Sorry this is so late but......my week since surgery!

Well I went into the Royal Liverpool Women's Hospital on Wednesday 21st January......2 weeks ahead of my original date (4th Feb) and had my operation to remove Endometriosis. I had to do a bowel prep on the Tuesday evening (that was fun....NOT lol) so couldn't eat anything after 4pm and could only have clear liquids to drink. I had to drink almost 5 litres of fluids in 6 hours which wasn't nice at all and made me feel really sick and the prep solution was awful...yuk!!


I got to the hospital at 11am, just on time lol only to find out that there were no beds available on the ward I was supposed to be admitted to so I was taken onto the day ward and told it wasn't worth unpacking as I wouldn't be here long! I was told to change into a gown and get into bed to wait for the doctor to come and see me. She showed up at about 11.45, asked loads of questions then measured me for those lovely compression stockings....nice! haha
She said she'd see me in theatre shortly as I was first on the list for the afternoon surgeries. I tried to read for a bit but ended up dropping off to sleep as I was so tired from not sleeping much the night before. Next thing I knew it was 12.30 and the nurse was waking me up saying they were ready for me....arghhhh!! She checked all my details (and my lovely stockings) then we walked down to theatre where I had wait until they were ready. It must have been about 20 mins before the surgeon came to get me but it felt like hours lol.....I was so nervous!!
They wheeled me down to the operating room (well, a room just outside of it....I never actually saw the operating room) and the doctor in there was making fun of me saying I wasn't very talkative.....I told him "well i'm sorry but I tend to go quiet when I'm scared!!"
I don't know what it was that he gave me before the actual anesthetic but it was great.....made me feel drunk lol! Then I remember him putting this huge needle full of the white anesthetic stuff into my IV then he injected about a quarter of it and left the syringe sticking out of my hand.... I remeber thinking "why didn't he put it all in?".........next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery lol.
I had a massive panic attack as I woke up....something that hasn't happened to me for a long time... I supppose the lack of sleep and overthinking all night caused that lol but it wasn't nice at all. Once I calmed down I started complaining that my nose was insanely itchy.......the nurse said it was because I'd been given alot of morphine.......so that would also explain why I felt no pain whatsoever.......just mushy headed and comfortable lol.
I was taken back to the ward where I fell right back to sleep and slept on and off for what seemed like hours but couldn't have been that long really as I was apparently moved to another room at 6pm. I vaguely (sp) remember being moved then waking up and wondering how long it was to visiting time as I knew Tony was coming in with my mum. When they finally got there it was about 7.15 and apparently my mum had called the hospital and been told I was still sleeping so they came a bit later (visiting was from 6.30). I tried to wake myself up a bit once they got there but I was feeling quite sleepy and was still on oxygen (which was driving me nuts as my nose was still itching like crazy and I couldn't get to it because of the mask). I think it was about 8.15 when I finally felt like I could sit up and have a conversation with them (my daughter Hayleigh was with them too) and they were all laughing at me because they said I was talking rubbish lol. Before they left at about 9.15 my mum helped me to get up and go to the toilet (with my IV stand in tow) which was like a military operation but probably quite funny lol. I also had a wash to try and wake myself up a bit but I couldn't get changed into my own PJ's because of the IV.
At about 10.30pm the nurse came in and removed the IV and brought me a cup of tea and a sandwich, she also took off the oxygen and right away I asked if I could go for a ciggie lol but she said not yet. I think in the end it was about 11pm when they let me go out and have one but I ended up regretting it as it made me really light headed and sick. After that I fell back asleep for a while and when I woke up my stomach was huge on the left side and the incision was bleeding quite a bit. The nurse had a look and said they needed to get the doctor to look as they were worried I could have internal bleeding, my tummy was also quite hard on that side. The doctor was busy with emergencies and they said it could be quite a while before she could get to me and that if I was alseep she wouldn't wake me up and I 'd have to wait.......nice! I now had to force myself to stay awake and ended up going out ofr a few more ciggies while I waited, I was also brought several more cups of tea and each time the nurse stayed to chat.....they were so lovely!!

The doctor eventually showed up at 2.30am, checked my stomach and said it wasn't internal bleeding as my tummy was now soft but that most of the work had been done on the left side and thats why it was so swollen. She changed the dressing on that side which had by now stopped bleeding and I was able to get some sleep.

While I was having my breakfast the next morning, my consultant came to see me to tell me what he'd found and what his plans were for further treatment etc.......here's what he told me:

* My endo was at stage 4 and was more extensive on the left side.

* My womb was tilted in the wrong direction and completely fixed in place with adhesions

* I had extensive endo on the ligaments supporting my womb and also adhesions around those too.

* I had pretty severe endo in my pouch of douglas, on my bowel and on my bladder and urethers (sp?)

* My left ovary was twisted and stuck down which explained the severe pain I'd been having in the weeks before surgery.

* There were 2 small cysts on my right ovary which were removed.

* They changed my Mirena coil during the surgery

* I was in theatre for 4 and half hours....yikes!

He said that he managed to remove all of the endo that he could see which was great news as last time they could only get 80% of it. The bad news was that he wanted me to do another 6 month course of Prostap injections which I'm really not happy about but at this point, and after all he told me.....I'm willing to try anything that will give me a longer break from that horrible, crippling pain. I had the first injection before I left hospital and was prescribed Livial to help with the hot flushes etc that come with the Prostap.

Well I think I've waffled on more than enough for today lol so will post more tomorow about how the rest of the week has been since I came home on Thursday.

Bye for now and if you made it this far thanks for being interested enough to read it all lol

~Big Hugs~ xxxxxxx