Wakey! Wakey!

I awoke to find my boss Andrew and another work colleague with her partner standing at the end of my bed. I had an oxygen mask on my face and guys I was off my head!!! And by that I mean I was on Planet Zukka Zukka.

I have no recollection of the conversation (if there even was one) with my friends except I remember pulling the oxygen mask off and slurring to my nurse “do I need this on?” and then I remember her gently placing the oxygen mask back on my face and then I mumbled something.

I recall asking my friends to take a seat and then I remember looking down my hospital gown in front of them trying to see my scars.

Then I think they left and the most gorgeous sleep came. I felt like I had slept for hours when my mum, brother and his girlfriend Sam walked in. They told me that they had bumped into my work colleagues a few moments earlier in the elevator.

Mum, John and Sam had bought me two bunches of beautiful flowers and for some funny reason my eyes kept focussing on them. I thought it was hilarious. I think I was still “buzzing”. My dad hadn't come to see me as he was fighting a flu and didn't want to infect me but I remember feeling sad that he hadn't come along too.

I asked mum to lift my gown up and tell me what she could see. Mum lifted my gown up and said that there were bandages all over my tummy. Then I think I zonked out and fell asleep. Gotta love the drugs.

I drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours and then BANG at 11.30pm, I was wide-awake and ready to rock and roll. I buzzed the nurse and asked her if she could help me get up, as I wanted to go for a walk. She instructed me to stay in bed and said that the surgeon had instructed her that I stay in bed due to something called “Oxygen Saturation”.

So a quick science lesson folks:

What is oxygen saturation?
Oxygen is carried in the blood attached to haemoglobin molecules. Oxygen saturation is a measure of how much oxygen the blood is carrying as a percentage of the maximum it could carry.


So basically, I always have cold hands and feet, which I knew about but after this surgery I was told that I have a very weak pulse and I apparently shivered throughout the whole surgery and in recovery room and also had a small fit on the operating table. My surgeon and anaesthetist were also concerned that I MAY have an irregular heartbeat because of this oxygen saturation. An average healthy persons oxygen saturation should be somewhere between 95 -99 and mine was apparently down to 27. But having said all this they weren’t concerned about this too much. I endeavour to investigate this further with my GP in a few weeks time.

So I was stuck in bed and couldn’t sleep and spent an hour or so channel surfing and then my nurse came in to check on me and spent 30 minutes sitting at the end of my bed chatting. I have to say that the nurses at The Avenue are just so damn nice. By this stage I had absolutely no pain and I felt fine. Swallowing my saliva posed no problem and coughing was fine. I seriously just felt like a bit drugged out. I swear that’s all I felt.

My lovely nurse asked me if I wanted some drugs to help me go to sleep and with that a wicked smile spread across my face. Now guys, I am not a drug addict but you just gotta love these pharmaceutical drugs man!!! They just mellow me right out. She came back and injected my thigh and then that magnificent feeling started happening and then I fell asleep for a few hours.

I slept for the bulk of the evening but awoke at 4.30am and watched television. My nurse came back in and we had a chat and helped me to the loo. I begged her to take my oxygen mask off but she said that I had to keep it on and if my oxygen levels didn’t go up to at least 70, then I would be forced to stay another night or two in hospital.

I had to laugh because I had absolutely positively no pain or discomfort from the lap band (in fact I wasn’t that convinced that a lap band had even been placed inside me because I felt that “normal”) Breakfast arrived at 6am but I had no appetite so I sipped some apple juice only and inhaled as much oxygen as I possibly could.



Reney