FrenchieBoy
Well-Known Member
First of all thank you all so much for your encouraging and supportive replies to my thread "Under the knife tomorrow", they were much appreciated!
Well things went OK if you overlook the fact that my taxi turned up some 25 minutes early and got me there for 06:10 rather than the 06:45 that I had hoped for and all the driver wanted to talk about was how hard done by he was driving a taxi and how he it was to earn a living, not exactly the conversation you want to be having at that unearthly hour in the morning when you are all mentally geared up for surgery, and then to add to it I slipped getting out of the taxi and twisted my "dicky" knee so found it a struggle to make my way through to the ward. Not to worry though, I was there and ready to be booked in with some time to spare!
By 08:00 there was only one other chap on the ward with me and the board showed that we were the only two booked in on that ward for the day. The other chap was called Ian and it turned out that he only lived about a mile or so from me. He was in for his right knee to be replaced which was going to be followed by the left as soon as the right one was healed. It turned out that he just like me liked a bit of a laugh and a joke and also loved the outdoor life - He was into target archery and scuba diving. Out two nurses (Mine was Becky)turned out to be quite young (And attractive) and both had a great sense of humour which helped enormously!
After meeting all the team that would be "dealing with me while in hospital and through physio etc" I was eventually taken for a walk down to the anesthetic room at 10:25. Here the staff were great and went out of their way to put me at ease (I don't mind admitting that at that time I was a little nervous - Not frightened in any was, just apprehensive)After all the explanations they got on with the epidural and other "prep"! At one time I nearly burst out laughing, I looked up from the prep table to see the upper half of the male theatre assistant holding a naked leg on his shoulder and though "What the heck is he doing with someone's leg like that. (At that time the epidural had taken effect and I was positive that both my legs were firmly and flatly on the prep table) It took a good few seconds to realise that I recognised that naked leg as my own!
All done and it was into the theatre with my CD player and headphones on. I remember seeing them start working on my leg before they put the screen up in front of me and after a minute and suddenly thought hell, my leg is covered in blood and they and they haven't even cut it open yet - Then it dawned on me that they were using some sort of red liquid instead of the old style (Iodine) to make the leg properly sterile. They then put the screen up so i couldn't see what was going on but that didn't matter as the next thing I remember was waking up as I was wheeled out of the theatre and into the recovery ward. The staff there were brilliant and on a ratio of 1 to 1!
After what seemed like an eternity the feeling started to come back into my lower body and when everything was right I was taken back to my ward at about 13:00 by which time Ian had been taken down and was having his operation. The nurses were brilliant and straight away came to make sure that I was comfortable and got me a fresh cup of tea (Pure heaven when you haven't had one for the best part of 15 hours) and a sandwich. From then onward it was just a matter of having Becky checking my stats every now and then while waiting for the Physios to come and get me up on my feet.
Eventually the physios came and ran through the exercised I needed to do and explain that I have to go for a physio session at Rochdale Hospital every week. They ran through the exercises with me and were very surprised at how well I was able to go them and how little discomfort/pain I was getting. They seemed to think that because of all the pre-op exercises I had been doing that my recovery could in fact be a lot quicker than expected, which is really good news to me.
I have to admit that I was feeling in pretty good form when I got home last night with no pain at all and still feel pretty good this morning.
As for Fairfield Hospital 0 I really can not fault it in any way. The Nurses were genuinely caring, put you at ease and had a great sense of humour, the ward and everywhere else was spotlessly clean, the food was pretty reasonable (For Hospital grub) and everything was run quite efficiently with good accurate communications.
If my recovery goes as well as yesterday did (And I see no reason why it should not) then I will be a very happy little bunny!
Edit: I should have added that when the surgeon opened up the knee he decided that I only required a Partial Knee Replacement which means that my recovery time might be even quicker!
As has been said in some of the replies it is good to see honest first hand POSITIVE experiences involving our very stretched NHS service. I honestly can not fault Fairfield Hospital, their Staff or the treatment I had in any way at all!
Well things went OK if you overlook the fact that my taxi turned up some 25 minutes early and got me there for 06:10 rather than the 06:45 that I had hoped for and all the driver wanted to talk about was how hard done by he was driving a taxi and how he it was to earn a living, not exactly the conversation you want to be having at that unearthly hour in the morning when you are all mentally geared up for surgery, and then to add to it I slipped getting out of the taxi and twisted my "dicky" knee so found it a struggle to make my way through to the ward. Not to worry though, I was there and ready to be booked in with some time to spare!
By 08:00 there was only one other chap on the ward with me and the board showed that we were the only two booked in on that ward for the day. The other chap was called Ian and it turned out that he only lived about a mile or so from me. He was in for his right knee to be replaced which was going to be followed by the left as soon as the right one was healed. It turned out that he just like me liked a bit of a laugh and a joke and also loved the outdoor life - He was into target archery and scuba diving. Out two nurses (Mine was Becky)turned out to be quite young (And attractive) and both had a great sense of humour which helped enormously!
After meeting all the team that would be "dealing with me while in hospital and through physio etc" I was eventually taken for a walk down to the anesthetic room at 10:25. Here the staff were great and went out of their way to put me at ease (I don't mind admitting that at that time I was a little nervous - Not frightened in any was, just apprehensive)After all the explanations they got on with the epidural and other "prep"! At one time I nearly burst out laughing, I looked up from the prep table to see the upper half of the male theatre assistant holding a naked leg on his shoulder and though "What the heck is he doing with someone's leg like that. (At that time the epidural had taken effect and I was positive that both my legs were firmly and flatly on the prep table) It took a good few seconds to realise that I recognised that naked leg as my own!
All done and it was into the theatre with my CD player and headphones on. I remember seeing them start working on my leg before they put the screen up in front of me and after a minute and suddenly thought hell, my leg is covered in blood and they and they haven't even cut it open yet - Then it dawned on me that they were using some sort of red liquid instead of the old style (Iodine) to make the leg properly sterile. They then put the screen up so i couldn't see what was going on but that didn't matter as the next thing I remember was waking up as I was wheeled out of the theatre and into the recovery ward. The staff there were brilliant and on a ratio of 1 to 1!
After what seemed like an eternity the feeling started to come back into my lower body and when everything was right I was taken back to my ward at about 13:00 by which time Ian had been taken down and was having his operation. The nurses were brilliant and straight away came to make sure that I was comfortable and got me a fresh cup of tea (Pure heaven when you haven't had one for the best part of 15 hours) and a sandwich. From then onward it was just a matter of having Becky checking my stats every now and then while waiting for the Physios to come and get me up on my feet.
Eventually the physios came and ran through the exercised I needed to do and explain that I have to go for a physio session at Rochdale Hospital every week. They ran through the exercises with me and were very surprised at how well I was able to go them and how little discomfort/pain I was getting. They seemed to think that because of all the pre-op exercises I had been doing that my recovery could in fact be a lot quicker than expected, which is really good news to me.
I have to admit that I was feeling in pretty good form when I got home last night with no pain at all and still feel pretty good this morning.
As for Fairfield Hospital 0 I really can not fault it in any way. The Nurses were genuinely caring, put you at ease and had a great sense of humour, the ward and everywhere else was spotlessly clean, the food was pretty reasonable (For Hospital grub) and everything was run quite efficiently with good accurate communications.
If my recovery goes as well as yesterday did (And I see no reason why it should not) then I will be a very happy little bunny!
Edit: I should have added that when the surgeon opened up the knee he decided that I only required a Partial Knee Replacement which means that my recovery time might be even quicker!
As has been said in some of the replies it is good to see honest first hand POSITIVE experiences involving our very stretched NHS service. I honestly can not fault Fairfield Hospital, their Staff or the treatment I had in any way at all!
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