Surgery Day - Thursday 12th September 2019

I woke slowly and did not feel remotely anxious due to being in a deep sleep, when  I should have gone and taken a shower in preparation for surgery. As a result I had a quick strip wash with wet wipes and managed to clean my teeth. I had been nil by mouth from midnight and had a cannula in with fluids to keep me hydrated.

At about 8.30am on Thursday 12th September, I saw my consultant and he came to chat to me about my infamously raised D-Dimer - they tried - the registrar and the anaesthetist [twice] to get some bloods to re-test my D-Dimer as it it was not done the day before, unfortunately. In the end they just felt I never had a blood clot. The anaethestist and I had a chat about post-operative care and having a  PCA of Fentanyl [which never ended up happening, neither did I end up in ITU]. I was supposed to be third on the list, but in the end I was made first and no sooner had the surgeon and anaethestist left, than I was being called to be ready for surgery hence the very rushed strip wash. Soon a nurse came with a wheelchair to take me to the heart and lung surgery theatres and I went with the HCA.

I was remarkably calm - upset that I hadn't had a wash, but also quite sleepy, so somehow this was keeping me in a very chilled out state, although my heart was beating a little faster. I knew there was no turning back at this point.

When I arrived at the heart and lung theatres, I was taken to an ante room and a friendly male nurse started talking to me and putting stickers on me that they would use to monitor me throughout surgery and a blood pressure cuff on the arm not being operated on. My surgeon had earlier drawn an arrow on the operable left arm, so there would be no chance [hopefully!] of any errors.

The anaethetist gave me a little Midazolam to relax me, and another nurse put a gas mask on me which I didn't like at all and kept taking off, so I was given more Midazolam and I never even managed to do my infamous countback from 15 - my glasses were taken and suddenly I don't remember anymore. I think I was put under at about 10am and the next thing it was about 2.45pm and I was waking up in the recovery room. I was shivering, which normally happens to me so they put a warm space cover on me and not long after that I was taken back to the ward. I didn't have a PCA, as I had expected, so they were going to manage this on 10 of oramorph every 2 hours, plus all my other drugs. I also had a drain coming down from my wound incision to drain off the blood and to prevent swelling. The drain collector looked like a hip flask. It is a bit gross, so don't look too carefully if you are squeamish - pictures of me and the drain are shown below.

The rest of the day was a blur - I was very sleepy and my throat dry and sore and I kept on trying to cough as a result of the anaesthetic gases which was very painful. I remember having some supper at about 5pm, and then the rest of the day I just drifted in and out of sleep, but was  relieved it was all over the wound was well covered with a dressing like a sanitary towel - see below.