"Gallbladder Op"

I received a call from admissions to say they could bring my op forward by 2 weeks. Great I thought, so I turned up as instructed to at 7am on the day. Only then to be told I was on a second list and may not be seen until the afternoon but they would let me know.

The seal unit was utter caos, patients flying in and out of the waiting room to have a flying conversation with consultants and aneathsatists to discuss the op. They couldn’t give me a time as to when I would go down as they hadn’t worked out the order yet. The nurse quickly jabbed me with a blood thinning injection and taking blood from me which left me with a lump and bruise.

I didn’t actually go down for my op until after 4pm having had no liquids since the night before and the nurse said ahh best off not having any now anyway.

I got down to theatre and couldn’t fault the team they made me feel so at ease especially one member of staff.

After my op I woke up again and I can’t fault them they made me feel reassured and cared for.

I got back to the recovery day until and was told I could go home as long as I had eaten, got up out of bed and had a wee. I found myself pressured to do all of these and was the last patient. I could hear all the staff complaining as they wanted to go home. I came out of the toilet saying I couldn’t wee and they said if I didn’t I would have to be admitted that’s if they had a bed for me. The nurse was now not impressed that she had to stay to find me a bed and another nurse commented it was cruel to send me home and also that her colleague had to stay later whilst I recovered on the day unit as technically they were closed and should have never sent me down to theatre so late.

The porter who came to get me from the day unit up to ward 18 was so lovely he said to the nurse are you not coming with us to do the handover upstairs. She said no I’m not I finished ages ago not my problem now I’m chucking her out! When I got up to ward 18 the nurse was brilliant, she introduced herself and made me feel welcome by offering my something to eat and drink as well as doing obs. She helped me to the toilet only then to find bowls upon bowls of sick stacked up on the side, absolutely disgusting and I think the staff were a bit embarrassed. I had to go into another toilet, not what you want when you have just had surgery and fresh wombs my first thought was infection!

Throughout the evening I couldn’t sleep and the nurses were brilliant and attentive when I called them for pain relief or to make me more comfortable. The next morning I was told I could go home later that day. It got to about 2pm and the nurse said I could go home but that they were still waiting for my medication so her advice was to go home and for my partner to call about 6pm to see if they were ready. So he did and they weren’t and was told again to call at 10pm by this point I would have gone 8 hours without any pain relief. Again pockets of good but overall disappointed and over run staff!