Thursday 12th February - Day of the Operation

Having been thinking about anything other than the operation, the big day has come round pretty quickly. I woke up at 6:22 just in time to be able to breakfast on a couple slices of toast before the 6:30 cut off. Ignorance and my refusal to think about the operation have completely turned around. Now, I can’t get it out of my mind and feel very nervous. I packed my things including my laptop in the vein hope of internet access to relieve my boredom and to write this. Sophia drove me to the hospital at 11 and I’m told that there won’t be much hanging around; the operation is scheduled for 12:30! After signing various documentation and answered many questions the anaesthetist and Dr Ware briefly visited. Within moments it was time to be taken down to theatre.

Previous experience of general anaesthesia still does not prepare you for the bizarre sensation as the ice cold medication courses through your veins. Within seconds you feel drowsy and a further 5 seconds later, you are out cold. Perhaps the most bizarre experience is when you come round from the operation. Flitting from sleep to periods of alertness, you know the operation is over but have little interest in the result. To a certain extent, this sleepiness is somewhat relaxing and it really does feel like a bit of a dream.

At 2.30 I briefly awoke with my dad at the foot of the bed and then after that I drifted in and out of sleep for another six hours. Overcome with fatigue after more than 30 minutes awake, it mattered not who was in the room; Sophia, the nurses, my dad and my poor mum (who had just found out in the same hospital that she had cancer for the 3^rd time in 6 years). It was difficult taking in what my mum was telling me in my confused state.

The pain in the leg is bearable. The knee feels numb and I have more movement than I anticipated. Dr Ware was pleased that I was able to raise my leg without support. Apparently, this is a good sign and he informed me that the operation had gone very well. Fortunately, the hamstring tendons were good and the Plan B – Patella tendon graft was not even considered. As expected, there was cartilage damage which was cleaned up during the reconstruction.

At around 5pm the nagging pain in the leg started getting a little worse and I was given a shot of morphine. The pain soon subsided and it is now 10:30 with the pain still not overbearing.

The biggest inconvenience is trying to urinate. Unable to get up on my feet until tomorrow, using the bottle is proving much harder than it looks. Desperate to go but a mental block allows only a few drops to hit the bottom of the bottle (and this moderate success comes after several attempts and extreme concentration).

I’m hoping that I’ll get a reasonable night’s sleep despite all the snoozing today and look forward to tomorrow to discover what I can and can’t do and whether I can go home.