103 – Staying Alive, Part 3: 22 November 2024

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This was me in November 2015, three years before the Chain Saw operation in 2018

I spent three nights in Intensive Care – Tuesday 20, Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22 November 2018.  In the afternoon of Friday 23 November 2018, I was transferred to Coronary Care. 

Each night in ICU was agonising.  When the sleeping pills wore off, as they always did at about 1.00 am, I commenced a long, long, wait hoping the clock would crawl its way through the night out of darkness into morning daylight.  In ICU, I had tubes coming out of much of my body.  Even if the tubes had not been there, it would still have been impossible to sleep properly.  I was sore right across my chest and the pain was immense - even with a full dose of pain killer medication inside me. 

I was incapable to getting out of bed for any reason.  My waste body fluids were taken away by a catheter and then later by a pee bottle.

I produced no solid body waste while in Intensive Care.  My last poo before the Chain Saw operation had been on Monday 19 November.

By the time I left ICU, I wondered vaguely what would happen if my body continued to produce zero solid waste.  These thoughts were definitely vague because they were countered by a different thought.  I felt that if my body did force me to have a poo, the masses of stiches holding me together might simply burst.  That did not seem like a good scenario.  I doubted the doctors would be able to put me back together again if the stitches did come apart like that.

Nothing like that did happen in hospital, but the bursting of my body along the stitch line was indeed an issue throughout the years 2019, 2020 and 2021.

In the afternoon of Friday 23 November, the doctors decided I was sufficiently recovered to make it safe to transfer to Coronary Care.  The transfer was a blessing. 

After my transfer to Coronary Care on Friday 23, most of the tubes sticking out of me were removed.  I immediately felt more comfortable.  I became able to move my torso without fearing I might cause something to get ripped out of me.

I had a private room in Coronary Care and the nurses encouraged me to hobble around on a walking frame.  On the Saturday morning, doing just one circuit of Coronary Care on the walker left me completely spent and barely able to move.  

There was an upside.  It was good to be able to get out of the bed again, even if it did leave me exhausted. 

There was a stool in the bathroom attached to my Coronary Care room and I was allowed to take a shower – so long as the nurse was physically present while I sat on the stool during the shower.  I obediently sat on the stool while the nurse watched carefully for any signs that I might fall over.  Fortunately, I never did fall over and the circuits of Coronary Care gradually got easier.

In the morning of Sunday 25 November, one of the pathology lab people came to take the blood sample.  These were needed to make sure I was not starting to die.  The assistant missed the vein on her first attempt and became visibly flustered.  I reassured her that I was not concerned and she should try again.  She did try again and unfortunately she still failed to get the blood.  By this stage she was so flustered by what had happened that she said she needed help from her supervisor and left to get help.  When the supervisor arrived, I suggested that if all else failed, they could smack me with a brick and use the blood from that as their sample.  The supervisor found the vein and got the blood, so the brick was not necessary.

Something glorious happened in the morning before the pathology people took the blood.  I was standing up and I KNEW my bowels were about to move and that my body would not be torn apart.  I walked slowly to the bathroom and the necessary happened without pain.

I spent the nights of Friday 23, Saturday 24, Sunday 25, Monday 26, Tuesday 27, Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 November 2018 in the Coronary Care Unit.  I remained very weak, but I steadily began to recover.  In the morning of Friday 30 November, Margaret was allowed to pick me up and take me to a rehabilitation hospital.  I insisted that she stop at our home before we got to the rehabilitation Hospital.  I needed to be certain that my home still existed and had not somehow disappeared.  I know this doesn’t sound completely rational, but I REALLY needed to see my home again.

I was in Griffith Rehabilitation Hospital for the nights of Friday 30 November, Saturday 1, Sunday 2, Monday 3, Tuesday 4, Wednesday 5, Thursday 6, Friday 7, Saturday 8, Sunday 9 and Monday 10 December 2018.

On Sunday 9 December I was given permission to be driven to Morialta to have coffee with my friends.  Seeing their faces again helped restore some solidity to the world.  It was very difficult to walk the 30 metres from the hut where we had coffee to the park toilet.  I am very persistent though.  I knew I could definitely walk such a small distance.  I was determined to resume my normal walking in Morialta Park as soon as I possibly could.