I finally got a bed on a regular ward and was transferred late at night, I was welcomed by the most lovely nurse who gave me a great big hug and sat with me as I cried my heart out, that night it finally hit me what had happened. I didn't have a long stay in my new room, it was small and had no view out of the window so a day later I was moved to a slightly larger one with a view over the boating lake.
My pancreatitis reared its ugly head again and I was sent for a CT scan which now showed 3 areas of fluid collection in my abdomen so I then had to have 3 drains inserted to drain the pungent pus out of my body, painful - ha, I have yet to find a word in the dictionary to describe the pain of having a drain put in your body. It's done under local not general anesthetic and although there is a slight numbness I could still feel everything, cue people sitting outside the X-ray department looking slightly worried when I was wheeled out after screaming the place down!
So with my 3 drains and catheter in place, I was referred to a tissue viability - wound management nurse who decided the best course of action to get me healed up quickly was to put a VAC on my C-section ( this is now 8 weeks after my c-section and I'm still not healed up ) also time to get the physiotherapists involved and get me up and about. I haven't stood up in 8 weeks so of course my legs are very unsteady, coupled with having to carry a catheter bag, 3 drains and the Vac pac, I managed about 5 steps before needing to get back into bed.
Spring turned into Summer and I was still in hospital, still taking only a few steps when I could get up, I was also starting to waste away. The menu was on a fortnightly rota and I was getting sick eating the same old crap week in, week out. Turns out it wasn't quite the food making me ill but yet another infection, cue blood transfusions and stool samples. I now had pancreatic insufficiency so was put on digestive enzymes whenever I ate anything. I wouldn't have minded but they were the size of horse tranquilisers and very hard to swallow, so yet again something else to cause me to throw up.
Still wasting away in bed, my mum & dad and husband, now had to take it upon themselves to bring me food when they came to visit, but at least now I was well enough to have my son as a visitor, unfortunately for me he had been growing as I had been shrinking, so I found it quite hard to cradle him and feed him - especially as I still had my gaping hole in my stomach!
Hours turned into days and drains came and went - I lost track of how many I had in and out of me - it felt like a new one every week, certain family members declined to visit anymore away because they couldn't bear to see me looking ill, so I started to slump into mild depression. I refused to get out of bed anymore because I wasn't getting anywhere, I started to have panic attacks when the nurses put me into the chair for mealtimes and changing the beds. After an accident in the shower when a nurse dropped me on the floor I refused to get up for a week, because I was so scared. I had no energy in me and my legs could no longer support my skeleton like body. I was now sick and tired of being sick and tired.
A crisis meeting was arranged, and everybody was summoned!
