So, how was that hospital stay? In a word – amazing …. But I can’t do things in a word.

My first night in the regular semi-private room was somewhat restless. The anesthetic from the surgery was no doubt still working its way though my body. I was given the Tylenol, with a bit of narcotic, plus a sleeping pill (they call it sleeping aid). I would have thought that this would have put me off into a “Wizard of Oz in the Poppy Fields” sleep (or is that supposed to be the Permanent Sleep….)

Anyway, the sleep was sporadic with still these dazzling monuments of insight that are forgotten as quickly as they came. My room mate needed some enhanced medical attention but that is a blur. I am upset at the constant gurgling sound – it sounds just like a running toilet – why can’t they fix that? (it is not until the next morning that I figure out that it is my chest aquarium pump thing) . Because this is the first night in a normal room I am told that I will be having my temperature and blood pressure checked every two hours. (there is constant telemetry of your heart). The catheter means that you don’t have to pee although the bladder at times feels full. There is nothing in your body to demand a bowel movement. The night is interesting.

Reveille is at 0500 on Thursday morning. Lights on, sit up in bed (with lots of help from orderly and nurse) , back rub, alcohol gel body wash, change of gown, chance to sit in chair). I think it is at this point I loose my IV bottle. I also get the catheter out, which, again does not hurt. Having something pulled out of your bladder through the inside of your penis does feel strange, but no pain.

So I am back in bed. Portable urinal close at hand, my only constraint that has to plug into the wall is the chest aquarium pump thing. I doze off to my first morning weigh in and I have gained about 3 kg of liquid in the surgery. I am given a pill to make me pee, as the nurse puts it. Pee and peeing by the way, is what they call it. Bowel movements are called bowel movements. Let’s just say the pee pill works.

I also get my first sit down meal this Thursday morning. The last time I had a meal was Monday evening but I am not very hungry. Eat a little bit of everything Nurse Linda tells me: a bit of toast, a bit of orange juice, a bit of bran cereal, a bit of coffee. Food that most of the planet would kill for. As I had posted previously, the food here would prove to be quite decent. Today’s lunch started with a very low (perhaps no) salt mushroom soup and that tasted a bit bland. Either that, or a lifetime of eating canned Mushroom Soup has made my taste buds think that a mushroom should taste like salt. But the chicken curry for lunch was quite nice. As I stated previously I think that the staff of the Food Services does a pretty good job.

The one thing that I did not look forward to was the shot, in the tummy, of the blood thinner heparin. It felt like a deer fly biting you on the stomach. The way to get out of that was to walk a benchmark (I think 120 m) so I did that as soon as I could.

The nurses work on a 12 hour shifts. I got to meet five or six of them during my stay. Nurses work hard. They are professional. They are compassionate. They are funny. They are helpful. They know what they are doing. They are street smart. If they have complaints they hold those to themselves. I love nurses.

Hospitals like routine. I was sleeping sporadically, so I would be up certainly by seven when the new shift started. Sometime before eight the day nurse would come by, make an introduction, give you your meds that you would take with breakfast. Your BP and body temperature are recorded. Breakfast is served at a bit after eight and but you are encouraged to be sitting to eat it. In the early days you have help to get there but the last mornings you do that yourself. After breakfast naps are encouraged and I started thinking of the place as a 5 star resort where the staff is encouraging you to relax. The same sort of routine happens at lunch and dinner.

This blog is a record and sometimes that makes for unpalatable reading and this is one of those times. The idea of each day's activities is to ultimately "graduate" and go home; there are certain bench marks and I would like to record those. You have to pee and poo. Lets just say that I graduated. I also graduated the walking. I had to attend two courses; one on Cardio Physio and one on Cardio Discharge. My wife was gracious enough to attend both courses with me.

Another benchmark for graduation was “taking a shower” and I was really looking forward to that one. Unfortunately, I still had this chest aquarium pump thing attached until Friday (it should have come out Wednesday morning) so I already was behind the shower eight ball. Also, the chest incision was oozing a bit so they decided to keep the dressings on and exempt me from the shower. In fact, my first shower day was today, Monday, March 08, 2010. Up until today I had been cleaning up at the basin. Many times I thought that this basin clean-up is still better than what most of the planet has.

I have already recounted getting out of the hospital on Sunday February 28th. I really must say that the five days there were truly among the most amazing, most liberating, most spiritual, most educational, most gratifying, most strengthening days of my life. My next challenge is to explain that.