I've felt like I couldn't write anything until I was able to talk about my experience in ITU. Of course it's impossible to write everything that happened in every small detail. The whole thing still haunts me and was such a shock. I felt so vulnerable, it has taken a long time for me to be able to write that all down.
I was seen, prior to discharge, by an ITU liaison nurse who talked to me about recovery from ITU. Apparently, they believe that for every day spent in ITU it adds a month onto your recovery time. That is in addition to the 'natural' recovery process from the MVD surgery. Whilst I haven't written those time scales on the calendar, the 12 days in ITU would imply an additional 12 months to my recovery. My surgeon believes that in my case I wouldn't expect to feel fully recovered from my MVD for approximately 18 months. So, if my mathematics don't fail me, I'm looking at a rough time frame of 2.5 years! Perhaps, with that in mind, 10 months post-op isn't the time to start panicking.
Consequently I had no idea how my recovery would go, everyone is an individual and I had nothing to compare my recovery too. When I left the hospital I was determined to walk slighter further each day, expanding my lungs and increasing my physical ability. I was also very restricted with what I could eat. The left side of my mouth was still numb and my ability to swallow was compromised. Therefore I was only allowed a soft diet and could only manage to eat small amounts. I was instructed to eat full fat foods and drink full fat milk, something I never thought I would be told to do! The wound on my throat from the trachy seemed to take forever to heal and I was scared because they don't put any sutures in, apparently it heals by natural suction. I had the MVD wound, which still hadn't quite healed and other wounds from different lines and tubes and I was black and blue with bruises. BUT I WAS HOME!!
For a long time I couldn't sleep with the door closed, I felt trapped and as though I wouldn't be heard if I called for help. It sounds crazy now, but looking back I realise I wasn't only recovering physically, there were huge emotional wounds that were going to take a bit longer.
For those who live in the UK you might remember that April, May, June 2012 were very wet. It rained and rained and literally didn't stop. This happened at a crucial time in my recovery, purely because I found it impossible to motivate myself to go for a walk in the rain. Short walks around the garden weren't building up my physical ability and somehow instead of increasing my strength I started to slow down more and more.
