Before they put me under anaesthetic, there was a bit of a debate about whether I was going to be tested to see if I am allergic to penicillin or not. Our family always assumed that I am, because the rest of our family is allergic. I am guessing that I'm allergic, because there's no one telling us anything different!
Because I wasn't allowed to drink anything after six o'clock in the morning, the person needing to get some blood from me really struggled to find a vein when she wanted to get some blood. This meant that she decided to leave it to the surgeon to get some blood from me. This is all very well, but obviously the surgeon seemed to struggle with getting blood from me, because of the number of bruises I have on my arm and hand! I also woke up to find blood over my hand and two cannulas in me, one in my hand and one in my foot!
Do you like my stockings and my socks? I'm dressed in Christmas colours!
I was a bit nervous when it came to going under general anaesthetic, but in the end, it was quite a weird sensation! One second it was eight o'clock in the morning and they were discussing whether they should test me for whether I am allergic for penicillin or not, the next second, it was mid-afternoon, and I was waking up with a nurse next to me saying,
"You've just finished your operation."
It was over so quickly I felt like saying to him
"You haven't finished it. I was only sat there before my operation a minute ago."
In the end, I just said,
"I feel a bit woozy..."
At one point, I thought I was going to stay in hospital for longer than one night though. When I was sat in bed once, a surgeon from my operation came to me and said that they were going to look at my discharge papers and see if they would have to keep me for one or two nights! I was seriously hoping not because I was having a horrible night's sleep!
It took me a while to sleep off the anaesthetic!
I was hoping that I would go home as soon as possible because I felt extremely tired and the nurses kept on waking me up to take my blood pressure and I didn't really appreciate that! But I'm very glad that I'm home now. Emma and Mum were the ones who came to pick me up and took the opportunity to send me a selfie of them both outside the hospital!
Mum and Emma outside the hospital!
My surgeon made two incisions - one on the left hand side of my chest, and one on my neck. Electrical impulses will then be sent from the generator in my chest wall into the vagus nerve in my neck and then into my brain.
The one on my neck!
15 staples down the left side of my chest!
We're going to see my epilepsy nurse next Thursday so we can remove the staples that were used in my operation and she is going to then turn on the VNS device. She is going to use a type of staple remover to take off the staples and then we are going to have appointments every two weeks for six months while we tweak the settings!
It's a slow process but I'm very excited!
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