Easement

The first week out of hospital isn’t easy. T has cared for me tirelessly. But away from hospital you are left with your wound, your incapacity and your drugs. There is no doctor or nurse on hand to check you over when you are feeling strange. You are at the start of a long journey of recovery that will take many weeks. Most of the online advice seems to suggest that you should expect some initial setbacks.

My bed is comfortable but not in any way adjustable. On the first night we piled up all the pillows from the house and T carefully lowered me back against them. The slow descent was very painful. I gasped with relief when resting semi-upright against the pillows and managed to sleep for a few hours. I woke up stiff and in pain. T helped me up and I walked to the toilet to unstiffen my bones. I took a shot of morphine before she lowered me back against the pillows. This performance was repeated before morning and has been every night since.

T also has to help dress me. I can’t bend sideways or downwards. It is like being a child again. She holds my pants and trousers open for me and I put one leg in and then the other. I can put my top on myself but she has to put my socks on and do my laces up for me. After this I can get around the house alright. After breakfast I make myself walk for five minutes before I sit in the armchair, which I can just about get into and out of myself. Daytime TV is as bad as it was last year.

The pain in my ribs is always there, it rises and falls: sometimes a sharp stab or burning sensation, other times a grinding ache. Its constancy wears you down. The morphine only takes the edge off it. I’m very tired and sleep for a couple of hours each afternoon. I don’t have any energy or enthusiasm but I make myself go for little walks and do my breathing exercises. I also don’t have much appetite; I’m managing about half of what I would normally eat. Despite their challenges, all of these problems are to some degree anticipatable or normal for the situation I am in.

The problem with my guts was different and worrying. Since the operation I have been very bloated with cramping in my bowels. Despite taking four packets of laxatives a day, I had not passed anything, not even wind since I was discharged. Indeed, the only bowel motion I’d had at all was due to an enema in the Royal and felt very abnormal. I’d had enemas prior to discharge on each of my previous times in hospital. They had followed the same pattern. The enema softened an impacted stool and induced cramping and convulsions in your rectum sufficient to pass it. After the log was gone the bowels began to work normally. But this time there had been no impacted stool, just minor cramping and a small amount of diarrhoea.

During the surgery my stomach and bowels had been moved from my thorax into my abdomen. This meant that there was the potential for some obstruction. The symptoms for a partial obstruction were those that I was having. After several days the bloating and cramping became worse. We went to see the GP. She felt and sounded my abdomen. She wasn’t sure whether there was an obstruction or not and sent me for an X-ray.

I had the X-ray done at a shiny new health centre in Banbridge on Friday. The pictures were sent to Craigavon Hospital marked ‘urgent’. By the end of the day the GP rang to say no report had come through. She advised us to go to A&E if my symptoms got worse over the weekend. On Sunday I was more bloated and crampy. T rang the Out of Hours service. They asked me to come in that evening for an examination at Daisy Hill Hospital. The doctor gave me a cursory glance and a quick prod without using her stethoscope and sent me away with gelatine suppositories.

I woke early on Monday morning in more pain. We decided to go to A&E at Craigavon. Arriving at 9am, the waiting room was fairly empty and I was attended to quickly. They checked my X-ray and told me there was no obstruction visible. They said that my colon was full two thirds of the way around, but my rectum was empty. So the enema in the Royal had only shifted a little of the constipation. They said another enema wouldn’t help and I would have to increase the dose of laxatives and that eventually this would work. The source of the problem was the morphine, which had the side effect of slowing my bowels almost to a standstill.

Reassured we went home. I took more laxatives and waited. Later on I had a semi-normal bowel motion. After thirteen days it felt so good to have my normal functions restored. As the bloating and cramping began to reduce, my mind turned to the grand medieval toilet I had seen at a ruined monastery near York. The monks had diverted a stream and built several dozen stone seats back-to-back over it. As far as ancient toilets go, it was an advanced design complete with running water. The building was called the House of Easement.