Thursday 14 November 2013

Day 6, 7 & 8 - 1st stage thigh free flap phalloplasty

 Day 6
4th day post op
My blood pressure, temperature and phallo pulse were checked every 6 hours now.

Mr Christopher finally visits me after 4 days post op. He checked my phallo and said it looks good, healthy, soft and warm. He is very happy with the outcome. He also have a look on my left leg flap donor side where the PICO vacuum dressing wasn’t working properly as there is a leak and oozing a lot. He said not to worry about it and it cannot be change as changing it will risk my skin graft coming off. I walked around the ward today as I was told to move around. I was told to try and walk more normal as I am leaning more towards my right because my my left is still very painful.

Today the nurse came in and told me that she will leave my right thigh expose to air (AGAIN?!) for 2 hours. The pain was unbearable, I could not do anything apart from sitting on the chair and trying to ‘accept’ the pain. After 2 hours, the nurse came in a dress my right thigh. I tried to walk but it was too painful for me to move around, I just get back to bed and rest.

My catheter was remove today. Huge relive however I have to keep going to toilet as I drank lots of water.

Day 7
5th day post op

Nothing much were being done today. My nurse said that he heard I was in extreme pain last 2 days when they expose my right thigh so he will not do it today. The dressing wasn’t changed as well as my right thigh wasn’t oozing badly anymore.

He was the Ward Manager and he seems to liaise with Mr Christopher patient a lot. Overall I am feeling okay. I have good bowel movement and I pass urine without any problem. My phallo looks healthy as well.

Day 8
6th day post op
I am supposed to discharge today however I asked if I could stay until Sat in order to wait for my gf to pick me up. I was then told that I would have to pay for the cost of the additional 2 days if I chose to stay for the extra 2 nights.

I have got no choice but to travel back on my own. I pack everything up and get a taxi to London Euston. From there I took 2 hours train back and my girlfriend then pick me up from the train station. I felt okay as I am able to walk with my walking stick but I am walking very slowly.

In the morning, the nurse came to change my dressing on both my thigh. It was a nightmare. She was very (extremely) inexperience. It was so painful that I cried like.. I don't know what is the words I could use to describe that.. (Keep reading and you might be able to understand the pain..)
My wound dried up on the right thigh as it wasn’t changed yesterday, so the dressing stick to my wound. At first she refuse to uses water to wet my wound and attempt to rip the dressing from my wound (bare in mind that I have been feeling the pain since they expose it to the air). I scream and cried like I was in hell, I then told her to wet it, she refuse telling me that my wound should keep dry. Then after trying a couple more tries to peel the dressing of my wound, she reluctantly opened one packet of water to wet my wound. Previous nurses uses at least three packet to wet my wound!! Then she try to rip them again while it's partly dry and partly wet. I cried and grab the bed as she was doing that. She then stop for a while and add the last drop off water she have left in the packet, then she just continue ripping the dressing apart. I was crying until I could not breathe. Then she just left those 'stuck' to my wound there without any attempt to remove them as she sees me in such pain. I'm glad she decided to leave it or I might just cried in pain and fall to unconscious although I'm slightly worry that those dressing are still there. She then proceed to my left thigh, I was about to tell her to leave it and I'll get it change when I'm back but I let her do it anyway. Thank God, the left wound is covered with slightly wet and greasy type of dressing (mepitel). So no pain at all. She then covered up my left thigh ith mepitel and then some dressing and move back to cover my right thigh. I would say overall she did a horrible job in dressing but I wasn’t entirely bothered about it. All previous nurses uses 4 massive piece of 'tape' to cover it while she uses nearly 7 or 8. She then change the pads around my phallo however it did not support my phallo properly. Not only that, she have invite one other colleagues to come in and have a look and start explaining to her about how my phallo was being build. After standing there watch the nurse cover my dressing and listen to explanations by the nurse, she thanked me for allowing her to be there and left before the dressing were done. I think the nurse have been extremely unprofessional to invite some other colleagues for show and tell without my consent. However I have no intention of complaint about the nurse. I don't mind if someone is interested to learn about phalloplasty but I think that is very inappropriate.
Around 1pm I pack up all my stuff in my backpack and went to ask for a taxi. I took taxi to the main train station and then get a train back on my own.

I was given a bags of goodies with some pain killers, dressings, undies, pads and stuffs. She asked for my GP contact and  gave her my district nurse contact number instead. She then filled a form, fax them over with instructions and gave me a copy of the form.

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