Well, I must apologise. I said I would write to let you all know how
I went from my surgery within 48 hours.
It has now been three days since I woke up from my forced unconsciousness
and as of yet I have failed to write anything.
If you were worried, I am sorry but the good news is that everything
went well and I am well on the road to recovery.
There are a few things that I didn’t really
like about the procedure though. First,
as I mentioned in an earlier post, I went to a hospital that I had never been
to before and although I was perfectly happy with the hygiene, cleanliness and
quality of the hospital from a medical point of view it was no where near the
best I had been to.
It was all the little things. Being a much older hospital all the corridors
were very narrow. 100 years ago when the
hospital was built the trolley beds were much narrower so to fit bed through
was easier and didn’t require as much room.
These days the average bed is much wider and therefore requires more
room. So much so that two beds could not
fit down one corridor. This would be
even more problematic if people left wheel chairs, IV poles etc down the
way. When I went for my morning walk (on
the only morning I was there) it felt more like an obstacle course than a
hospital ward.
Second, the plumbing. There were no mixer taps so the temperature
of the water was either hot or cold. To
get a mix you had to fill the sink up.
The other problem with the plumbing was that the old pipes made a lot of
noise.
Third, the food. Now hospitals, along with schools and
airlines have very poor food but in recent times the food at all locations has
markedly improved. Unfortunately, not
here. But at least it was only one
night. Lastly, my biggest
complaint. There was no WiFi!!!!!
However, if I had to go back there I
probably would as there is a great deal more to hospital treatment than the
little fluffy extras to a hospital. The
staff were pretty good, and I am very comfortable with my doctor and this
limits the number of available hospitals.
I guess that I could try and convince my urologist to change his list of
hospitals but I think that would be a very hard get.
Thinking about my whole experience I do
remember a post I wrote recently about how I found it hard to recall my three
week hospital visit in Chicago. In the
middle of my hospital visit at the Freemasons I could recall that my experience
was really similar to my last kidney stone outing but before I went in I
recalled it as not nearly being so bad.
I think that the mind does play tricks on ones self in order to protect
itself from mental trauma. However, even
in the middle of all of it I still think that the intervention is a small price
to pay to be stone free.
There is one thing that I really find more
annoying than others though, and that is urinary stents. All the medical professionals say they don’t
hurt. I hate to burst their bubble, but
they’re wrong. You see, a stent
basically ensures that swelling doesn’t seal the ureter blocking the
kidney. The problem is that although the
stent will bypass potential swelling, it also bypasses a valve that prevents
urine from washing back into the kidney.
So when pressure in the bladder increases (Such as when you urinate)
urine floods back into the kidney causing pain. And when you have as much scar tissue in your
kidney as I do it hurts even more.
However, it is better than a blockage so it is a necessary evil and just
means that I have to take some pain medication to counter which also comes with
its own set of problems such as drowsiness etc…
Well, that is it for me. The stent comes out on Tuesday which is only
two days away. Until then, stay wellJ
