years After Being Told I had Jaw Cancer
- Still Wobbling On
- 2 Years on from Hearing I Had Cancer
- Early 2020
- The Last Months of 2019
- The Summer of 2019
- Be Careful with the Suntan Lotion
- Getting Ill When Recovering from Cancer
- How Stupid is the Tax Credit System Cancer Sufferers
- 12 Months on From Being Told I Have Cancer – A Brief Summary
- Can a 16 Plus Stone Man Become Anorexic
- Cancer Free and no more PEG
- Lymphatic treatment and having my PEG out
- Beginning My Return to Normality (Almost)
- Will I be Home for Christmas 2018
- Swelling, Lumps and Puffiness The Cancer is Back
- No More Radiotherapy
- Last Couple of Weeks of Radiotherapy
- The Bad Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy Weeks and Back in Hospital
- Early Stages of Radiotherapy
- Radiotherapy – What’s all the fuss about?
- My 1st Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy Sessions
- Back at home, the calm before the storm
- Having a Radiotherapy Mask Made
- Drips, overnight feeds and blood transfusions
- Back in Hospital
- 2 days at home then a near trip in the Air Ambulance
- Removing the elastics and going home
- Stitches out, Temperatures and Infections
- Time to try solid foods
- It’s Not Me You Want to Thank
- 3rd operation of the week
- The Infections and that Damned Heat
- Back on the Ward
- I Never Liked Lifts
- My 2nd Operation in a Week
- My 1st night after my operation
- The Day of the Operation
- My 1st Night in Hospital
- Pre Op Arrangements
- Having a Feeding Tube Fitted – Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy (PEG)
- Telling Your Family You Have Cancer
- Coventry Warwick Coventry
- April / May 2018 – You Have Cancer