Wow! What happened there ....

So, Friday 19th October, wandered down into town for a lovely pot of tea and a chat with my super lovely friend Ali, back home and all of a sudden .. BLAM!... a massive pain right at the bottom of my stomach!
Really bad Ladies pains??? Hot water bottle, bit of a sit down???  Well that didn't work and by the time the littlies had got home from school I was waiting for the doctor to ring me ..
She slipped me in to see her and sent me straight away to A & E with a covering letter to the house surgeon!  X-rays and CT scans later and A&E decided I had ruptured some part of my intestines and air had got into spaces where it shouldn't be!  I was to be admitted (in lots of pain by now as my chest was hurting as well due to not eating ... I think these pains come from my lack of my gall bladder!) and kept under observation.
The next 12 days were a bit of a morphine, pain, sickness, blur! I was really scared, hated the nights, hated the constant sickness, the constant pain, the constant unhappiness of being in a horrible place away from my little family that I love so very much.
The nurses, don't get me wrong, were fantastic, caring, compassionate but oh so overworked .. when I was able to really watch what they were up to I marveled in their dedication. There are just not enough of them! I'd see them come on at the beginning of their 12 hour shift, watch them run themselves ragged, caring, really caring, for us in the bays then see them drag themselves off, sometimes nearly in tears of desperation, at the end. They truly were the Angels on the ward. Some nurses not so much, but, that's the way the cookies crumble! Then I'd see the junior doctors, lots of them, swanning in the corridors, looking like models and clumping round your bed .. laughing nervously at some crud comment made by the consultant, or swarming round the phlebotomist like bees round the honeypot, then walking away pleased as punch when given an 'easy vein' person to try out their 'skills' on! Squeals of excitement!  Ask them a grown up question about anything and they adopt the 'rabbits in headlights' look and say 'have to get back to you on that'! They never did, and they were rubbish at getting my blood! And in the same vein where was a doctor when you needed one ... a five hour wait the lady in the bed opposite me had when she was having a terrible time with all her drains and tubes .. then when he finally turned up, expected her to be lying waiting for him and got cross when she said she needed the loo!  Where do all these doctors go?!?!?!?
My consultant was fab, he did his rounds, checked me out, talked to me and seemed really caring, not so high, mighty and above us unwashed humans on really uncomfortable beds! So for that, I thank him!
His registrars or what every they are, were not so .. no easy language from them .. but, highly technical terms sprang from their lips like reciting the medical journal and when, while in a morphine drenched, nervous, scared, frightened state, he spoke me through my consent form I really didn't understand what I was consenting too! So you can imagine my utter degeneration into tears when in the anesthetics room being prepped for surgery my consultant came in and reiterated the three possible actions that might happen once they 'go in'! 
1) Exploration and out (keyhole) 
2) Exploration, finding something and open fully! (not keyhole!)
3) Exploration, finding something and open fully!..cut large intestine, join together via a bag! .....
"Sorry! What was number 3???   A bag?   What do you mean??"
"A bag that we leave on until the intestine is well enough to be joined properly .. usually stays on between 6~9 months! The Registrar told you didn't he?"
"Er no! .. I think I would have remembered that!"  ...  I'd heard all manner of horrid things about 'poo bags'.
"A stoma , he must have told you about it.. didn't he???"
So he checks the consent form ...
"He did .. it's there .. stoma ...."
"Yep, of course, a stoma, silly me, I should have know what one of those was!!!" I had thought it was like a stent but for the tummy area!
"We could get the stoma nurse to come and talk to you!" (Turns out the hospital hasn't got one!)
Anyway after that conversation I was taken back to my bay as something had broken down in the theatre!
About an hour or so later I was wheeled back ...
When I finally come round .. I ended up with option 2! For that I was so very thankful!

The consultant said I had a perforation of the sigmoid, probably secondary to diverticular abscess.

Sorry! Can't turn this round ~ should be top to bottom!!

Right, back in my bay and very sore now ... Really teary (thanks nurse Jacquie for all your great hugs!), drains, catheter, cannulas falling off both sides made every thing really difficult!
Each time another 'accessory' was taken off me I felt a tincy bit happier!
The drains were awful ... the pain rose with the diameter of the tube itself and I managed to get myself, quiet rightly so it turns out, into a terrible old state when it was time for my biggest and final drain to be pulled out!  That really was horrendous.. and I was sobbing on about why do they (the surgeons) put us through all this pain and discomfort and then not let us (the patient) take anything or anesthetise the area. The tube that was left in was so long I could feel it dragging through my stomach... it felt like it came from my toe!!!! Awful!
Each day I had to, much to the Littlies hilarity, monitor my stools and write it down on the Bristol Stool Form Scale! What a hoot!
Finally allowed home Thursday 1st November, the hospital took well over 9 hours to discharge me .. during which time me and hubby saw the nurses stretched to the extreme once again ... to me, it's quite scary the state the NHS had gotten in to!

Boy, was I glad to be home!

I want to dedicate this long post to my family and friends who came and cheerfully sat by my side, through my morphine induced ramblings when all I probably talked was rubbish!  Firstly, my really truly wonderful husband who was there every day, holding my hand, loving me with all his being, wishing I was anywhere but there.   My gorgeous Littlies, bless them, who tried to not look scared and who were shipped from pillar to post without complaint and who wanted hugs whenever they could!  My great friend Ali who's cheerful face and banter jogged me along on many a day and kept me up to date on all the gossip!..and her gorgeous daughter for her Get Well Soon card  xx ..  My Dad and Step mum who came from miles away, called nearly every day and who took the Littlies away for a fun couple of days. My SW friends, Linda & Jenny who snuck in SW bars, for when I was better, and good trashy magazines! LOL!
My lovely  Rita who wasn't gonna miss seeing how I was, but was gutted when a cold kept her away, we had lots of phone chats though.  My big sister who visited with her hubby and my beautiful niece, and waited patiently while I visited the toilet!!!   My wonderful in-laws who called my husband every day and who came to see me even though he hates hospitals and  my neighbour and friend who came bearing silly goodies to make me smile.

Remember .. these views are just how I saw it! xxx