25 November til 4 pm.
Transition Lounge. ¾ full. 3 nurses down. Brown paper Xmas decorations of pohutukawa and tui.Says it all about the famous Transition Lounge which has a sort of friendly madcap come and go vibe.
Starving hungry. Nil by mouth starvation is a funny thing. You feel strong hunger pangs early on and then the sensation dulls only to return again at odd times.
RAT “because you haven’t had Covid.”
I’m worried about the upcoming NG tube but what really hurts is that they are delivering drinks and sandwiches and even if I was post op, or without NG tube I’d not be able to partake. They don’t seem to offer yoghurt. We non-solid-food eaters are not in the Transition Lounge’s parameters.
I’m worried about how at my age the skin graft will heal. I’m not overly worried but my heart has butterflies in it.
I’ve been looking forward to the procedure. Fancy having no limp lip, no dribbling, bottom teeth. Heck I might be able to eat a bit. But not sandwiches.
Was told to be here at 12.30. It’s now 1.35 and there is no indication of when. There are 4 of us in the waiting for surgery part. One has gone. I thought Nick’s other patient was a woman. Could it be the very old woman who was taken a while ago?
Heck, I am an old woman.
Confused. People on the other side seem to be waiting to go home and on this side those about to have an op. But two people have just been discharged to this side.
Now there’s movement. One man who was here before before me has been escorted out to the op area. His young son is waiting here. There’s a tall, thin young man but he is drinking water so can’t be having an op. This could mean that I’m the last one to go.
It’s now 2.05 and a lot of people have been picked up. The butterfly feeling is increasing but I feel better now that other patient has been taken. It’s like proof the system works. It moves.
Sometime this afternoon someone will call out “Mrs Jansen” and ask me if I’m up to the big walk to the Level 4 theatre.
There are nurses, receptionists, ambulance staff, orderlies, young doctors. But it’s a bit quieter now.
Lots of good cheer and joking amongst the staff. There’s a lot of waiting around for them too.
2.30 now. Peter and I and the previous patient’s son are the only ones left on this side. The tall thin young man who was pacing up and down with a urine bottle and then had to drink jugs of water seems to have gone for good. The nurses are worried that he has left while his urine is still red. “If it was pink, I wouldn’t be worried but it was dark,”
Lots of people from the other side are going home awkwardly with an assortment of bags. Take that people who laugh at Toni who takes a suitcase on wheels. That’s what I’ve done this time and it’s neat and tidy. My laptop fits in it.
I guess the staff are sighing and tired because fewer people are coming in and the day is dragging on.
Now there’s the big worry because an unknown nurse left a mauve medical wheelchair in the room. It comes from immunology and they can’t get it out of the way.
The anxious young man is back. Nurse tells him he can go home under certain conditions and advises him not to wait for the meds prescription. “They’ll only chart paracetamol,” she said. “Know what I’m saying?”
At 3,30 the call comes at last: “Mrs JANsen” The theatres are one level down and they always walk you there in a friendly chatty way for these short surgeries.
A 3 hour wait – a long standing cliche – it’s why they call us patients.
We go straight into the pre-op room which is a spacious and pleasant room with good window light. We meet a lovely nurse who has a holiday house near me! Warm gown AND a dressing gown.
Surgeon comes flying in. Skin graft will be about the size of a large bandaid and he will do the cutting and stitching and placement as the prosthodontist commands him. He (big boss man in NZ HNC) will be the “minion”. Nick has made humility an art form while still commanding the utmost respect for his expertise.
He indicates I should have an NG tube for 5 days but not all that time in hospital as I can operate the tube at home.
He admits that surgery comes with drawbacks. Each one takes a little more out of you, not just the scarring but the anxiety. I am sort of interrupting him and later I wish I had listened better.
To be continued.