My Hospital Stay.

I'm back home after my op and all seems to have gone well.

For those not familiar with the UK health system - Like the majority of people in the UK I'm a National Health Service patient so all my treatment is free at the point of use. (If you are working Prescription medication has to be paid for either per prescription or on a 12 or 6 month 'all you need' ticket which works out at £8 a month.) Because of the long delays for my first op the NHS paid for my consultant to do the op at a neighbouring private hospital and the same this time.

I would say that, hopefully, the medical care in the NHS and private sectors is the same but the big difference is in staffing levels and the care and time the staff spend with you in the private hospital. You are not left for long periods of time waiting for the next thing to happen indeed at times it seemed like an endless set of people knocking at the door. Also everybody is in their own en-suite room and the food is excellent.

I'm lucky that I've never had a bad response to the anesthetic though this time I didn't have the chance to count back from 10 as they put an oxygen mask on me. For me that was it and a few moments later I was back in my room. The consultant told me that he had taken off a bony lump that had the nerve caught underneath it. Hopefully now he has removed a source of future discomfort/pain. Also the incision is smaller and higher up that the last op so should be less painful. On the question of pain I did tell everyone how much pain I had been in last time when I got home and I've come home with Tramadol which I can take as well as my co-codamols. 

The whole country is having a heatwave at the moment and it was hot in the city. Luckily I was given a large fan which blew a cooling breeze my way. I also had the window open which let in all the city sounds, it's a long time since I heard them but the whirr of the fan made it sound as if I was on a ship. I did say a prayer for whoever was being brought to the RDE by the air ambulance and also for their family. The staff who treated me were really friendly and I had a long chat with my nurse yesterday evening. Even though she is a country girl she shares my views on fox hunting even to the point of going on demos which I haven't done. She had also seen the drama I was watching on tv about a class of Glasgow teenagers who involved the local community and successfully stopped the immigration authorities arresting families in the night and saved their classmates from deportation. I watched a couple of programmes on tv but mainly I listened to Radio 4. 

Yesterday evening I had a 'light' supper of smoked salmon salad sandwich, more salmon than bread, which came with lots of extra salad and a fruit platter of sliced kiwi, satsuma and pineapple and grapes. This morning I had another fruit platter with my 2 wheetabix and I treated myself to some freshly baked Danish pastries which I had later on with my mid-morning coffee. As Peter wasn't coming until 1.00 I had lunch as well, Caesar salad with chicken and a very naughty sticky date pudding with toffee sauce. No wonder I'm not hungry this evening, some fresh cherries have been more than enough.

Peter bought me this lovely orchid today as well as cherries and blueberries and he has been most attentive.

Yesterday when we arrived at the hospital Peter saw from her name tag that the smart receptionist who took us up to my room was Lithuanian so he gaily chatted to her in Lithuanian. I was able to follow the conversation but couldn't really join in as my language skills are not very good.