Emergency Operation

So I got out of Southern General on Friday and had a great weekend at home, just like normal. Then Tuesday morning arrived, woke up at 3am for some pain relief no problem, straight back to sleep.... woke up at 6am and I couldn't move my neck, after a struggle to get up I looked in the mirror and my neck had swollen to the size of my head, not much I could do about it now so I decided to take some paracetamol and make an appointment at the doctors when they opened... Then all hell broke loose, the pressure must have found a weak stitch and blood started spurting all around the bedroom, this was rather un-nerving... An ambulance trip later I find myself being rushed through for emergency surgery to repair torn artery and wake up in ICU with a tracheostomy but a much smaller neck.... I am now in HDU and feeling fine with a move to a normal ward expected later today.... Dumfries RI is quite a nice hospital by the way.

Well done Vodafone

I was having problems adding credit to my Vodafone dongle so I used Instant Chat... Here's the transcript of our chat

Well done Louise and thank you...

Swans at Gartnavel

Southern General revisit

Well I've been back at Southern General Hospital for a week now, I had my neck dissection last Monday, the op lasted six hours but the surgeon managed to save almost all the important nerves and structure and was very optimistic... I've lost a lot of my swallow and my speech sounds like I have a pair of Rob's sock stuffed in my mouth at the moment but this should come back, I have no interest in rushing it. The main problem has been my neck drain, it should have come out after 3 days allowing me to get back home for the weekend but on Friday for some reason the amount of outflow doubled so I've been stuck here.... It's now going down at a good rate so I'm hoping that I'll get home tomorrow and start the real process of repairing myself......
Thursday 75ml - Friday 155ml - Saturday 120ml - Sunday 80ml and hopefully anything under 50ml for today, Monday

Hospital Updates

Monday 26th Jan saw me back at Dumfries RI for an update about the biopsy and CT scan I had done last week....
The biopsy isn't back yet but based on the CT scan I have an enlarged node on the opposite side of my neck now, this means that another operation has now been scheduled for Monday 2nd Feb back at Glasgow Southern General for a neck dissection and the removal of all the nodes on this side. The operation will last around four and a half to five hours and I will then stay in hospital for the following five days (unless I can escape earlier). I have to go to Glasgow on Friday for a load of tests (to make sure I am healthy enough for the operation) and I'm hoping that the pathology will be back by then so that I have a better idea about things. 

You've got to be kidding?

Phoned my nurse today at 11.30am to see what was happening about an appointment I have been waiting for at Dumfries RI..... after a few minutes on hold I was told that I was expected at 2pm today and should have confirmed as soon as I got my letter, 'what letter' I asked..... 'did you not get one, oh that's typical, just one of those things I suppose, lucky you phoned'..... Yes it was very lucky I phoned or I would have missed the appointment and it would have shown as a 'Did Not Attend' on my records with the chances of it being followed up being very slim indeed... The joke is wearing thin now.....
— with NHS Dumfries & Galloway.