Homeward

I was sent home exactly one full week Post-Op. The span of those six days had felt like an entire lifetime, I had felt over a thousand emotions, traversed one side of the spectrum and back again, multiple times over. I desperately hoped that being back at home would bring me the real rest I desperately needed. I had dreamed all week of that feeling of unbridled freedom, heading out of hospital with a smile from ear to ear because I had defied all expectation and was far further down the road to recovery than was usual at that stage. However, when the release day finally arrived the experience couldn’t have been more different than the absolute polar opposite. In fact, Im not even sure letting me go that soon was even the best idea. It wasn’t going to get easier from there. It was only about to get a whole lot worse.

At 3am I woke up to go to the loo. as I came back to bed, I discovered the enormous wet patch on the sheets. my heart was in my mouth as my first assumption was that I hadnt woken soon enough to make it to the loo, but that was quickly put to rest when I realised how wet the dressing over my surgery wound was. I had to call in one of the night shift nurses to change the sheet, but I didn’t have the dressing changed so I was left with a soaked dressing for the rest of the night. There was no chance of getting back to sleep after that. I just couldnt get comfortable. By this time already I was starting to doubt if I would be released today, if my wound was leaking this badly it might not be such a good idea. however I wasnt sure of how much longer I could manage on that bed. I watched several more episodes of Desperate Romantics and a Channel 4 Documentary on the horrors of the Jeremy Kyle Show – and how it led to the suicide of one of its on screen guests – and watched as my room got gradually lighter and lighter.

by the time the shifts had swapped over and I had the first of the morning shift come to do their rounds at my room, the emotional weight had finally taken its toll and I had broken. I truly didnt think I would be going anywhere and that to send me away now that I was so vulnerable would probably be the worst possible plan. However, no one seemed to be concerned with the state my surgery wound was in, or the state my mental health was in either. I was going home that day whether I felt like it was a sensible plan or not.

I had the dressing changed on my surgery wound later into the morning, and with my emotional state the way it was, my pain threshold had been significantly lowered. just removing the sticky patch was catching on every inch of my skin, burning and stinging as it ripped away. I was then shown the wound with a mirror and I instantly felt sick. As I had suspected days earlier, I had been completely sewn up. the cheeks were closed shut and I didn’t even have a “crack” anymore. I wondered how the hell I was going to be able to sit again, how I would be able to do anything that involved having to stoop or squat, and right then it was constantly feeling like it was tearing apart with whatever minor move I made.

in the later morning I tried to get to my case and put on the clothes I had packed for my journey home, but I was devastated to discover that none of them fit. everything I had packed, a size bigger to count for swelling, wouldnt get above my hips. I had put on a whole 2 clothes sizes in just a week and I felt everything inside me sink to the floor. That was truly the last straw. All I wanted from that point was to drink wine and die. how could I have been saved to live as something so fat and ugly and utterly useless? at that point I wanted to be transferred to a mental health ward, but it seemed that the hospital had already washed its hands of me before I had even made it out of the door.

the care and understanding I had experienced right at the start was now all but gone. One nurse couldnt understand why I was so upset. I was about to go home, I should be all smiles and feelings of delight but all I felt was crushed, uncomfortable and in pain and utterly shameful at how big I had let myself get in just a matter of a week. I couldnt even look at myself, a dirty, sweaty mess in pyjamas with shoes. I never wanted to eat again. At that moment where I was still so desperate for support from another human, especially one that knew what they were doing, I was simply left. It was like I had been discharged and had gone back home already, not still lingering in my room, just waiting. it was like I wasnt their problem anymore so my pain and distress was allowed to go completely ignored. in undescribable agony, I somehow got my stuff into my case. there was no comfortable way I could sit or lie so I spent hours on my knees on the floor, leaning over the bed, just bawling as the hours came and went.

For all of their wanting to get rid of me, they seemed to take their time in actually making that happen. A whole five hours had passed with me being left to my own devices and it was starting to get dark. I managed to get on my feet and shuffle out into the corridor to try and find out what was going on, and the receptionist even wondered why the hell I was still here. she thought I had gone hours ago. finally, they got two porters to get me and my stuff out of the Ward and a taxi ordered to get me back home. Having to sit on my hip in the wheelchair I was pushed down into the reception area of the Hospital Concourse, my bags placed around me, and left. Again I waited. I started to get a dry mouth and wanted to get at my bottle of water but my legs had gone dead from how awkwardly I was having to sit. The call for the taxi I was expecting never came. Another hour or so had passed when a Nurse from my Ward spotted me on her way out at the end of her shift.

“What are you still doing here?? why haven’t you gone home yet??”

Apparently no taxi home had been called for, and for all I had been aware of that, I could have been left sitting there all night. This nurse managed to get hold of an empty taxi outside to take me home and I sort-of-lay-sort-of-sat on my side for the journey back. the driver showed little mercy with bumps and stops despite being told I was only six days out of surgery. red lights. tailbacks. speed bumps. it was like I was being thrown about at every opportunity. I was conscious enough despite the pain to know where I was, and to know that he was going in completely the wrong direction. I had to tell him a few times before he realised what I was trying to say, and had somehow been given the idea that I lived on the opposite side of town to where I actually lived. When I was finally brought to my block of flats, I was dropped off and left. I had to call David through my intercom to ask him to get all my things – and me – up the stairs and into the Flat.

for what was supposed to have been such a joyous occasion, getting home was a trial in distress and neglect and was utterly traumatizing. I know that Hospitals and their staff have been cut down to the bone and they can barely cope with the numbers of people they are charged with caring for, especially after a global pandemic, but surely not to such an extent as this? I had just had my life saved, and yet my life – and me – seemed like garbage to be discarded as quickly as possible.