Tales from hospital part the fourth: day 3. Homebound.

My extra night in hospital was marginally better than the first one. The nurses were quiet but I still found it very hard to sleep. I had even kept myself awake all day after my fainting episode so that I'd be exhausted enough to get off, but there was something about being in hospital that made it impossible.

I forgot to mention I'd had loads of visitors the night before: two colleagues from the Breastfeeding Network popped in around their wards shifts, my mate George and of course Andy, my husband.

We were woken in the morning and the nurse said: "Do you want to have your breakfast sitting in the chair?"

"Do I take it that means you think I ought to?" I asked (Bet those nurses just loved me!)

"Yes," she said, so I agreed I'd eat breakfast sitting in the chair, but first I needed the loo.

I got her to wheel me there,and when I came back my bed had been stripped! Seriously. I know I'd said I'd eat in the chair but I'd been planning to get back into bed for a nap afterwards.

"We need the bed," I was told. "We've got people backing up in recovery. You need to go home."

Charming. Way to go with the bedside manner.

So I had my toast, then sat around waiting to have some X-rays, get my drugs, that kind of thing. I also had a little practice at stairs under the guidance of the physios, and tried out using crutches.

We also got to have a wash! I assume we should have had that opportunity the day before, but it didn't happen, but we were brought cardboard bowls of hot water with disposable cloths, plus a washbag with soap, toothpaste, etc.

So I had a nice strip wash and felt so much better afterwards.

Here's my bowl:

In the end, a nice nurse let me stay on the ward till Andy picked me up at 2pm.

This post is quite dull, really, as all I did then was come home and get myself into bed.

So here are some pictures of my bandages to liven it up:

You can see that the bandages are like cocoons, rounded underneath. This is to stop me from putting any weight on the front part of my foot. I also have to wear some super-sexy velcro shoes whenever I get upright.