20. Christmas

Then one morning, bright and early, 2 nurses came in to remove my pee tube (cathata). This is like an external plastic bladder on a leg-and-a-half length tube that's emptied every few hours. The tube drains your bladder whenever it has something in it, and saves the staff having to change your sheets all the time whilst you're bedridden. (One time, someone emptied it and forgot the pot, leaving it on the window sill. I helpfully pointed this out to the next person to enter the room.) I hardly felt the tube, except once a dopey physio left it behind on the bed when he was hoisting me into a chair.  Out and about, the tube and bag was strapped to my leg with a 'g-strap'. (Accidentally calling it a 'g-string' was very common). The removal procedure was very straight forward; they just pulled it out. This sounds painful but it is not, it's just a slight tickle. This meant I switched to using bed pans when I needed to go.

I was alone in my room, but I had a button on a cable plugged into the wall. When pressed, this button lit up a light on the ceiling of the ward, and buzz, to let staff know I needed something. Inevitably, once I dropped the buzzer on the floor when I needed to wee, and as my room was sound-proof, no one could hear me even if I had tried to call out. Amazingly, my door had a strip of glass in it so I was partly visible. I wet the bed, then flapped my leg up and down as an SOS. After about 15 minutes, a funny health care assistant peered through the door to see what I was doing. I couldn't stop laughing whilst I explained; I felt like a naughty toddler. She found it hilarious too.

Later the same morning my pee tube was removed, so was my neck tube. My breathing was virtually normal. I'd been off the ventilator a week, and I only had an irritation cough whenever I had to roll on my side for the sheets to be changed. The physio in charge deemed it was safe for the traccy to go (physios are also in charge of respiration). It was a very simple matter of just gently pulling out. I could have sworn there were supposed to be stiches. Maybe I coughed them out. The physio, Steve, was a slight, parent-aged man (i.e. my parents' age) with glasses, and not a single hair on his head. I declared him Santa Claus, and that that day was Christmas come early. 2 out of 3 tubes gone. Just the PEG to go. He said he'd give me a chocolate orange when I could eat again. I reminded him of this a few months later, but have not yet received my treat! What kind of Christmas spirit is that, Steve?

The traccy left a clean, thumb print-sized hole in my neck. This hole never bled or caused a problem. When the traccy was gone, a square dressing was just stuck over the top. Initially, I had to cover the hole in order to speak, to allow air-flow into my mouth, but it scabbed over within a few days. I felt very saint-like, as George Weasley said (Harry Potter Book 7). I still have a thumb print-sized scar on my neck, but it's fading fast. I've since met lots of people with similar, very faded marks.

Joanna and my cousin Sarah came to visit me later that day, and I wished them, "Merry Christmas." They'd bought some finger puppts to play with, which kept falling off my shakey right hand. We didn't attempt the left. I got rather attached to a dragon puppet who I pretended was a morose, pessimistic boy called Beverly. We froze, looking very guilty with our bedecked fingers, as a nurse came in to give me medication.

"What does this say?" Such a fun game.