Well, it all started from being very sore on Tuesday night, I thought I had bad wind, food poisoning or the stomach bug that was going around, but on Wednesday I was fine.
On Thursday from 3 pm, my stomach was really starting to play up, I had dinner as normal, It was homemade Potatoes wedges.
But dinner didn’t help the pain ( as it normally might), it made it worse this time, I was in terrible pain from about 10 pm onwards.
My wife was on the phone to friends (she is not normally) who she hadn’t spoken to in ages, catching up and discussing our wedding plans.
From 11:00 pm-ish we went to the local 24 hrs after, hours A&E clinic in the city. I was assessed there first, the doctor was not happy with my condition, I was looking green and she wanted to admit me to the hospital straight away.
I went on an ambulance ride to the hospital about $80 later…
Where I was admitted to the emergency department with abdominal pains, bloating and green colouring.
At this point, it’s waiting for hours and they gave me pain medication.
I was in a lot of pain, all the pain relief they started to give me didn’t work. While in hospital you have to be very patient and it is just a waiting game. My wife stayed the night there from Thursday night to Friday afternoon with me. I was drugged up on pain medication and antibiotics (I was displaying signs of an infection being present) from A&E and all my stay while there. The pain didn’t want to go away they kept asking me on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the most painful pain I could tolerate and hurting all the time) I said mostly 9’s, it wasn’t until they gave me liquid paracetamol intravenous one time, then the pain went down.
I had a cat scan on Friday around Midday, then more waiting and more waiting.
My wife left in the afternoon to pick up her kids and bring them back to the hospital to be with me until 5.30pm.
I had to wait to get a diagnosis (I was bored) and play on my cell phone and sleep.
The Surgery team come by in the morning on Friday and said they could book surgery for the Thursday following and that my pain would go down, but that didn’t happen my temperature spiked, more about that later.
On Saturday my wife and kids and our close friend come by around 3.30 pm to visit which was nice. Her daughter brought in me some daffodils but it turns out you are not allowed fresh flowers in that ward, so she took them home again.
(Fresh flowers will NOT be accepted in ward – 10,11, 15,16,17,18,19,20,25,26,28,30,CHOC,Bone Marrow Unit, TW Unit and ICU Unit at Christchurch Public Hospital) source https://www.citywideflorist.co.nz
They left just at 4.30pm, on Saturday morning I had breakfast, which it turned out I wasn’t supposed to have because I was going to have an MRI scan, which was planned for the early afternoon. Which was then postponed till Sunday afternoon, so I had to wait.
I had a sandwich for a late dinner, as they didn’t decide till late in the afternoon that my MRI scan would be Sunday morning.
Around 11:30 pm I got moved up to 4 room in Ward 11, floor 3.
There is a lot of waiting around at the hospital due to short staff causing lots of business and hold-ups.
On Sunday morning no breakfast or lunch was allowed, then at about 12 noon, the surgeon told me that an MRI scan would happen this afternoon. I then had the MRI scan within half an hour. My wife arrived not long after I had the MRI scan at about 2pm , the surgeon then told me that I was going straight into surgery, I went into surgery at around 3.30pm.
My wife was there at the right time, as she saw me going in, it was supposed to take about 30-45 minutes, but it about 2 hours instead.
Before the surgery I went through all the checks, with more questions and signing of the permission forms, then I was taken into operating theatre number 8.
I was then knocked out with a general atheistic, and then I woke up sometime around 7:00 PM and taken up to my room at 7.30pm.
I was in the recovery area until about 7:30 pm and I remember waking up to beeps and a nurse saying do you want me to ring your wife, I think mumbled yes.
I got moved into a room still ward 11 room 6, a room by myself!!!! I didn’t even ask for a private room! So during my recovery, the room had an amazing view which I didn’t see until Monday morning.
My wife and her kids arrived later in the evening around 7pm I prayed with them before they left at about 8pm.
I had an early night with a nurse checking my obs and giving me medicine.
Tuesday morning came, I got breakfast after 7:30 am, I was allowed to Porridge, Soy milk and fruit, it was yum, my first decent meal since Saturday.
On Tuesday morning a doctor comes in with about 2 other doctors, not like the day before when there were about 10 people and the doctor in my room, all dressed in suits. I felt overwhelmed on Monday morning with the number of people in my small private room.
I asked the female doctor some questions about my medical Certificate, how much weight I was allowed to lift and what I was allowed to eat. Then I had another blood test ordered for the morning, just to check on the infection.
It was a long waiting game to get discharged, I had to wait for the blood test results to come back. And then finally, I got discharged and meet my wife and my stepdaughter outside at the main entrance, there is no parking at the hospital. For the rest of the week, I rested at home, I took one week off to recover before going back to Yooubee and work, I could have had longer but I needed to back into it.
I would like to thank all the Nurses, Doctors and ambulance people, my close friends and my family (especially my lovely wife) who looked after me and got me back to being healthy.
Steve Davis and Friend
