Last Monday night I started suffering really bad abdominal pain. I ended up in A&E but the symptoms passed off, so they sent me home and told me I had probably been passing (or trying to pass) a gall stone.
The following night I was admitted to hospital with the same symptoms, only much worse, and they wouldn't go away. Pain worse than anything I have ever experienced before, to the point of making me throw up just from pain. Anyway, after a few days of painkillers and antibiotics, I got a nice surgeon. The nurse told me "He's great. He's not supposed to operate on weekends but if he sees someone with gall bladder symptoms he just does it because the waiting list is 12 months". So on Saturday, in I went for surgery...
Thank goodness for that surgeon, because it turned out that my gall bladder was gangrenous, and if I hadn't had the op I would have been rushed in for emergency surgery this week with septicaemia and worse, and it could all have been life-threatening. The surgeon said my insides were "a mess". So I am a very lucky chappie, and very relieved to be out with just some bruising.
Here's me post-op. Don't say I didn't warn you!
The knee socks are actually compression stockings to prevent deep vein thrombosis, or so I'm told. Could have just been a nursing joke.
So I came home yesterday. I have dressings over two of the four keyhole wounds, and currently still have an abdominal drain in place to remove internal bleeding. Sneezing, coughing and yawing all hurt, and it will be a few weeks before I can drive, but basically the road to recovery starts here and the worst is over.
I just wanted to stick this up to say what a downright fantastic job the NHS staff at Neville Hall hospital in Abergavenny did, especially the surgeon Dr Muhamed, to whom I possibly owe my life.
Stay safe everyone. I wouldn't wish that amount of pain on anybody.
The following night I was admitted to hospital with the same symptoms, only much worse, and they wouldn't go away. Pain worse than anything I have ever experienced before, to the point of making me throw up just from pain. Anyway, after a few days of painkillers and antibiotics, I got a nice surgeon. The nurse told me "He's great. He's not supposed to operate on weekends but if he sees someone with gall bladder symptoms he just does it because the waiting list is 12 months". So on Saturday, in I went for surgery...
Thank goodness for that surgeon, because it turned out that my gall bladder was gangrenous, and if I hadn't had the op I would have been rushed in for emergency surgery this week with septicaemia and worse, and it could all have been life-threatening. The surgeon said my insides were "a mess". So I am a very lucky chappie, and very relieved to be out with just some bruising.
Here's me post-op. Don't say I didn't warn you!
![19743118715_e6dd7aa4e0_b.jpg](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/556/19743118715_e6dd7aa4e0_b.jpg)
The knee socks are actually compression stockings to prevent deep vein thrombosis, or so I'm told. Could have just been a nursing joke.
So I came home yesterday. I have dressings over two of the four keyhole wounds, and currently still have an abdominal drain in place to remove internal bleeding. Sneezing, coughing and yawing all hurt, and it will be a few weeks before I can drive, but basically the road to recovery starts here and the worst is over.
I just wanted to stick this up to say what a downright fantastic job the NHS staff at Neville Hall hospital in Abergavenny did, especially the surgeon Dr Muhamed, to whom I possibly owe my life.
Stay safe everyone. I wouldn't wish that amount of pain on anybody.