I was in hospital eight days. I had a nice room, and everyone was very kind to me. My husband was away in Denmark, which was where he wanted to be, because he has a pethological fear of illness and hospitals. He really did not have the slightest idea what I was having done either, although he does know now.
The surgeon told me that he was doing the operation to repair the prolapse, which was essential, and had to be done abdominally. because ot my age. (youthful) LOL. He also said I had spinal stenosis, and failed spinal nerves at the lower end, which really was the first time anybody has said that definitively to me, although I knew it for a long time.
I expected just a few inches to be cut off. When I woke up The surgeon came to see me and I asked him how much and he held his hands wide apart indicating around four to five feet. I got a bit of a shock. He said I had a very long gut that was doing nothing. He didnt even know if this was going to solve the problem, but this was the initial step. He had also done an anterior vaginal wall repair, for a rectocele, and repaired the rectal prolapse. When he cut the big length off, he then had to rearrange the rest of it, which he did so, and then sewed the whole lot into a man made net, which is fastened into my abdomen for ever. As yet I dont know if this will restrict me or not. I have been told that it will take me a long time to recover from this one. Also that there is quite a high failure rate. Well at the moment I am virtually incontinent. At least I would be if I were more than a short distance from a bathroom at any time. I am going between 30, and 40 times daily, which I dont think is quite right, so I may call the hospital tomorrow for advice, as they said I could. I am also very sore. It kind of puts you off eating when you know that one small meal is going to take 40 trips to the loo to elimin ate. Sorry to be so explicit. I never before thought I would have a problem keepiong weight on!!!. The other prob I have is that I still have no peristalsis, and no feeling in my gut, or very little. When the nurse came to take my clips out, she was very surprised that I couldnt feel a thing, but for some time now, an area of my abdomen, inside and out has been completely numb.
When my eldest daughter came to see me after the op, she had to go into the bathroom for a little weep. She was quite overcome.
My younger daughter was scheduled to look after me when I came out of hospital, but she's not very domesticated, plus which she got a bug which consisted of projectile vomiting the day I came home, plus her boyfriend came to stay. I couldnt let her near me, as I could not afford to catch an infection. In the breadbin, there was half a loaf of bread, which had been there since before I went into hospital, with a fine crop of penicillin and mushrooms growing on it, and in the fridge there was half a bottle of milk, and a cucumber which was growing a beard, and some stale cheese. Oh yes there was half a dozen tea bags as well. My house, which is big enough, having a basement kitchen, four groundfloor rooms, four bedrooms, and my attic bedsit only has, out of all those rooms, three functioning ones. Daughters bedroom, my bedsit, and the kitchen. The rest is a cold draughty building site. Its been like that for a year, as we have practically rebuilt the wretched place. When I came out of hospital last year it was all starting, and I had nowhere to go. I had a kind of mental breakdown, because of it, so I made myself, or rather my children did, a bedsit, up under the eaves, and it is a really nice place to rest, and boy oh boy was I glad I had it. Otherwise I would have just booked into a hotel or something. Anyway daughter is back on her feet again, and I havent starved to death, so I'm just taking it day by day. I'm completely insomniac, so I save up all my pills for nighttime, and take as many as possible at night in the hope that it will knock me out. On top of all that, and even though I was passed for spinal cord stimulation ages ago, the Doctor is iffing about it now, and has lined me up for a spinal injection instead early December. I feel as though I am going back instead of forward.
Better go to bed now.
M.x