I ended up spending an additional night on HDU, and it would be a couple more days before my world had almost righted itself. My vision however, was still very double and focusing just felt weird.
The light sabres in my head had quietened slightly, and I was just left with a more tolerable roaring, rushing sound, with just the occasional screech.
Although I was still suffering badly with nausea, I was unhooked from some of the monitors, and moved to a private room.
Earlier that morning I’d been visited by the physio team. Despite feeling like crap, I was still buzzing over the fact I’d survived surgery and my tumour was completely gone.
The physio was a great guy. He told me that today was the day I would get out of bed. I was worried… I’d barely been able to wash myself with help from a nurse, let alone get up.
I had been so immobile, that I was now on warfarin, to stop my blood from clotting.
The physio and his colleague sat me up in bed, being careful not to dislodge any of the many IV lines I still had in my hands and arms and also the catheter. The stomach drain had now been removed though, and the wound was dressed.
I sat up and turned so my legs were hanging over the side . It felt very strange, I felt dizzy and then I was sick yet again. It took a good 10 minutes for things to settle enough to attempt moving me again.
The bed was lowered until my feet touched the floor, and then the physio brought over an armchair, placing it about a metre and a half away.
“We’re going to take walk over to the chair” he said.
“That’s it?” I thought to myself, “I can do this.” How wrong I was…
I slowly stood up, supported on both sides, and I moved my leg. At least I tried to move my leg. Nothing happened. It was the most bizarre experience… Just like with my handwriting, it’s as though my brain was telling my legs what to do, but they weren’t getting the message.
With my eyes fixed straight ahead, as I couldn’t look down without feeling even more dizzy, I managed to drag my left foot along the floor; it was more of a shuffle than a walk. Then my right foot. Eventually, some 15 minutes later, I arrived at my destination with my saline, IVs, and catheter in tow.
Never in a million years did I think it would be this hard. Six months earlier I’d have been out running half marathons and walking in the mountains. Now I couldn’t walk a metre and a half unaided.
They sat me down in the chair, and made me comfortable there, as I was far too exhausted to get back to bed.
My lunch had been brought through, but I couldn’t stomach it. I’d not mentioned it to the nurses or the consultants at the time, but I’d also been finding swallowing difficult. I was terrified that I’d have to go back under the knife, so I kept that to myself and sucked on mints and chewed gum in the hope that it would exercise the muscles I needed.
It appeared my taste buds had also gone AWOL, quite common I have since discovered. The nurses were now concerned about my blood sugar levels starting to drop and so this was also being monitored.
Neil’s cousin Sue worked at Salford as a Radiographer. That day she made the first of many visits to see me, bringing up a couple of magazines.
Sue is absolutely lovely, and I really appreciated having the company as my family didn’t come over until visiting time in the afternoon or evening. However this particular day I was so exhausted I could barely speak. I felt awful.
It was late that afternoon that I was moved from HDU, the ride to my new room causing me to be sick yet again.
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