Healing

During the last three days, I've finally seen an improvement to my pacemaker site. The bruising is much better on the actual pacemaker but has spread over my chest. It's still swollen but I think that's going to take a while to go down. Now it's not as painful and I'm moving more it feels extremely strange. The pacemaker feels very loose and moves around constantly. It feels very strange! I'm in that annoying stage where it hurts when I move but not so much when I'm still so I forget and go to pick something up and get quite a shock of pain. But I'm happy it's healing. I tend to heal quite suddenly so not seeing any improvement for the first few days was starting to get me down.

I went to get my stitches out on Wednesday but it turned out it wasn't so much stitches as one big stitch. The well experienced doctor who was looking at it had never seen one like it before. It's one long piece of plastic string with beads at each end to hold it in place. I have no idea what purpose it's serving as I can't see how a long straight bit of string is holding my skin together but somehow it is. Anyway, when she took the dressing off it bled a little so she and another doctor decided it was best to leave it a little long rather than risk any more bleeding or damage. So I'm having to go back on Monday now. I'd have preferred to get it out of the way but if the wound isn't ready there's nothing to be gained my risking it. 

I saw one of the cardiology doctors while I was there and she apologised for my experience. She said they had a meeting about it and they all agreed that letting someone cry their way through surgery without giving them any painkillers or sedation was unacceptable and that it was particularly horrible considering my age. It turned out that the doctor who did the surgery was not the one everyone had agreed on and so he didn't know that my lung disease was going to be a problem for sedation and pain relief until the last minute where he just decided on the spot it was best not to give me anything. Where as the original surgeon would have been given more information and guidelines on my particular case and could have spent a lot more time deciding what was safe as well as sparing me pain. Just like the line insertion I had and every other mistake that happens in hospital, it was a lack of communication. I could complain but all I'd get is a letter saying exactly what the doctor told me on Wednesday. They can hardly give me a gift voucher to spend on another surgery to make up for it. They know they messed up and I hope my surgeon got a good telling off for handling it so badly when it was clear I was in so much pain, claiming it was just my low pain threshold. No pacemaker, no opinion mate! 

Anyway, I'm off to Weston-super-Mare (an English seaside town) on Monday with my boyfriend for a much needed break. Unfortunately I have to get my stitches out on the way but Bristol is pratically on the way to Weston so it won't add too much time to the journey and I might be grateful from the break from driving. 

I'm really looking forward to the break but fear not I have been organised and written a blog post in advance for next week. So hopefully I'll remember to post it! 

Thanks all your support and comments. I feel like I'm well into recovering now.