after operation
(Started) Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Hello everyone,
I’m sorry it took so long to get back online after my operation and my return home, but I’m a lot better now. As you know I was going into the hospital on Tuesday the 8th of January, the day before my operation on Wednesday the 9th, I arrived at the hospital and found myself placed in a room with an older woman who’d been in the hospital since the end of November. I later learned that she had had some really big stuff done to her which in turn meant she needed some very involved care (More about her later).
On the 8th at about 11am I received the call from St. Luc hospital, on my cell phone since I was staying with my parents, I was told to arrive at the admissions desk for 1pm. I packed my bag (Again) and only turned off my cell phone just before leaving it behind at my folk’s condo. Arriving on time I was told that my admission time had been changed to 6pm, and I’d been called back moments after the first call I’d gotten. I pointed out that that my cell phone hadn’t rung again, (mind you all this took place in French)
<> I asked how if I answered my cell phone that moments later they call back at a number which they knew I wasn’t at to pick up. The woman at the desk said I’d have to return for 6pm. My dad had driven my mother and I into town… there was no way I was going to tell him we had to go back off the island to the south shore and wait some more. I looked at the woman and told her I’d wait in the reception area till then, turned to my mom and said she could go home, there was no point in both of us being stuck there, but mom insisted on staying. The lady at the desk was flustered listening to us, <> Well waiting a half hour was better then waiting for five, so we waited. It was going on 2:20pm before I was placed in a room on the 6th floor. My side of the room (which was really only about 1/3 of the space since the woman and all her things took up most of the room) was closest to the window, I was told to get into a hospital gown, and a nurse would be by to see me soon… I didn’t see her till about 7pm.
As I got settled in, unpacked my bag, and put my street clothes into a bag for my mother to take away with her, I looked over at the swinging arm lamp that could be pulled over the bed, hanging on it was an angel Christmas ornament of green enamelled copper with 4 stars on it, three were cut outs on the angel and the fourth was a gold star that hinged the top and bottom of the ornament together. This operation marked the last procedure I’d be getting to ‘fix’ my body to the point where I could live with it, and it was happening four years to the day that I’d discovered female to male transhumans existed too, I was going to finish in 4 year what takes some people years and even lifetimes to do, I was thrilled with what I’d done… everything else I’d done in my life others had seen as accomplishments were nothing to me till finding out I existed as a transhuman.
The first person I saw was the hospital food lady; she spent about fifteen minutes asking me what I couldn’t eat and wanted to have. I asked for brown bead, butter, and wanted herbal tea, since I didn’t care for the coffee and regular tea at the hospital (both tasted of dishwater I’d learned during my stay on the 23rd of December). I can now say this woman’s visit was pointless for from my arrival till the 12th I saw but one cup of herb tea, never a slice of brown bread, and getting butter it turned out was left to the luck of the draw. On my first day I was given a snack after having been left alone for over three hours in my room, and was not well liked for asking for something more to eat because I was starving, not having eaten since 7am. A frowning orderly put a wrapped egg sandwich on the tray… I felt myself turn green (see my email about getting food poisoning at this same hospital as to why I reacted like this) and said I was not longer hungry after all. By the time I was seen by a nurse, to take my vitals as a control before the operation, it was late evening.
<> She told me,
<> She told me to just ring the bell, <> She looked at the bed and around me,
<> She plugged in the bell quickly and walked out. These events should have put up my red flags, but I was determined to remain calm and not get stressed. All that afternoon the woman in the next bed had a lady friend visiting her, they spent hours speaking in loud voices and even with the curtain drawn and my being quiet (yes I was being quiet) they kept chatting till after 8pm. That night I was offered a sedative so I could get a good night’s sleep before the operation in the morning, having been unable to nap at all that day and being up since 7am I said yes, and after taking it at 9:30pm I ay back to try to get some rest… only to have the big lights turned on in the room moments later as a group of people, nurses and orderlies, arrived to start working on the woman in the bed beside mine. First they removed the bandaged, cleaned the old ointment off, emptied out a bag that um… collected waste matter, and reapplied new ointment and bandaged. This process, done twice a day, involved three or more people all speaking in loud voiced, joking around with the woman and each other, taking over 1 ½ hours and left the air in the whole room drenched with smells strong enough to turn your stomach within seconds. It was past 11:30pm now, the sedative was long gone and I ended up tossing and turning till I don’t know when. I was woken by a nurse at 3:30am, that was the last I was able to sleep for more then an hour at a time till events that would happen a few days later.
January 9th Wednesday I saw every hour from 3am that morning onwards, till about 7:30am when my parents arrived to wait with me, mom arrived first and quickly had to pull the drapes around the other bed because the woman’s gown had shifted and she was sleeping there with her whole backside exposed, and my father was coming up once he’d parked the car. Told I’d be operated on at 9:30 then that was changed to 10am, but as we waited they’d started changing the woman next to me and my parents had to crack a window open to clear the air a bit. I saw there was no point in them staying in the room till after I was operated on and asked them to go till after. It was passing 10:20am when I was wheeled out of the room, down the hall, onto the lift and down to the OR level. Passing the desk there the orderly called out who I was and pushed me on passed as the woman at the desk, who jumped up in surprise,
<> She called out,
<> The orderly assured her, and I leaned up on an elbow to confirm it too.
<> Going around the corner both he (the orderly) and I shared a laugh over it. <> I told him. The anaesthesiologist arrived and did a double take too, but I distract him to confirm I want the hand pump meds, not the one that puts a tube in my back; I was more concerned for the condition of my tattoos then the amount of pain I’d be in after the operation. I made sure every shot or blood test that came near me during my hospital stay was done away from my artwork. I moved myself from the gurney to the operating table, a narrow deal that looked like a padded cross, with armrest that held your arms out to the sides out of the way, and as they moved in to strap me down and place the tubes in me I looked down at myself and had to ask, <> As the face mask of black rubber came to cover my mouth and nose I thought, ‘At least I made them laugh.’ I came to in the recovery room being asked questions by the attendant, but something wasn’t right, she kept asking me how I felt, and I can only remember saying to her, ‘It’s leaking.’ Over and over, I felt then felt the covers moved, something pressed to me, but this wasn’t doing anything I kept saying ‘it’s leaking.’ There was a silence and then there were more people around me, my blankets shifted again, I felt moved, rolled over slightly, and then a woman said,
<> I asked them to call and tell my mom. I was quickly wheeled out into the hall to the OR and remember thinking ‘This time I won’t be able to help them move me onto the table.’ I remember being put under again, then nothing till I was waking again once more back in the recovery room. I think I asked what time it was and was told it was after 4pm.
(Paused Sorry I went on the 16th for another operation, more about this later)
January 17, 2008
I woke up knowing it was done, a sense of no longer being able to have kids did come to mind with a sadness on missing that, and a slight feeling I’d failed by societies standards loomed over me till I realized I was doing what needed to be done for my health, what other people thought was not my problem. I was moved back to my room, two people scrubbed the caked on disinfectant from my body, because when it dries it burns the skin becoming scratchy, and a risk for infection. Again there was a friend with the woman, both talking loudly all day as I tried to sleep. It was time to change the woman’s bandage again, on top of that they were coming to me for blood test and vitals every few hours. My parents wanted to come that night but winds were blowing at over 90 kilometres an hour, so they were going to come the next day.
Thursday the 10th I asked to have the nose tubes removed, not wanting my parents to see so many tubes in me, because in one arm I had an IV and the pain pump, with needle marks on the other arm from all the blood tests they were taking. I also had a catheter you know where, thank fully it was removed later in the afternoon too. When I was allowed to get up to go to the washroom, a nurse took me there, told me to page her using the bathroom bell, I did… and waited a long time, so I dragged myself back to my bed (just 12 feet away) and got back into bed on my own… she arrived sometime later, asking me what I’d done, not pleased with me, but I’d have been in the bathroom over 15 minutes if I had waited for her to return. She said she’d had other things to see to and I should have waited for her… right.
My parents came by in the mid morning, my mom washed my legs and feet for me, because that morning the nurse who was to wash me just passed a cloth twice over my back and once down each arm, in the next days she never washed me again, I ended up washing myself the rest of my hospital stay, the lady would just bring in a pile of new towels, a gown, and bed pad that she dropped on a chair and she would leave… it was like once she knew I really was trans she never wanted to touch me again.
The nurse at one point told me that the anaesthesiologist had seen something on my vocal cords, small white nodules, as he was putting a tube in to knock me out. A note had been sent to the ORL department and they’d be having a look at me at some point during my stay. (I saw the ORL doctor the next day, he said there were 5 or so spots on my cords that would have to be removed, they’re caused by smoking -which I don’t- or from acid reflux, these would then be sent for a biopsy to see if they were benign).
This day, Thursday, was the same as the other, loud voiced, the other woman had a bad morning, crying out, muttering to herself out loud, and her visitor was there most of the day talking loudly to her, and the bad smells in full force. My friends Patric and Ircard both arrived to see me, I think seeing me laying there in the hospital bed kind of freaked them out a bit, and Partic mentioned that he’d left work early thinking of me, called Ircard to get his butt over to the hospital because they both had to come see me. They were a welcome sight, Patric even brought me a ton of stuff to read, including a copy of ‘Man’s health’ that I got a real kick out of. My parents wanted to come back in the evening but there was freezing rain warning and I told them to stay home. I went walking around more that day, moving to ward off blood clots that they were also giving me injections agents. I was in bed trying to rest at about 5pm when a group of 6 women doctors and residents came in to look under the bandages of the woman next to me, leaving everything exposed for hours till about 9:30pm and the nurses were ready to change the bandages for the evening, it was already smelly before they changed her waste bag.
At around 3am Friday the 11th I was woken hearing a nurse saying that the woman’s bag was badly placed, she reset it, and the pump that draws the waste out revved up like a racing car, making the room vibrate, the stench was inescapable now, and when the nurse left the room she closed the door behind her so the smell wouldn’t go out into the hallway… leaving me stuck in there. I had a micro can of air freshening spray, only I remembered that lady was asthmatic, and it would be bad for her on top of everything else. So I took my slippers and hurried out of the room into the hall, IV and painkillers on their rolling stand with me, to escape the smell. They saw me walking around the nursing station for a time, no one asked me what was wrong, I found a stretcher in the hallway, spread a pad on it, and then covered my legs with a small towel I’d found on a linens cart. It was over a half hour later that (Paused to go to sleep) (January 19, 2008) One of the male nurses came to ask me what was wrong; I told him I couldn’t breathe in that room. The woman nurse arrived and said I was exaggerating. I asked if I was exaggerating why had she closed the door on her way out? She said it was to make less light in the room,
<> I pointed out. The lady did not answer that one, but the male nurse and an orderly took the stretcher I’d been on into a waiting room at the end of the hall, put proper bedding on it, and let me spend the rest of the night (it was by now passing 4am) there. I was finally sleeping, but was again woken for tests on my vitals, and at around 6:30am I was woken and walked into a new room _6308_ where I would spend the rest of my stay… it was now Friday January the 11th.
My having escaped the room I’d been assigned too was a surprise for many the next morning, and till I’d started telling the staff why they had had no idea what was going on. The day nurse, an orderly, and the doctor’s assistant were all in agreement that I’d done the right thing. I was allowed to finally sleep undisturbed, and did so from the time I moved in till 10am when the doctor’s assistant came to see me. She asked how I was, how my breakfast had been, but I hadn’t had breakfast yet that day. My change of room had not reached the food staff and my food had been cancelled when they saw an empty bed in my old room. Soon after I was hooked up again and that morning’s food was the first and only time I actually saw the cup of herbal tea I’d asked for since the 8th.
I called my parents after I’d eaten, concerned that if they arrived and went to the old room they’d think something had happened to me overnight… okay fine the thought of not calling them did cross my mind for all ten seconds. When I told them why I’d moved out they were shocked at what I’d had to go through since I’d been in the hospital, they too had been there for the woman’s bandage change, and could not believe it could have gotten worse then what they’d seen. It was not an environment conducive to a healthy recovery from a big operation like the one I’d just had. My parents said they’d come by that afternoon to see me. A nurse came by to tell me I’d be checking out the next day and that she’d be removing my staples later on in the day.
Now when I was 17 I’d had my appendix out (during the hysterectomy they found spots where the stump of the appendix had attached itself to my intestines and the doctor fixed it too), and they had removed the stitched only two days after the operation, using tape to hold me together, it created a very wide and long scar on my tummy, I didn’t want another so asked if she would wait till the next day to remove them, to my relief she said she’d wait. I slept most of that day, till they moved in another guy in the late afternoon, and I saw my parents for a time in the evening, they were happy I was out of the other room. The doctor came by that evening, spoke to me about the operation, and how she’d been at the university by the time they’d realized I was still bleeding, but her assistant had done a good job closing the trouble spot, and she agreed I was better off in this new room too. But later that night I had the mother of all pains in my head, from lying all day sleeping on the spot where on the 23rd of December I’d wrenched my neck being ill. I told the nurse who came to see me during the night, she said to tell the doctor next morning, after all I was already in the hospital, and it would be better to get everything that felt sore checked out while I was still checked in.
So on Saturday morning, January 12th, I was visited by the doctor’s assistant, and she arranged for an X- ray to be taken. Only on a Saturday it is the X-ray department that decides when to see you, so instead of being checked out in the morning I spent the day waiting to be examined. Once it was done it was determined that it must be a pinched nerve, and that I should have a family doctor see to it. I was on my way home by 6:30pm and once there I went to bed and slept like the dead. I would have happily never looked at a hospital again but on the 16th of January I had to get up at 4am to be back at St. Luc for 7am (we were there for 6am) as a day patient. I sent my mom home with my dad when I saw how long a wait was till the admissions desk opened, and it was passing 8am by the time I was given a gown and put into a bed, I hadn’t eaten since 9pm the night before, and was told to get some sleep. I was in a bed under a drafty window, my feet were like ice in seconds, and there was no way of getting warm even with the three blankets I managed to snag. In passing one of the nurses mentioned that after the operation I would not be able to speak for five days… WHAT! Me not speak for 5 days. That was the first I’d heard that one, but what choice did I have?
By 11am I spoke with a nurse, my head hurt because of my neck again, and I couldn’t get anything to lessen the pain. I was told that the operating block decided which person went in so I took to roaming the halls, which were warmer then the spot they’d put me, I even spent time sitting in the waiting room wrapped in a blanket to escape the cold. By the time ‘1310or’ was called I knew the hospital radio code for the day patent’s ward, and knew it was my number they’d just called, so I went back to my ice cube. The orderly who passed by was surprised to see me there, she said she was on her way to go looking for me, this meant they had known I was out roaming the hall the whole time, and had done nothing to help me during that time.
Anyway I was wheeled off to the OR, as the orderly put me into the stand by room she paused, realizing she was pushing me straight for the spot… near the window, she stopped and then put me as far from it as she was able to. I thanked her. I went in to the operation to remove the nodules from my vocal cords asking if they could make me a baritone, they all thought I was joking. I woke in the recovery room, sitting mostly upright, and the attendant was quick to tell me not to speak. I was there a few hours, my neck, head, and legs were all killing me. By the time I was put back in the ice cube I’d escaped earlier I was drifting in and out of sleep, told I’d have to be there for about three hours, and I was already starting to get cold again. I came awake to find my mother leaning over me; I was startled to find her so close over me but happy to see her. She said I was white as a shee, and was concerned about how I was doing; I just wanted to get out of the place. The nurses who’d left me on my own came to see my mom, and when she told them I was in pain from my head they said they would put something in my IV that would help me… they never did and my mother saw how what I’d been saying about not getting any help was true. I was released and came back to my patent’s home, hugged my ferrets, and went to bed.
It is now my 3rd day of not speaking, I’m not in any pain worth mentioning, and I feel like I’m healing well. So in the end of everything I’m okay and no one needs to worry about me. I’ll be 100% in no time.
Love Owen
Hello everyone,
I’m sorry it took so long to get back online after my operation and my return home, but I’m a lot better now. As you know I was going into the hospital on Tuesday the 8th of January, the day before my operation on Wednesday the 9th, I arrived at the hospital and found myself placed in a room with an older woman who’d been in the hospital since the end of November. I later learned that she had had some really big stuff done to her which in turn meant she needed some very involved care (More about her later).
On the 8th at about 11am I received the call from St. Luc hospital, on my cell phone since I was staying with my parents, I was told to arrive at the admissions desk for 1pm. I packed my bag (Again) and only turned off my cell phone just before leaving it behind at my folk’s condo. Arriving on time I was told that my admission time had been changed to 6pm, and I’d been called back moments after the first call I’d gotten. I pointed out that that my cell phone hadn’t rung again, (mind you all this took place in French)
<> I asked how if I answered my cell phone that moments later they call back at a number which they knew I wasn’t at to pick up. The woman at the desk said I’d have to return for 6pm. My dad had driven my mother and I into town… there was no way I was going to tell him we had to go back off the island to the south shore and wait some more. I looked at the woman and told her I’d wait in the reception area till then, turned to my mom and said she could go home, there was no point in both of us being stuck there, but mom insisted on staying. The lady at the desk was flustered listening to us, <> Well waiting a half hour was better then waiting for five, so we waited. It was going on 2:20pm before I was placed in a room on the 6th floor. My side of the room (which was really only about 1/3 of the space since the woman and all her things took up most of the room) was closest to the window, I was told to get into a hospital gown, and a nurse would be by to see me soon… I didn’t see her till about 7pm.
As I got settled in, unpacked my bag, and put my street clothes into a bag for my mother to take away with her, I looked over at the swinging arm lamp that could be pulled over the bed, hanging on it was an angel Christmas ornament of green enamelled copper with 4 stars on it, three were cut outs on the angel and the fourth was a gold star that hinged the top and bottom of the ornament together. This operation marked the last procedure I’d be getting to ‘fix’ my body to the point where I could live with it, and it was happening four years to the day that I’d discovered female to male transhumans existed too, I was going to finish in 4 year what takes some people years and even lifetimes to do, I was thrilled with what I’d done… everything else I’d done in my life others had seen as accomplishments were nothing to me till finding out I existed as a transhuman.
The first person I saw was the hospital food lady; she spent about fifteen minutes asking me what I couldn’t eat and wanted to have. I asked for brown bead, butter, and wanted herbal tea, since I didn’t care for the coffee and regular tea at the hospital (both tasted of dishwater I’d learned during my stay on the 23rd of December). I can now say this woman’s visit was pointless for from my arrival till the 12th I saw but one cup of herb tea, never a slice of brown bread, and getting butter it turned out was left to the luck of the draw. On my first day I was given a snack after having been left alone for over three hours in my room, and was not well liked for asking for something more to eat because I was starving, not having eaten since 7am. A frowning orderly put a wrapped egg sandwich on the tray… I felt myself turn green (see my email about getting food poisoning at this same hospital as to why I reacted like this) and said I was not longer hungry after all. By the time I was seen by a nurse, to take my vitals as a control before the operation, it was late evening.
<> She told me,
<> She told me to just ring the bell, <> She looked at the bed and around me,
<> She plugged in the bell quickly and walked out. These events should have put up my red flags, but I was determined to remain calm and not get stressed. All that afternoon the woman in the next bed had a lady friend visiting her, they spent hours speaking in loud voices and even with the curtain drawn and my being quiet (yes I was being quiet) they kept chatting till after 8pm. That night I was offered a sedative so I could get a good night’s sleep before the operation in the morning, having been unable to nap at all that day and being up since 7am I said yes, and after taking it at 9:30pm I ay back to try to get some rest… only to have the big lights turned on in the room moments later as a group of people, nurses and orderlies, arrived to start working on the woman in the bed beside mine. First they removed the bandaged, cleaned the old ointment off, emptied out a bag that um… collected waste matter, and reapplied new ointment and bandaged. This process, done twice a day, involved three or more people all speaking in loud voiced, joking around with the woman and each other, taking over 1 ½ hours and left the air in the whole room drenched with smells strong enough to turn your stomach within seconds. It was past 11:30pm now, the sedative was long gone and I ended up tossing and turning till I don’t know when. I was woken by a nurse at 3:30am, that was the last I was able to sleep for more then an hour at a time till events that would happen a few days later.
January 9th Wednesday I saw every hour from 3am that morning onwards, till about 7:30am when my parents arrived to wait with me, mom arrived first and quickly had to pull the drapes around the other bed because the woman’s gown had shifted and she was sleeping there with her whole backside exposed, and my father was coming up once he’d parked the car. Told I’d be operated on at 9:30 then that was changed to 10am, but as we waited they’d started changing the woman next to me and my parents had to crack a window open to clear the air a bit. I saw there was no point in them staying in the room till after I was operated on and asked them to go till after. It was passing 10:20am when I was wheeled out of the room, down the hall, onto the lift and down to the OR level. Passing the desk there the orderly called out who I was and pushed me on passed as the woman at the desk, who jumped up in surprise,
<> She called out,
<> The orderly assured her, and I leaned up on an elbow to confirm it too.
<> Going around the corner both he (the orderly) and I shared a laugh over it. <> I told him. The anaesthesiologist arrived and did a double take too, but I distract him to confirm I want the hand pump meds, not the one that puts a tube in my back; I was more concerned for the condition of my tattoos then the amount of pain I’d be in after the operation. I made sure every shot or blood test that came near me during my hospital stay was done away from my artwork. I moved myself from the gurney to the operating table, a narrow deal that looked like a padded cross, with armrest that held your arms out to the sides out of the way, and as they moved in to strap me down and place the tubes in me I looked down at myself and had to ask, <> As the face mask of black rubber came to cover my mouth and nose I thought, ‘At least I made them laugh.’ I came to in the recovery room being asked questions by the attendant, but something wasn’t right, she kept asking me how I felt, and I can only remember saying to her, ‘It’s leaking.’ Over and over, I felt then felt the covers moved, something pressed to me, but this wasn’t doing anything I kept saying ‘it’s leaking.’ There was a silence and then there were more people around me, my blankets shifted again, I felt moved, rolled over slightly, and then a woman said,
<> I asked them to call and tell my mom. I was quickly wheeled out into the hall to the OR and remember thinking ‘This time I won’t be able to help them move me onto the table.’ I remember being put under again, then nothing till I was waking again once more back in the recovery room. I think I asked what time it was and was told it was after 4pm.
(Paused Sorry I went on the 16th for another operation, more about this later)
January 17, 2008
I woke up knowing it was done, a sense of no longer being able to have kids did come to mind with a sadness on missing that, and a slight feeling I’d failed by societies standards loomed over me till I realized I was doing what needed to be done for my health, what other people thought was not my problem. I was moved back to my room, two people scrubbed the caked on disinfectant from my body, because when it dries it burns the skin becoming scratchy, and a risk for infection. Again there was a friend with the woman, both talking loudly all day as I tried to sleep. It was time to change the woman’s bandage again, on top of that they were coming to me for blood test and vitals every few hours. My parents wanted to come that night but winds were blowing at over 90 kilometres an hour, so they were going to come the next day.
Thursday the 10th I asked to have the nose tubes removed, not wanting my parents to see so many tubes in me, because in one arm I had an IV and the pain pump, with needle marks on the other arm from all the blood tests they were taking. I also had a catheter you know where, thank fully it was removed later in the afternoon too. When I was allowed to get up to go to the washroom, a nurse took me there, told me to page her using the bathroom bell, I did… and waited a long time, so I dragged myself back to my bed (just 12 feet away) and got back into bed on my own… she arrived sometime later, asking me what I’d done, not pleased with me, but I’d have been in the bathroom over 15 minutes if I had waited for her to return. She said she’d had other things to see to and I should have waited for her… right.
My parents came by in the mid morning, my mom washed my legs and feet for me, because that morning the nurse who was to wash me just passed a cloth twice over my back and once down each arm, in the next days she never washed me again, I ended up washing myself the rest of my hospital stay, the lady would just bring in a pile of new towels, a gown, and bed pad that she dropped on a chair and she would leave… it was like once she knew I really was trans she never wanted to touch me again.
The nurse at one point told me that the anaesthesiologist had seen something on my vocal cords, small white nodules, as he was putting a tube in to knock me out. A note had been sent to the ORL department and they’d be having a look at me at some point during my stay. (I saw the ORL doctor the next day, he said there were 5 or so spots on my cords that would have to be removed, they’re caused by smoking -which I don’t- or from acid reflux, these would then be sent for a biopsy to see if they were benign).
This day, Thursday, was the same as the other, loud voiced, the other woman had a bad morning, crying out, muttering to herself out loud, and her visitor was there most of the day talking loudly to her, and the bad smells in full force. My friends Patric and Ircard both arrived to see me, I think seeing me laying there in the hospital bed kind of freaked them out a bit, and Partic mentioned that he’d left work early thinking of me, called Ircard to get his butt over to the hospital because they both had to come see me. They were a welcome sight, Patric even brought me a ton of stuff to read, including a copy of ‘Man’s health’ that I got a real kick out of. My parents wanted to come back in the evening but there was freezing rain warning and I told them to stay home. I went walking around more that day, moving to ward off blood clots that they were also giving me injections agents. I was in bed trying to rest at about 5pm when a group of 6 women doctors and residents came in to look under the bandages of the woman next to me, leaving everything exposed for hours till about 9:30pm and the nurses were ready to change the bandages for the evening, it was already smelly before they changed her waste bag.
At around 3am Friday the 11th I was woken hearing a nurse saying that the woman’s bag was badly placed, she reset it, and the pump that draws the waste out revved up like a racing car, making the room vibrate, the stench was inescapable now, and when the nurse left the room she closed the door behind her so the smell wouldn’t go out into the hallway… leaving me stuck in there. I had a micro can of air freshening spray, only I remembered that lady was asthmatic, and it would be bad for her on top of everything else. So I took my slippers and hurried out of the room into the hall, IV and painkillers on their rolling stand with me, to escape the smell. They saw me walking around the nursing station for a time, no one asked me what was wrong, I found a stretcher in the hallway, spread a pad on it, and then covered my legs with a small towel I’d found on a linens cart. It was over a half hour later that (Paused to go to sleep) (January 19, 2008) One of the male nurses came to ask me what was wrong; I told him I couldn’t breathe in that room. The woman nurse arrived and said I was exaggerating. I asked if I was exaggerating why had she closed the door on her way out? She said it was to make less light in the room,
<> I pointed out. The lady did not answer that one, but the male nurse and an orderly took the stretcher I’d been on into a waiting room at the end of the hall, put proper bedding on it, and let me spend the rest of the night (it was by now passing 4am) there. I was finally sleeping, but was again woken for tests on my vitals, and at around 6:30am I was woken and walked into a new room _6308_ where I would spend the rest of my stay… it was now Friday January the 11th.
My having escaped the room I’d been assigned too was a surprise for many the next morning, and till I’d started telling the staff why they had had no idea what was going on. The day nurse, an orderly, and the doctor’s assistant were all in agreement that I’d done the right thing. I was allowed to finally sleep undisturbed, and did so from the time I moved in till 10am when the doctor’s assistant came to see me. She asked how I was, how my breakfast had been, but I hadn’t had breakfast yet that day. My change of room had not reached the food staff and my food had been cancelled when they saw an empty bed in my old room. Soon after I was hooked up again and that morning’s food was the first and only time I actually saw the cup of herbal tea I’d asked for since the 8th.
I called my parents after I’d eaten, concerned that if they arrived and went to the old room they’d think something had happened to me overnight… okay fine the thought of not calling them did cross my mind for all ten seconds. When I told them why I’d moved out they were shocked at what I’d had to go through since I’d been in the hospital, they too had been there for the woman’s bandage change, and could not believe it could have gotten worse then what they’d seen. It was not an environment conducive to a healthy recovery from a big operation like the one I’d just had. My parents said they’d come by that afternoon to see me. A nurse came by to tell me I’d be checking out the next day and that she’d be removing my staples later on in the day.
Now when I was 17 I’d had my appendix out (during the hysterectomy they found spots where the stump of the appendix had attached itself to my intestines and the doctor fixed it too), and they had removed the stitched only two days after the operation, using tape to hold me together, it created a very wide and long scar on my tummy, I didn’t want another so asked if she would wait till the next day to remove them, to my relief she said she’d wait. I slept most of that day, till they moved in another guy in the late afternoon, and I saw my parents for a time in the evening, they were happy I was out of the other room. The doctor came by that evening, spoke to me about the operation, and how she’d been at the university by the time they’d realized I was still bleeding, but her assistant had done a good job closing the trouble spot, and she agreed I was better off in this new room too. But later that night I had the mother of all pains in my head, from lying all day sleeping on the spot where on the 23rd of December I’d wrenched my neck being ill. I told the nurse who came to see me during the night, she said to tell the doctor next morning, after all I was already in the hospital, and it would be better to get everything that felt sore checked out while I was still checked in.
So on Saturday morning, January 12th, I was visited by the doctor’s assistant, and she arranged for an X- ray to be taken. Only on a Saturday it is the X-ray department that decides when to see you, so instead of being checked out in the morning I spent the day waiting to be examined. Once it was done it was determined that it must be a pinched nerve, and that I should have a family doctor see to it. I was on my way home by 6:30pm and once there I went to bed and slept like the dead. I would have happily never looked at a hospital again but on the 16th of January I had to get up at 4am to be back at St. Luc for 7am (we were there for 6am) as a day patient. I sent my mom home with my dad when I saw how long a wait was till the admissions desk opened, and it was passing 8am by the time I was given a gown and put into a bed, I hadn’t eaten since 9pm the night before, and was told to get some sleep. I was in a bed under a drafty window, my feet were like ice in seconds, and there was no way of getting warm even with the three blankets I managed to snag. In passing one of the nurses mentioned that after the operation I would not be able to speak for five days… WHAT! Me not speak for 5 days. That was the first I’d heard that one, but what choice did I have?
By 11am I spoke with a nurse, my head hurt because of my neck again, and I couldn’t get anything to lessen the pain. I was told that the operating block decided which person went in so I took to roaming the halls, which were warmer then the spot they’d put me, I even spent time sitting in the waiting room wrapped in a blanket to escape the cold. By the time ‘1310or’ was called I knew the hospital radio code for the day patent’s ward, and knew it was my number they’d just called, so I went back to my ice cube. The orderly who passed by was surprised to see me there, she said she was on her way to go looking for me, this meant they had known I was out roaming the hall the whole time, and had done nothing to help me during that time.
Anyway I was wheeled off to the OR, as the orderly put me into the stand by room she paused, realizing she was pushing me straight for the spot… near the window, she stopped and then put me as far from it as she was able to. I thanked her. I went in to the operation to remove the nodules from my vocal cords asking if they could make me a baritone, they all thought I was joking. I woke in the recovery room, sitting mostly upright, and the attendant was quick to tell me not to speak. I was there a few hours, my neck, head, and legs were all killing me. By the time I was put back in the ice cube I’d escaped earlier I was drifting in and out of sleep, told I’d have to be there for about three hours, and I was already starting to get cold again. I came awake to find my mother leaning over me; I was startled to find her so close over me but happy to see her. She said I was white as a shee, and was concerned about how I was doing; I just wanted to get out of the place. The nurses who’d left me on my own came to see my mom, and when she told them I was in pain from my head they said they would put something in my IV that would help me… they never did and my mother saw how what I’d been saying about not getting any help was true. I was released and came back to my patent’s home, hugged my ferrets, and went to bed.
It is now my 3rd day of not speaking, I’m not in any pain worth mentioning, and I feel like I’m healing well. So in the end of everything I’m okay and no one needs to worry about me. I’ll be 100% in no time.
Love Owen