Take two - antibiotics and anaesthetic.
When I got to hospital, I was put on a drip. Antibiotics were pumped through my body. For the entire night and day, I waited restlessly for the second operation. There was nothing else for me to think about. I just had to wait. Finally at about 7.30pm I was prepped for surgery. This time was much harder. I'd been waiting for this all day.
They wheeled me right into the operating theatre. Moving me onto the operating table. Aren’t they going to give me the anaesthetic now, I anxiously wondered? The table was narrow and hard. If I had moved, I would have fallen off. To add to my fears, I suddenly realised I had worn the wrong underwear. A lacy pair you could see right through. It was too late to worry about this now. Besides I’m sure they had seen worse. The surgeons prepped around me. I lay helplessly on the operating table in my lacy underwear.
All of a sudden, alarms started to sound. Trolleys rushed around me. Tension in the air heightened. I could feel the panic. An emergency code blue was called. The six or so doctors fled my operating theatre. This left the anaesthetist, one other girl and me. My anaesthetist explained to me that he should go to assist as well. The look on my face must have been shear horror. The girl explained that she would stay with me. Not that I could have gone anywhere. If I had moved a muscle I would have fallen off the table. Anxiety had been building through out the day and now this. I think my heart rate must have increased by about 40 beats per minute. I was on the verge of panic mode.
Soon everyone returned. No one said a thing; they just got on with their preparation. I was curious, but they acted as though nothing had happened. I wished they would hurry up and give me the anaesthetic. My anaesthetist then explained that the patient in the next operating theatre was having some problems. “There were some problems with his anaesthetic,” he said. My eyes must have jumped out of my head and my heart rate increased again. A needle was pushed into my hand, filling my veins with a cool fluid. It helped me relax. Again I tried to fight the anaesthetic and again I couldn’t. I let it have me. I was tired.
Again I flashed in and out of a dream before completely realising where I was. My leg was heavy. Strapped in half a plaster cast. This is called a back strap. It was late when I returned to the ward. The build up and anxiety of the day had got the better of me and I was out like a light. Sleeping wasn’t easy in hospital. My leg pined me down. Getting comfortable was difficult. Every four hours the nurse would wake me to refill the antibiotics and take my blood pressure. After this it would take me forever to get back to sleep.
My doctor returned in the morning to explain how the operation had gone. Apparently the wound was quite infected. So infected that he couldn’t stitch it closed. Underneath the back strap and bandages the back of my ankle was an open wound. I could see my Achilles if I looked hard enough. This felt a little strange. All of Friday was spent being filled with antibiotics again. They would operate again on Saturday morning.
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