I quit smoking and got rid of some balloons

I got home from hospital yesterday totally out of it from the anaesthetic, the morphine overdose and the pain killers they gave me.  But I came home without the balloons in my head, which they have kindly replaced with dozens of staples which are obviously hurting a fair bit.  My head feels like it has been trampled by an elephant troop  and is extremely bruised and despite the fact that I have washed my hair several times since surgery, I am still finding clumps of blood in my head.  I have spent the last 12 weeks watching my head expand and change shape and now when I look in the mirror its weird to be back to its normal shape.  My head seems to have shrunk and feels small now.

I did not have the best experience with the hospital this time, which is rather disappointing seeing as its a private hospital.  When I got back from surgery, having had the balloons removed, they put me on the morphine drip which they always give me.  It’s normally set to only allow me to take a certain amount every 15 mins but for some reason that was not the case this time.  At around midnight one of the nurses came in and asked to look at my eyes after checking the machine.  She made a comment about my eyes being like pinpricks and told me she was going to have to take the morphine button away because I had taken too much!!!  But she said it like it was my own fault which , once I was a bit more with it, really pissed me off.  I can only take the amount that the machine will allow me and it was set to allow me to take morphine every 5 mins not 15 mins.  Having just come back from surgery, I couldn’t tell the difference between 5 mins and 5 hours and wasnt even aware that I was pressing the damned button.

Next morning, surgeon came to see me and arrange follow ups for staples to come out – he said he was delighted with the surgery even though they only got 70% of the bald area covered (I reckon its more like 80%). But he said it went smoothly and he will now see me in January for a follow up.  Meanwhile Connie will remove my staples.  I think me and Connie got off to a somewhat unsmooth start back when she started filling my balloons, but we now have a very good patient/nurse relationship going on now.  She came into the hospital on her own unpaid time so that she could be in on my surgery which really does show how committed she is to her own education and she said she had been through all the past 12 weeks including the surgery to put the balloons in so she wouldn’t miss it.  I actually really like her and will miss her once this is all over with.

My breakfast at the hospital was a bit of a ballsup too and I really look forward to my lovely breakfast when I am in.  They missed me out and they had to be called back to feed me by which point I was feeling sick with hunger having been fasting since 12pm the previous day.  I had to ask 4 different nurses for my food before I got it.  Then the lunch order boy came into my room just a I was walking out of the bathroom with only a towel around me having just had a shower.  I wasn’t staying for lunch though, mum was already on her way in to pick me up at 11.30 to take me home.

Seeing as I cannot smoke in hospital I have decided to take the opportunity to quit.  So after a good 24 hour kick start, I picked up a Nicotine inhaler on my way home from the hospital and have been doing OK with it.  I also went into the fruit shop and bought lots of apples and tangerines and some grapes for snack foods so that I don’t stuff my face with chocolate to compensate for the ciggies.  I feel ok so far and this is day 3 of no smoking and I am determined to stop this time – my longest quit time was 18 months and I have no idea why I started again. I have not started the major coughing which will no doubt come as my lungs start to clear out – that I am not looking forward to.

I am listening to the new Fall Out Boy album online atm – its quite good.