As you probably know I was discharged from hospital on Monday evening. It was supposed to be Tuesday, so how did I get out early? Let me tell you...
On Monday morning there was the big ward round as usual. Dr8 was back from his annual leave and I was pleased to see him. He couldn't believe how much better I was and the fact that so many of his patients had been discharged while he was away. "Perhaps I should go leave more often" he joked to me. "All of my patients get better while I am away!" Dr7 was also there as well as the Ward Manager, dietician and nutrition nurse.
Dr7 began by asking how my leg was. (It had been numb from the local anaesthetic injected into my spine during Fridays procedure but had improved by Saturday morning.) We reviewed what had been done during the procedure, how my hydration and nutrition was and my pain levels. To be honest, everything had vastly improved. The pain was still gone, I was able to eat more of a variety of foods although it still has to be little and often, and I haven't needed as much TPN as I had in the past. Skirting around the issue of going home I asked Dr7 what he thought his clinical involvement remained to be and he admitted that I could probably be managed as an out patient. How did I feel about that? he asked me.
Of course I was pleased. I desperately wanted to go home but there was also some reticence as I wondered if the pain really was gone. The fear of it rearing up again was there at the back of my mind. I guess I couldn't believe that it could really be gone. Just like that.
"So I can go home?" I asked Dr7. He nodded. "When you feel ready to go". I decided that I would go the following day. It gave me the opportunity to see the surgical team and the anaesthetist on their ward rounds and also a chance for me to get my head around the fact that I would be going home to Hubby and the kids. Dr7 was happy with that and asked the Ward Manager to start preparing all the discharge papers and TTA's (the To Take Away medications, ie your prescription needs to be sent to the pharmacy for them to get them all ready)
Shortly after that team had left Surgeon B came to see me. She quizzed me as to how I was feeling and seemed satisfied that her job was done. Because I was a bit groggy from the anaesthetic on Friday when she came to see me I asked her to explain what she had actually done during the procedure. She told me that the lump that Surgeon C had felt did in fact contain an undissolved stitch from my surgery in July 2013 and that had caused an area of inflammation that she cut out. Her opinion was that this stitch had trapped a nerve and was moving when my pelvic floor muscles contracted, causing the agonising pains. She believed that having removed the stitch I should be fine in the future. Relieved to know exactly what had been done I shook her hand and thanked her before she left.
Lying on the bed, pondering stitches in bottoms and whether really it was as simple as that to be pain free going forward, the anaethatist arrived with one of the specialist pain nurses. He asked about my leg, admitting he was slightly perturbed when Dr7 had rang him on Friday to say that it was numb and I was unable to put any weight on it. Bloody brilliant! I knew that I shouldn't have let them do anything with my spine and had not really wanted the spinal injection but at the time I was desperate for the pain to end so I would have agreed to pretty much anything. He said he felt that I must have scar tissue from the spinal surgeries (er, no shit Sherlock!) and that it was probably more on the right which meant that more of the anaesthetic went to the left side causing the numbness.
He felt that it was a direct result of the injection that my pain had subsided, not necessarily as a result of anything the surgeons had done. When I told him that Surgeon B felt that it was as a result of the stitch he told me that Surgeon B hadn't even been in the theatre. "Are you sure?" I asked him. She's just been to see me I told him and said that she cut an area out of my rectum so surely she must have been there. No, it was Surgeon C he told me. "Oh no, you're right. Surgeon B did pop in for 10 minutes- she must have done it then." My idea of a closed sterile theatre room is fast fading after seeing Surgeon C with her coffee cup and handbag and the fact that surgeons seem to just pop in and out of theatres at random. It's not like that on the tele is it?
Anyway, he said that if the pain relief was a result of the injection then its effect would wear off and its likely that the pain would come back. That's not something that I really want to think about as the pain was so awful I don't know how I would cope if it returned. At the moment I'm happy to believe it was the stitch causing all the pain and that I'm cured as anything else is too much to think about. Because that would mean pain and going back into hospital and I really, really want to think that when I go home then I will stay there.
So the surgeons are claiming credit for my pain free status, the anaesthetist thinks it's his victory and I'm pretty sure Dr7 still thinks that I am ever so slightly barking mad but I don't care. The pain is gone and I am going home! Surgeon C popped in and was pleased that I was doing well and planning to go home. She hoped that the stitch removal would solve the problems but did say that should I encounter problems in the future she would get her thinking cap back on to see what else she could do for me. It's amazing really that after all those weeks of asking to see a surgeon I then find myself tripping over them! Funnily enough though Surgeon 1 never showed his face at any point during my 5 week stay, nor did he send any of his team. Maybe he knew that the vaginal repair was the route of all the problems all along and kept his distance for fear of retribution. Or maybe he really doesn't give a damn. Who knows?
After the ward rounds were over Sarah and I went for our daily trip to the shops and had a nosey around WH Smiths and the bric a brak stall that was at the back of Costa that day. I wanted to get a birthday card but after Smiths wanted to charge £3.99 for a standard card we went to the Friends shop instead. Honestly, £3.99 is an absolute rip off, just like most of the things in that shop. It's wrong that they ramp the prices up in hospitals knowing that patients are unable to go out and therefore have no choice but to pay the prices.I picked up a few little thank you cards up in the League of Friends shop too as there were a few people like the Charge nurse and Ward Manager that I would want to thank before going home.
Back on the ward I worked away on the cross stitch a card for Dr8. He had asked me to do him the crest of his football team, Hamburg FC and not thinking I would be goimg home so soon I hadn't even started it. Although it was a simple flag design it still took me nearly 6 hours to complete but I wanted to do it as Dr8 had been really good to me and I was grateful for the care he had given me and the chats that we had had. I sent my thank you message to my friend in Germany for her to translate as I thought it would be nice to write it in German for him and my schoolgirl German didn't stretch to what I wanted to write.
As the afternoon wore on I found myself sitting on my bed in the ward wishing that Tuesday would hurry up and come. I had spoken to the Ward Manager about making sure my TTAs were on the ward by midday on Tuesday as I wanted to leave at 12.30 to make the afternoon performance of Big Girl's Easter play at school. I started thinking of Hubby and the kids and the thought of going home, along with reflecting over the last 5 weeks (and 9 months) anc it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I started crying and found that I couldn't stop. But I couldn't really explain why I was crying. I was pleased to be going home, albeit a bit frightened of re-entering the big, bad world again.
I blubbed my way through my dinner and by this point I had pulled my curtains round as I didn't want anyone to see me crying and ask what was wrong as I couldn't tell them. About 6.15pm, from behind the curtains I heard the Ward Manager send one of the Heathcare assistants to pharmacy to collect my medication. I started thinking. If my medication was ready, and I wanted to go home, why the hell was I staying another night? I wanted to get home so badly, yet I was the one that asked to stay until Tuesday. Why had I done that? I thought. I must be bloody mad to stay for any longer than absolutely necessary.
"If my medication is here, does that mean I could go home tonight?" I asked the ward manager? "Well, yes, I guess" she replied. That got me thinking. I wanted to go home. I needed to go home. So I rang Hubby. He answered the phone to me blubbering (again!) while doing the ironing (he has become quite domesticated whilst I've been ill!). "Come and get me please" I managed to get out between the sobs. There was a stunned silence at the end of the phone. "Come and get me please. I want to go home" I tell him. There is no doubt that he was shocked. He asked if the doctors had said it was OK and could I not just wait until tomorrow. But I think that my insistence, coupled with the crying told him that I wanted to go home. And I didn't want to wait until Tuesday!
OK, he said. He put Big Girl on the phone. "Get your shoes on please" I told her. She asked why and when I told her that she needed to come and get me from the hospital and bring me home she started shouting and cheering and I could hear her jumping about. "Big Fella, Mum's got something to tell you" she said, passing him the telephone. When I told him the same thing he asked if I was coming home for good? I hope so mate I told him. "How long is 'for good' before you get poorly and have to go back to hospital though Mum?" he asked innocently. That broke my heart. The fact that he didn't believe that I would be home to stay was so upsetting but you could hardly blame him. Since May I have not managed to stay at home for more than 2 weeks following a hospital discharge before getting ill and needing to go back in, so of course it was logical that he thought that would happen this time. The trouble is I don't know if I am going to be home for good, or if I will be back in again, but I really hope that this might be it this time. Maybe, just maybe, I am finally sorted out.
So Hubby was on his way and I needed to pack. As I started to pack away the sum contents of my life over the last 5 weeks Dr7 and Dr8 came to see me. The ward manager had told him I wanted to go home and she wanted to check that he was happy with it, which of course he was. Surprised by my sudden decision to go, but happy to send me on my way. "You've not had an easy time, this time in here" Dr7 said to me "and I've not made it any easier for you. I'm really sorry for that."
Wow. I couldn't believe it. He was apologising, and not in the way he had in the meeting. I felt that in the meeting he knew he wasn't getting out of the room until I had received an apology but this time he came to me, I hadn't brought the issue up and he seemed genuinely humble. "It's water under the bridge now" I told him. "I'm better and I'm going home and that's all that matters." We both smiled and I knew that I had put the matter to bed once and for all. Yes, he had been completely wrong by suggesting that the pain was in my head, and yes, the way he told me was unpleasant, but at the end of the day he's only human. On that day he made a clinical decision based on what he thought at the time, based on the tests and the evidence he had. He was wrong. I knew all along he was wrong but it took a few surgeons to prove it to him. It takes a big man to say sorry. He's a doctor, not a god. He can't be right all the time...that's my job!
We shook hands and I said my goodbyes to him and Dr8. I was gutted as I wanted to give Dr8 his card but my friend hadn't come back to me with the translation. "I guess you didn't get chance to do my crest?" Dr8 said to me "Bring it when you come to clinic in a few weeks" I didn't tell him that I had done it as I hadn't been able to write my message.
'I'm going home in 1 hour' I typed in a What's app message to my German friend 'please can I have the translation if you can do it?' I didn't know if she was still at work or even whether she would see my message before Hubby arrived to take me home. As I waited for her to get back to me I went down to WH Smiths to get a bottle of squash and some toffees as a little thank you gift for Dr8. I finished packing my bags and was just about to go and get my bits out of the day room fridge when the translation started to come through, sentence by sentence on what's app. Just then Dr8 walked past with his bag, on his way home. "Dr8" I called "Can you wait 2 minutes? I have something for you." And as quickly as I received the messages I was copying them into his card.
When I gave him the squash and toffees he laughed. He put the card into his coat pocket and we said goodbye once again. He left and I went back to my bed to wait for Hubby to arrive. A few minutes later Dr8 returned and called me out into the corridor. "All this time and you didn't tell me you could speak German?!" Looking sheepish I shook my head and he asked if I had used Google translate. I had to admit that whilst I had a basic grasp of German, my friend had translated it for me. He laughed and thanked me for the cross stitched crest and we hugged. I really liked Dr8. He genuinely cared for his patients, probably more than is healthy for him, and I enjoyed speaking with him. It's just a shame that we had to meet in the Doctor/patient relationship as he is someone that I would have liked to get to know better if we had met in the real world.
And then 10 minutes later I heard the familar patter of feet running down the ward corridor and I rushed to embrace them. I don't know who was more excited; me or the kids? Hubby couldn't believe the amount of bags there were to take home. It is amazing how much stuff you accumalte over the weeks (especially with the M&S man and all the other shops at the back of Costa every day!) He made a trip to the car with the first lot of bags while I said goodbye to everyone. I gave the Charge nurse his card and the ward manager hers. Given my sudden decision to go home I hadn't had the opportunity to get them a bottle of wine or anything so I had gotten them a lottery ticket and put it in the card. I wonder if they won anything?
In the Ward Managers card I wrote 'thank you for ALWAYS believing that the pain was in my bum and never in my head'. When she read that she started to cry and she gave me a massive hug. You do form very strong bonds not only with other patients but with the nursing staff and although you are happy to go home in a way you are sad that you are leaving them. I guess they kind of become your family in a way while you're in hospital for long periods of time and because they're looking after you on a 24/7 basis you trust them and spend a lot of time in their company.
I said goodbye to Sarah, giving her all my magazines and my shower gel. "Think of me while you're washing" I joked with her. Although I had only known her a short while I think she's going to be someone that I will keep in touch with. Hopefully we will be able to meet up, in the real world, in real clothes and not pjs!
And then I left. Going down the lifts I cried. I went and said goodbye to my friend on Fredrick Salmon ward while Hubby got the kids in the car and then I walked out of the hospital, into the fresh air. I took a deep breath. I was going home. I was going home! As I got into the car I started to cry again. "Mummy are you sad?" Big Fella asked me "Why are you crying?". "I'm very happy" I told him. And we drove away, the hospital fading into the background. We drove past poo corner for what is hopefully the last time and before I knew it, we were home.
Feeling drained, physically and emotionally, I ignored the dishes that needed washing, I ignored the bags that needed unpacking, I ignored everything and wearily climbed the stairs. I normally like to have clean sheets on the bed for when I get out of hospital and Hubby was apologising that he hadn't had chance to do it because of my suprise homecoming, but I didn't care. I climbed into bed and the kids got in for snuggle time. Within minutes I must have been asleep, relieved and so very happy to be at home, in my own bed with my 3 favourite people in the whole wide world.
So there you have it. My coming home story. Sorry it's taken a few days to type up but I have been so busy having quality time with Hubby and the kids, watching Easter plays, doing homework and just taking time to rest that I haven't been able to do it until now. Fingers crossed this is the last coming home story that I have to post. I'm not holding my breath but I am praying that it will be.
NB x
On Monday morning there was the big ward round as usual. Dr8 was back from his annual leave and I was pleased to see him. He couldn't believe how much better I was and the fact that so many of his patients had been discharged while he was away. "Perhaps I should go leave more often" he joked to me. "All of my patients get better while I am away!" Dr7 was also there as well as the Ward Manager, dietician and nutrition nurse.
Dr7 began by asking how my leg was. (It had been numb from the local anaesthetic injected into my spine during Fridays procedure but had improved by Saturday morning.) We reviewed what had been done during the procedure, how my hydration and nutrition was and my pain levels. To be honest, everything had vastly improved. The pain was still gone, I was able to eat more of a variety of foods although it still has to be little and often, and I haven't needed as much TPN as I had in the past. Skirting around the issue of going home I asked Dr7 what he thought his clinical involvement remained to be and he admitted that I could probably be managed as an out patient. How did I feel about that? he asked me.
Of course I was pleased. I desperately wanted to go home but there was also some reticence as I wondered if the pain really was gone. The fear of it rearing up again was there at the back of my mind. I guess I couldn't believe that it could really be gone. Just like that.
"So I can go home?" I asked Dr7. He nodded. "When you feel ready to go". I decided that I would go the following day. It gave me the opportunity to see the surgical team and the anaesthetist on their ward rounds and also a chance for me to get my head around the fact that I would be going home to Hubby and the kids. Dr7 was happy with that and asked the Ward Manager to start preparing all the discharge papers and TTA's (the To Take Away medications, ie your prescription needs to be sent to the pharmacy for them to get them all ready)
Shortly after that team had left Surgeon B came to see me. She quizzed me as to how I was feeling and seemed satisfied that her job was done. Because I was a bit groggy from the anaesthetic on Friday when she came to see me I asked her to explain what she had actually done during the procedure. She told me that the lump that Surgeon C had felt did in fact contain an undissolved stitch from my surgery in July 2013 and that had caused an area of inflammation that she cut out. Her opinion was that this stitch had trapped a nerve and was moving when my pelvic floor muscles contracted, causing the agonising pains. She believed that having removed the stitch I should be fine in the future. Relieved to know exactly what had been done I shook her hand and thanked her before she left.
Lying on the bed, pondering stitches in bottoms and whether really it was as simple as that to be pain free going forward, the anaethatist arrived with one of the specialist pain nurses. He asked about my leg, admitting he was slightly perturbed when Dr7 had rang him on Friday to say that it was numb and I was unable to put any weight on it. Bloody brilliant! I knew that I shouldn't have let them do anything with my spine and had not really wanted the spinal injection but at the time I was desperate for the pain to end so I would have agreed to pretty much anything. He said he felt that I must have scar tissue from the spinal surgeries (er, no shit Sherlock!) and that it was probably more on the right which meant that more of the anaesthetic went to the left side causing the numbness.
He felt that it was a direct result of the injection that my pain had subsided, not necessarily as a result of anything the surgeons had done. When I told him that Surgeon B felt that it was as a result of the stitch he told me that Surgeon B hadn't even been in the theatre. "Are you sure?" I asked him. She's just been to see me I told him and said that she cut an area out of my rectum so surely she must have been there. No, it was Surgeon C he told me. "Oh no, you're right. Surgeon B did pop in for 10 minutes- she must have done it then." My idea of a closed sterile theatre room is fast fading after seeing Surgeon C with her coffee cup and handbag and the fact that surgeons seem to just pop in and out of theatres at random. It's not like that on the tele is it?
Anyway, he said that if the pain relief was a result of the injection then its effect would wear off and its likely that the pain would come back. That's not something that I really want to think about as the pain was so awful I don't know how I would cope if it returned. At the moment I'm happy to believe it was the stitch causing all the pain and that I'm cured as anything else is too much to think about. Because that would mean pain and going back into hospital and I really, really want to think that when I go home then I will stay there.
So the surgeons are claiming credit for my pain free status, the anaesthetist thinks it's his victory and I'm pretty sure Dr7 still thinks that I am ever so slightly barking mad but I don't care. The pain is gone and I am going home! Surgeon C popped in and was pleased that I was doing well and planning to go home. She hoped that the stitch removal would solve the problems but did say that should I encounter problems in the future she would get her thinking cap back on to see what else she could do for me. It's amazing really that after all those weeks of asking to see a surgeon I then find myself tripping over them! Funnily enough though Surgeon 1 never showed his face at any point during my 5 week stay, nor did he send any of his team. Maybe he knew that the vaginal repair was the route of all the problems all along and kept his distance for fear of retribution. Or maybe he really doesn't give a damn. Who knows?
After the ward rounds were over Sarah and I went for our daily trip to the shops and had a nosey around WH Smiths and the bric a brak stall that was at the back of Costa that day. I wanted to get a birthday card but after Smiths wanted to charge £3.99 for a standard card we went to the Friends shop instead. Honestly, £3.99 is an absolute rip off, just like most of the things in that shop. It's wrong that they ramp the prices up in hospitals knowing that patients are unable to go out and therefore have no choice but to pay the prices.I picked up a few little thank you cards up in the League of Friends shop too as there were a few people like the Charge nurse and Ward Manager that I would want to thank before going home.
Back on the ward I worked away on the cross stitch a card for Dr8. He had asked me to do him the crest of his football team, Hamburg FC and not thinking I would be goimg home so soon I hadn't even started it. Although it was a simple flag design it still took me nearly 6 hours to complete but I wanted to do it as Dr8 had been really good to me and I was grateful for the care he had given me and the chats that we had had. I sent my thank you message to my friend in Germany for her to translate as I thought it would be nice to write it in German for him and my schoolgirl German didn't stretch to what I wanted to write.
As the afternoon wore on I found myself sitting on my bed in the ward wishing that Tuesday would hurry up and come. I had spoken to the Ward Manager about making sure my TTAs were on the ward by midday on Tuesday as I wanted to leave at 12.30 to make the afternoon performance of Big Girl's Easter play at school. I started thinking of Hubby and the kids and the thought of going home, along with reflecting over the last 5 weeks (and 9 months) anc it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I started crying and found that I couldn't stop. But I couldn't really explain why I was crying. I was pleased to be going home, albeit a bit frightened of re-entering the big, bad world again.
I blubbed my way through my dinner and by this point I had pulled my curtains round as I didn't want anyone to see me crying and ask what was wrong as I couldn't tell them. About 6.15pm, from behind the curtains I heard the Ward Manager send one of the Heathcare assistants to pharmacy to collect my medication. I started thinking. If my medication was ready, and I wanted to go home, why the hell was I staying another night? I wanted to get home so badly, yet I was the one that asked to stay until Tuesday. Why had I done that? I thought. I must be bloody mad to stay for any longer than absolutely necessary.
"If my medication is here, does that mean I could go home tonight?" I asked the ward manager? "Well, yes, I guess" she replied. That got me thinking. I wanted to go home. I needed to go home. So I rang Hubby. He answered the phone to me blubbering (again!) while doing the ironing (he has become quite domesticated whilst I've been ill!). "Come and get me please" I managed to get out between the sobs. There was a stunned silence at the end of the phone. "Come and get me please. I want to go home" I tell him. There is no doubt that he was shocked. He asked if the doctors had said it was OK and could I not just wait until tomorrow. But I think that my insistence, coupled with the crying told him that I wanted to go home. And I didn't want to wait until Tuesday!
OK, he said. He put Big Girl on the phone. "Get your shoes on please" I told her. She asked why and when I told her that she needed to come and get me from the hospital and bring me home she started shouting and cheering and I could hear her jumping about. "Big Fella, Mum's got something to tell you" she said, passing him the telephone. When I told him the same thing he asked if I was coming home for good? I hope so mate I told him. "How long is 'for good' before you get poorly and have to go back to hospital though Mum?" he asked innocently. That broke my heart. The fact that he didn't believe that I would be home to stay was so upsetting but you could hardly blame him. Since May I have not managed to stay at home for more than 2 weeks following a hospital discharge before getting ill and needing to go back in, so of course it was logical that he thought that would happen this time. The trouble is I don't know if I am going to be home for good, or if I will be back in again, but I really hope that this might be it this time. Maybe, just maybe, I am finally sorted out.
So Hubby was on his way and I needed to pack. As I started to pack away the sum contents of my life over the last 5 weeks Dr7 and Dr8 came to see me. The ward manager had told him I wanted to go home and she wanted to check that he was happy with it, which of course he was. Surprised by my sudden decision to go, but happy to send me on my way. "You've not had an easy time, this time in here" Dr7 said to me "and I've not made it any easier for you. I'm really sorry for that."
Wow. I couldn't believe it. He was apologising, and not in the way he had in the meeting. I felt that in the meeting he knew he wasn't getting out of the room until I had received an apology but this time he came to me, I hadn't brought the issue up and he seemed genuinely humble. "It's water under the bridge now" I told him. "I'm better and I'm going home and that's all that matters." We both smiled and I knew that I had put the matter to bed once and for all. Yes, he had been completely wrong by suggesting that the pain was in my head, and yes, the way he told me was unpleasant, but at the end of the day he's only human. On that day he made a clinical decision based on what he thought at the time, based on the tests and the evidence he had. He was wrong. I knew all along he was wrong but it took a few surgeons to prove it to him. It takes a big man to say sorry. He's a doctor, not a god. He can't be right all the time...that's my job!
We shook hands and I said my goodbyes to him and Dr8. I was gutted as I wanted to give Dr8 his card but my friend hadn't come back to me with the translation. "I guess you didn't get chance to do my crest?" Dr8 said to me "Bring it when you come to clinic in a few weeks" I didn't tell him that I had done it as I hadn't been able to write my message.
'I'm going home in 1 hour' I typed in a What's app message to my German friend 'please can I have the translation if you can do it?' I didn't know if she was still at work or even whether she would see my message before Hubby arrived to take me home. As I waited for her to get back to me I went down to WH Smiths to get a bottle of squash and some toffees as a little thank you gift for Dr8. I finished packing my bags and was just about to go and get my bits out of the day room fridge when the translation started to come through, sentence by sentence on what's app. Just then Dr8 walked past with his bag, on his way home. "Dr8" I called "Can you wait 2 minutes? I have something for you." And as quickly as I received the messages I was copying them into his card.
When I gave him the squash and toffees he laughed. He put the card into his coat pocket and we said goodbye once again. He left and I went back to my bed to wait for Hubby to arrive. A few minutes later Dr8 returned and called me out into the corridor. "All this time and you didn't tell me you could speak German?!" Looking sheepish I shook my head and he asked if I had used Google translate. I had to admit that whilst I had a basic grasp of German, my friend had translated it for me. He laughed and thanked me for the cross stitched crest and we hugged. I really liked Dr8. He genuinely cared for his patients, probably more than is healthy for him, and I enjoyed speaking with him. It's just a shame that we had to meet in the Doctor/patient relationship as he is someone that I would have liked to get to know better if we had met in the real world.
And then 10 minutes later I heard the familar patter of feet running down the ward corridor and I rushed to embrace them. I don't know who was more excited; me or the kids? Hubby couldn't believe the amount of bags there were to take home. It is amazing how much stuff you accumalte over the weeks (especially with the M&S man and all the other shops at the back of Costa every day!) He made a trip to the car with the first lot of bags while I said goodbye to everyone. I gave the Charge nurse his card and the ward manager hers. Given my sudden decision to go home I hadn't had the opportunity to get them a bottle of wine or anything so I had gotten them a lottery ticket and put it in the card. I wonder if they won anything?
In the Ward Managers card I wrote 'thank you for ALWAYS believing that the pain was in my bum and never in my head'. When she read that she started to cry and she gave me a massive hug. You do form very strong bonds not only with other patients but with the nursing staff and although you are happy to go home in a way you are sad that you are leaving them. I guess they kind of become your family in a way while you're in hospital for long periods of time and because they're looking after you on a 24/7 basis you trust them and spend a lot of time in their company.
I said goodbye to Sarah, giving her all my magazines and my shower gel. "Think of me while you're washing" I joked with her. Although I had only known her a short while I think she's going to be someone that I will keep in touch with. Hopefully we will be able to meet up, in the real world, in real clothes and not pjs!
And then I left. Going down the lifts I cried. I went and said goodbye to my friend on Fredrick Salmon ward while Hubby got the kids in the car and then I walked out of the hospital, into the fresh air. I took a deep breath. I was going home. I was going home! As I got into the car I started to cry again. "Mummy are you sad?" Big Fella asked me "Why are you crying?". "I'm very happy" I told him. And we drove away, the hospital fading into the background. We drove past poo corner for what is hopefully the last time and before I knew it, we were home.
Feeling drained, physically and emotionally, I ignored the dishes that needed washing, I ignored the bags that needed unpacking, I ignored everything and wearily climbed the stairs. I normally like to have clean sheets on the bed for when I get out of hospital and Hubby was apologising that he hadn't had chance to do it because of my suprise homecoming, but I didn't care. I climbed into bed and the kids got in for snuggle time. Within minutes I must have been asleep, relieved and so very happy to be at home, in my own bed with my 3 favourite people in the whole wide world.
So there you have it. My coming home story. Sorry it's taken a few days to type up but I have been so busy having quality time with Hubby and the kids, watching Easter plays, doing homework and just taking time to rest that I haven't been able to do it until now. Fingers crossed this is the last coming home story that I have to post. I'm not holding my breath but I am praying that it will be.
NB x
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