Day 0 - Surgery!

Today is the day of the surgery.

I'm now writing this retrospectively because I wasn't in a fit state to write anything after my surgery.

I was first on the list. At my hospital you're not allowed anyone to wait with you so I was glad to get it over with. I woke up around 3 hours later in recovery, being sick and very dizzy. The nurses gave me some anti-sickness medication through an IV and some oxygen and kept telling me I would soon feel better.

I woke with a large bandage around my head which was incredibly tight and so I kept trying to take it off. Worst patient ever... You have to leave the bandage on for at least four hours. I felt pretty dizzy and woozy but was wheeled back through to the ward.

In my hospital implant surgery is done as a day case so you have a tick list to complete and then you're allowed home. You have to have four sets of observations (blood pressure and temperature) taken, demonstrate you can eat and drink and go to the toilet. At this point everything was still swirling around but I managed to get hold of my phone. Again, I wasn't allowed anyone to be with me so I was messaging my partner. Having now looked back at those messages they make very little sense...

I was allowed home around five pm (went for the surgery at 8.30am). We live about an hour from the hospital and the ward felt like 10 miles from the car. I've never been so glad to be home and went straight to bed with a combination of codeine, ibuprofen and paracetemol.

All of the information I had read and all of the 'professional information' I have been given (And given to others) has described 'mild dizziness' and 'dull pain' but it's hard to imagine this until it happens to you and so I was definitely unprepared for how much it wiped me out.

It was a tough day......!