Journey into Space
The
operation was summed up by my Specialist.
“You wake up one morning and somebody will not give you any breakfast.
You
go to sleep and wake up again and bingo....you’ve had the operation”.
In reality, it's slightly different from that
but there is truth in what he said!
BUT… Looking in the
mirror the day before surgery I could have cried. At least they left my
eyebrows on.
Both legs, both arms and my whole body had received attention from
the razor.
This left me feeling as if I belonged in the frozen poultry section
at my local supermarket and did nothing for my pride. However, I was thankful
for this later when upper leg dressings were being removed. .
|
About a couple of hours before you are due to be collected, ‘premed’
tablets are given to you. In my case, my family had been with me for the 2
hours preceding this and that helped a lot. I cannot really remember very much of what went on after taking
these tablets, suffice it to say that I apparently caused a certain amount of
laughter with my antics So that the repairs can be made to the heart, a cut was
made, during the operation, on my ‘donor leg’. An artery was taken to be used to bypass the blocked ones. In my case, four needed
action on them so the leg donation was cut up and used for three. An internal
‘mammary artery was also rerouted to the rear section to complete the
required work. My leg was stitched as well as my chest. My stitches were the
dissolving type, but I am told that some surgeons used removable ones. I recall being in the pre
operation room and someone talking to me, but this is all I do recall until I
was being transported back to the main ward. By this time I
had
spent nearly a full day in the Intensive Care Unit . I remember practically
nothing of this, but talking to others who had the same
operation , there were some of them who had more
recall of the ICU than myself. |
