Hey guys !
Well here I am on the other side
Unfortunately I had to work until 10am the night before and was catching a 4:26am train down from Glasgow to arrive in London for 9:10am so was pretty shattered as I don't think I got any real sleep at all!
Anyways arrived in London and discovered the Victoria Line was closed for Sat/Sun, but worked my way around it and used the Circle Line to get to Baker St. and then the Jubilee line to get to St. John's Wood.
After that I arrived at the hospital and was directed to the upstairs reception where Kiridis' nurses would be waiting. It was the left turn half way up the corridor from the main reception. You then can either get the lift or stairs up to the first floor, turn right and turn right again and you'll see the desk.
I was immediately brought to my room. Nice wall-mounted flat-screen TV with an en suite bathroom, not too shabby
I filled out my selection for lunch on the menu and then shortly after Karidis came in to make sure I was fine, plus take some photos and mark up my chest. Told me I'd be fine and that he could make a big difference, nice guy
Shortly after the nurse came in to give me my surgery garments and I was ready to go see the anaesthetist around 11:30am.
They kept me talking as they did their work and before long I was given the anesthetic. At first I felt nothing, then a slight dizzy feeling and then I was gone haha.
I guess I went under around 12pm, but I awoke around 1:30pm maybe? All gets a bit confusing really. I remember waking up and talking to a nurse for a while, feeling really sleepy. But I didn't fall asleep again and after 5-10 mins I was taken back to my room where I relaxed. At first I still felt very tired but within an hour I felt almost normal again.
Another nurse came in every now and again to check my blood pressure and temperature and I just chilled and watched the end of the Arsenal vs Liverpool game, (cracking shot from van Persie
) and then watched Murray get beaten off of Federer (so he was Scottish that day haha
)
My soup and club sandwich were superb and I had the fruit at the end which was great also.
My train back up was at 6:30pm so at around 5pm I told the nurse I was ready to go. She persuaded me to take a taxi back to Euston and had reception arrange one to pick me up at 5:15pm which was nice
Train journey home was fine, I took Mickeybuds advice and got 1st Class, so had plenty of room and the coach was quiet.
Last night I felt ok but the vest felt very tight and kinda sore at my left armpit. I noticed the middle of the vest was more towards my right side however, so undone it and then centered it back up which helped a bit.
Sleeping on my back was a pain. At first I fell asleep quickly (as I hadn't slept properly for like 44 hours :S) but after about 4-5 hours I woke up and only managed to doze in and out of sleep for the next 4 hours before I decided to get up.
Pain was lessened to almost nothing the next morning also which was nice
Anyways, so today I have taken off the dressing and had a good look, so far I'm very pleased with the results
There is next to no pain, so I may stop taking the pain killers for now as I saw ZM say that they may be causing problems with getting to sleep.
Here's the good part now, the piccies:
With compression vest and padding on:
Padding underneath vest:
Padding removed:
Armpit incisions:
Incision plasters removed:
There you go guys, hope you enjoyed lol.
Now just time to heal and follow post-op instructions and hopefully the results will be good.
A big thanks for the guys who have been through all this already and provided such invaluable information for the rest of us! And good luck to those who will be getting theirs done soon!
All I can say is, if you thinking of doing it, then just do it - it's worth every penny so get saving as much as you can!
PS, I'm a bit confused with how long I'm to take the antibiotic pills. How long did other people take them for? Thanks!