Daycase Diary (Part One)

Ahh, glad to be back on the blogosphere after resting from my little operation.

My first-ever stint in a UK hospital went very well. I was what they call here a "daycase," meaning an outpatient.

I wish it could be said that I slept fitfully and in utter peace the night before my surgery, but I didn't. I kept disturbing O with all my tossing and turning, and I kept waking up at odd hours during the night, asking myself if it was time to go already. In my mind, I knew I trusted God to take care of me, and in my heart, I felt that He was really with me, but somehow my body wanted to get it all over and done with, and was anticipating the ride to hospital all night long.

The L&D hospital is on the other side of town from our house. We needed to take two buses to get there. O and E went with me, and I was more concerned for their safety and welfare as they waited for me in such an environment (hospital-acquired infection rates are notoriously high here in the UK) than I was about my own procedure.

My fears were unfounded, it turned out. Since my case falls under gynae, I was assigned to a bed (yes, even daycases here are given beds during their stay) in that ward, so the risk of O and E getting infected by the other gynae patients was very minimal. There was even a separate dayroom for patients and visitors, with several comfy couches and chairs, and a TV. I really gave thanks to God in my heart for allaying my concerns about O and E during my hospital stay.
The nursing staff on Ward 34 were very professional and pleasant, they gave me clear instructions and even interacted with E as he roamed the ward. Each bed had access to its own console (TV, phone, radio and internet), which you could pay for using a special prepaid hospital card. You could email and even play games on it! High-tech! The wards here are nothing like wards back home. You've got all the amenities, except for four walls to give you privacy. Of course, there are curtains to shield you all round but it's still different. If someone is thoughtless and inconsiderate enough to choose not to use the headphones to listen to the radio, as someone did during my stay, then the whole bay has to listen to it, as well.

The whole thing might've been enjoyable if not for the mandatory pre-operative fast. No food, no drink, not even a sip of water, hours before the surgery. And it was such a boiling hot day, too, a bad day to be off water, especially for a normally well-hydrated Pinay like me.

Finally, a ward nurse told me it was time to go. Wrapping myself up in my own dressing gown, as the hospital gown kept opening up at the back, I walked down with her, chatting about the current heatwave. As we emerged from the lift, she led me through the corridor into the waiting room outside the OR, which they call here as the Operating Theatre.

More on this tomorrow. I actually finished the whole daycase diary, writing the whole thing for the better part of two hours, but when I clicked on "Publish Post," Blogger asked me to sign in again, and I lost everything that came after this point... Makes me feel like crying, as I'm sure you understand. I mean, how stupid can I be not to save the whole thing on Word first, as I normally do, before I tried to publish it? Anyway, tomorrow I'll give it another go.