A Repair Job!

So we got out of the hospital on the Sunday evening, and later that evening I took Locket to get checked.

Thankfully once Locket was on antibiotics she began to improve, and continued to over the week.

Brains called his course tutor and asked if it was o.k. for him to attend as he had been told he could go by the doctors. His tutor said he could . . . although if he needed to miss a couple of weeks it would not be a problem as he is quick at picking things up. So I took him out on the Wednesday as he was still in a fair bit of pain and having to get to the bus stop and then on the bus was a bit much to expect of him I thought. The day went o.k, although he did find his ankle was quite sore by the evening. He decided not to go on the Thursday as he wanted to keep his ankle elevated. He'd been told that if he had too much swelling the operation wouldn't go ahead.

So fast forward to Friday 5 June and we were off to Kenepuru Hospital where Brains was having the surgery. He had been nil-by-mouth from 6:00am and we needed to be at the hospital by 11:30am. He was to be 1st on the list so surgery around 1:00pm.

Except as the way these things go . . . it didn't. He was checked in, got changed and was given a warming blanket. We were told some of the equipment wasn't quite ready . . . needed to be sterilised. So in the end I think they took someone else before him, and he didn't end up going in till after 4:00pm!

I popped home for a bit and also to pick up Locket as she wanted to see him after surgery. Locket found it quite entertaining as we were allowed into the recovery area since Brains was the only one there. He was still under the influence of the anaesthetic and not making that much sense, plus making smart aleck remarks that he wouldn't normally and questioning everything the nurse did as to the reasons why she was doing it! He had an experienced nurse and so she just went with the flow . . . obviously very used to patients saying random things in recovery!

 The repair job was two screws, to attach the pulled away fragment of bone back to the main piece of bone.

By the time he got up to the ward it was nearly the end of visiting hours. He had a pressure "boot" on his leg similar to the ones below. His left leg that is. His right leg had another back-slab plaster on it. The "boots" are to reduce the risk of DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) whilst he was not mobile and sitting in the bed. Once he was up and moving again the risk lessens as the body keeps the blood moving. A DVT can be dangerous as it can move and end up in the heart or lung and is sometimes fatal. So the less risk of that the better!

Source

 Although Brains seemed pretty chipper I knew it was all the effects of the drugs . . . and yup, after about 30 minutes he began to look very tired all of a sudden! So it was homeward bound for us and sleep time for him.

This photo was taken when Brains was still at the resonably perky stage . . . he was hamming it up a bit, along with the, "Do you have to?!" look  :D 

Goodness knows what happened over the weekend. I think we all just took it easy.