Last night, I lost my temper on the ward, though it was more out of frustration than anger. When I get frustrated it wind me up and I find it hard to express my frustration at the best of times, but when lacking a voice its even harder. I feel like I am looking at people sometimes, praying with my eyes to them, to please understand what I am saying.
For the past 3 days, I had been asking the nurses nicely if they could clean and dress my neck dressing as it was hurting more than it should be at this stage and I was pretty sure it was infected. I had had my painkillers changed from ora morph to oxycontin but by the time i went to bed, even they were not cutting through the pain to allow me to get comfortable enough to sleep. I couldnt do my own neck dressing, as again it was to sore to lift my head high enough.
So at midnight, they came to put my night fed up. I dont need the night fed, I am eating and enough, but the rules are that it has to stay in use until a dietician says it can come out. So when they came to set it up, 3 hours after they were meant to, I told them were to stick it. I was kinda already tucked up in bed trying to get comfy, failing and instead crying. I said, I would rather the 10 mins setting up an 10 mins taking down, be used on something more important such as dressings as infection could compromise my surgery and get me sick real quick, where as the fed was just stupid.
She came back at 1:30am and offered to clean my neck.Oh how I could have screamed.But she did do a quick job on it and as a result, I managed to get some sleep.
It was handed over this morning that it NEEDED redoing. Felt like saying ner!
Anyway, docs came in, also said it looked abit 'mucky' but they were not sure of the plan till they spoke to the boss, but promised to have news by dinner time (yay)
Next thing, one of the nurses came in with my file and asked me to go down to clinic as the boss was doing out patients there and would see me.
The walk, although only a few paces, was hard work. I arrived literally gasping. Sat in the waiting room and then had to laugh, when a clinic full of people are sitting there waiting and the boss just comes out and calls me by my first name and strikes up convo with me heading into the clinic room.
He asked about the feed tube, I rolled my eyes and explained as I best i could. He asked if I wanted it out, then handed me a bowl and said, you want it out, take it out. I thought he was joking for a second but he sat there grining, as I removed my own ng. Its an easy task and i knew that, but I guess I just assumed someone would have to do it or have it cleared with them.
the next thing was the tube. He covered the trach and asked if i could breathe. I couldnt. Do he looked a little confussed, then said sod it, lets take it out anyway. There is a T tube underneath that should allow me to breathe. So he got a spare trach ready to shove in just incase, took the sutures out and took the trach out. It was a very nerve-wracking minute or so. He standing over me, with baited breath to see if I can breathe or he needs to act quick. I kinda took two slow breaths testing t at first then smiled at him and said yes, to which he grined back.
Cleaned the tube out and such, then had a look down with the camera. Theoretically, I should be able to talk and direct breath through my mouth and nose. But, when he looked, there was too much swelling for me to use my upper airway.
The same below the tube, but more so, the arm of the T tube, would not stay outside my neck as it had gone to short. That was the next problem. He stood talking to me, with a clamp and other fun tools in my neck, holding on to this tube so it didnt vanish and get stuck or cut off my airway, whilst he issued out instructions everywhere of things he needed. He then got another surgeon to keep an eye on me as he wanted to find something. The other surgeon look petrified and warned me to behave and not go down haha.
Anyway, in the end, he put a ET tube (the more flexiable tubes used for intubating by mouth)inside the T tube and stitched one to the other, bear in mind, this was all being done in my neck whilst I sat as still as I could. So yeah, a system was put into place to hold things together and he will review in a couple of days.
Do I think it will work? No. Well I guess it will, but it needs a little more tweaking and playing with.
I awoke from my nap, to find the end of the tube in my bed eek. So, with a little DIY work, I have used a set of trach ties and madea kinda holder for the tube, so I am hoping that it will hold it a little better. And the surgeons can review in the morning and decide if its safe enough.
But, coming out of the room with just the T tube in, was truly wonderful.
I was able to take a slow deep breath right down to the depths of my lungs, without gasping to get the breathe out quicker as I need my next breathe. It was wonderful and I found that I felt very dizzy for the first short while, due to my oxygen levels suddenly jumping. Wonderful wonderful feeling. I realize now, why things felt so wonderful last time I had this big op, as I would have had the same feeling when I got my trach out last time. And why it was so scary when it suddenly began to get bad again. But fingers crossed that this time it will work.
In other news, I have had some sad sad news about Bree. I dont know if anyone knows bree on this blog, but if you do, my thoughts are with you all. I will write more tomorrow.
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