2016-04-20 – The day after the day before

Dawn.  Still awake.  Still having my lying down workout.  Blood pressure.  Pulse.  Light.  Questions.  Painkillers.

scars
Battle scars!

Empty drip taken away and not replaced because I’m being a good boy and drinking plenty.  Catheter removed (yowzah!) and I’m told I can get out of bed and to walk if I feel steady enough.  I get out of bed and sit in the chair next to it.  After a little while I stand and tentatively walk to the bathroom.  No problem.  The trip back to my chair is much more confident.

My wife arrives and is pleased to see me up and about.

Various members of the DBS team call around to see me during the course of the morning.

  • My neurosurgeon, wanting to know how I was feeling, how was my tremor, had I experienced any “implant effect” (changes to symptoms as a result of swelling in the brain caused by the implantation of the electrodes)?  Feeling fine, tremor much the same, no implant effect.
  • Joseph, one of the specialist nurses, who made an appointment for me to have my neurostimulator switched on the next morning.  My wife and I could hardly believe it.  After all we had gone through together, we were almost there.  The end of one road, and the beginning of another – or just the end of the road?  Tomorrow morning we would find out.

This afternoon, Claude was chatting on his mobile to someone.   I was vaguely aware of his voice in the background, and noticed his change in tone from conversational to distress.   It turned out that he had been on the phone to his nephew, who was visiting his (Claude’s) wife, who was also in hospital but due to be discharged any day.  Whilst he was talking to his nephew, his wife died.  That poor old man sat in his chair at the end of the ward, obviously in terrible distress, and nobody went to him…  My wife returned from having her lunch and I told her what had happened, so she went to him, held his hands, told him how sorry we were to hear his news, and offered him any help he might require.  I got myself out of bed and joined my wife at Claude’s bedside.  Chatting away to him and trying to distract him from his grief, we discovered that he had been a stonemason by trade, but also a semi-professional motorcycle racer in the 50’s and 60’s (known as Charlie Mates, not Claude Mates, because “Claude’s a bit posh for that sort of thing”).  So I Googled him and found a website with loads of information about him classic50racingclub.co.uk/charlie-mates, and also photographs of him racing these classic motorcycles classic50racingclub.co.uk/chas-mates-gallery.   He told us funny stories about his life, and forgot about his troubles for a little while.  I made sure that all the nurses knew who he was, and they provided more distraction, for which we were all grateful!  Banter and general abuse continued between us.

I’m pretty tired by now; it’s been over 30 hours since I woke up from my operation and I still haven’t slept a wink.  I’m feeling very emotional.  Not sure if it’s a consequence of the operation, or the general anaesthetic, or thinking about Charlie’s plight, or the fact that I’m scared beyond belief about my device being switched on tomorrow.  What if it doesn’t work?

I try to sleep, eyes filled with tears, running down my cheeks, telling myself (unsuccessfully) to get a grip.

I sleep.  And wake.  And sleep.  And wake….

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