Post Op

We worked a couple of hours Tuesday morning then headed to Twba where we went to the TC to collect some gear we'd tendered on (wheelbarrow, leaf blower and more tools). I bought a silky oak vege rack that I intend attaching Sylvia's big marble cutting board to. I'll probably put castors on the bottom and use it in the kitchen, not necessarily as a vege rack. It will be useful for other things. Pic to come. I also bid on Chair 2 but it didn't come to pass.

We then went to meet with B from SA; he and Gibbo had lunch while I wandered around trying not to think about food. Eventually I booked in to the hospital and was whisked away to day surgery where I went through a progression of steps that finally saw me on a trolley then into the op theatre. Lucky I had a bike magazine with me; there was a lot of waiting around. Next thing I knew someone was yelling at me to wake up and I opened my eyes and there was Gibbo hovering over me. He'd seen them taking me somewhere on the trolley and he asked, "where are you taking her"? So he came back to the room with me. With otosclerosis, the stapes bone stops vibrating and sound can't get through - so it is replaced with a prosthesis. I have the little bone that R cut out.

Everything went very well. I have a big wad of cotton wool in my ear which will stay for a week. A slightly longer prosthesis was used because of my height (not sure what the correlation is there). Because my inner ear has been messed with, my balance is extremely affected; I feel like Drew did last Friday night. Meg visited and wanted to know, "is dis where da party is"? She and Gibbo went off for dinner at Sizzler.

I slept on and off, woken every two hours for obs. At 2.30 I couldn't go back to sleep so read for a while. Breakfast came at 7, 24 hours after I'd last eaten.

 RG came and filled me in on how it all went. He had managed to see Gibbo in the waiting room after the op so that was good. G came not long after and I got changed rather clumsily. I needed a wheelchair to leave the place! G was looking forward to this part. He put me in the lift and spun me 'round to face the doors; parked me outside to take a pic for the kids beside the "patient drop off zone" sign, practically ran me down a little incline with me pleading "don't let me go", then across the rough grass to the kerb where I pleaded again, this time to be let out! The car was parked on the other side of the street but I didn't want to go across in the chair. He left me clinging to a power pole and took the chair back inside then guided me across the road. I hadn't been sitting in the car for more than a minute (while he sent the kids the photo he'd just taken) when I had the overwhelming urge to bring up my breakfast and the antibiotic, nausea and headache tablets I'd only just taken 10 minutes before.

After that was over we went to Meg's to try out the bathtub and find a bucket which thankfully I didn't need.

We picked up Coco on the way home and after distributing some photos from the wag conference I spent the afternoon in bed and slept until 6.30 when I got up and had y-bone and veges for dinner then brought it all straight back up again. Because I'd been asleep for half the day I then spent half the night awake, reading.

Now it's mid-afternoon Thursday and I've been sleeping and reading and catching up on blogs. I'll know on Monday when I visit the specialist just how successful the op was and how my hearing is. With the big wad of cotton wool in my ear I can't really tell much.