Pain Beyond Words

The operation lasted 7 hours, the longest 7 hours of Fergus's life, When I woke up in the recovery room, I was feeling wonderful and high on all the pain meds! The first question I asked the nurse apparently was to check that the surgeon hadn't damaged my tattoo! Then I asked about how the surgery went!

I had no pain at all as I was completely numb from the top of the scar down. The scar started at the lower tip of my breastbone extended all the way down my abdomen. I had no sensation at all in my legs - I couldn't even move them. It was a very strange feeling but at least I was pain free. Unfortunately, this was to be short lived.

My blood pressure dropped over night as I was brought to the special care unit around 9pm. They had to turn off the epidural and push the intravenous fluids. I had drains (x3), catheters, cannulas, epidural taped to my back, oxygen, BP monitor, ECG leads, oxygen sat monitor, body warmer, leg circulation pumps.... I had never imagined I would be hooked up to so much! I can only imagine the fear Fergus must have felt when he saw me like that.

Over the course of the night, as the epidural wore off, the pain became excruciating. And as the dawn broke and the day staff came on, it became worse, I never knew the human body could endure so much pain and still remain conscious!

The epidural then  dislodged... they couldn't sit me up long enough to re-site it as my blood pressure was so low I used to just vomit and pass out. They tried a morphine pump but that made me vomit more.... as did the Fentanyl pump. Then, consultant anaesthetist, Dr Costello came and gave me two transabdominal nerve blocks. I'll never forget the size of the needles - they were at least 6 inches long and quite a wide bore. Yet the pain of them going through my sides, severe though it was, was a distracting relief!

Eventually, that night and a lot more injections later, Dr Eby came back to see me. He had been on his way back home to Dublin on the motorway and had rang his on-call colleague to see how I was doing. Hearing the distress I was in, he turned back at the nearest exit and decided he would re-site the epidural with me lying on my side. God bless that man - between him, and many prayers, a few hours later I felt a lot better and the vomiting and pain settled.  Poor Fergus was finally able to go home with some sense of relief.