"Surgery Experience"

I was due to have elective bowel surgery, so on the run up to my procedure, I was in touch with the fantastic and very caring colorectal nurses, who forewarned me of possible implications and let me know that the plan was to stay for up to five days in hospital and meet with the physios, colorectal nurses, and pain team afterwards.

I was called at 8pm the night before and asked to go to Day Surgery instead of to the ward, but that I’d then be an inpatient on the ward after my operation as planned.

The morning of was very rushed, I didn’t get to see my surgeon at all, and it was recommended that I go home after four hours of my general anaesthetic, for which I hadn’t prepared my family, so there was a lot of rushing and phone calls to try to get me home and cared for.

The day surgery nurses seemed to know nothing about what I was in for, and then once I’d been asked to call family to collect me, I felt unwell, so was on oxygen with my legs elevated moments before being carted out to the car, completely feeling the after affects of pain medications and the general anaesthetic which I’d had only a couple of hours prior.

There were clearly no beds available, and the stay was planned very poorly. The entire thing was rushed and I felt that I was on a conveyer belt out of the door.

I understand if the hospital was full (although this is an assumption and no one actually said this to me), but I felt that no one actually wanted to admit this to me, and that made me feel that I had missed out on potential care, which I’d have received if I’d been an inpatient. Once I was out of sight, I was out of mind and unmonitored.

I was sent home with the wrong dressings and no pain relief because there was no doctor around to prescribe it, and told to stop on my way home instead (which wasn’t appropriate given the fact that I could barely stand).

As a patient, it’s left me feeling undervalued and overlooked.