Monday 23rd May we were admitted to G4 surgical ward, a new ward to us, ready for Romy’s big surgery in the morning. We had done lots of role playing going to theatre, being the surgeon performing the operation and waking up with a big scar (mostly with Romy choosing to play the role of the surgeon using the plastic knife from her tea set. Zephyr takes it all in and still plays at pretending to cut open her own tummy even months later). Romy literally skipped down the corridor to go to the anaesthetic room early on the day of her surgery. Finally, after 7 long hours of waiting we received the call that she was out of surgery and one parent could go and be with her in recovery. She stayed in recovery for another 2 and a half hours while they ensured she was stable to move back to the surgical ward. The day after her surgery Romy had a couple of teaspoons of ice cream and jelly and a couple of tiny strawberries. After being literally ‘hung in a plastic bag outside her body for 6 hours’ (in the surgeons own words) her gut had gone to sleep. A new wider Ng tube was inserted during surgery with a bag attached to drain her digestive tract until it restarted, so she needed little tastes of food to wake it up again (but too much food would cause her to vomit which would be very unpleasant following abdominal surgery, so we had to strike the right balance and take it slow but encourage little nibbles). Two days after surgery Romy’s favourite nurse from our usual Oncology ward came to visit her which was a really nice surprise. After 3 days Romy sat up (reluctantly… there was no way she was moving voluntarily so two physios came and literally lifted her to the edge of the bed) which was a big relief as moving is key to recovery and reducing the risk of blood clots. Three days after surgery was a big turning point for Romy as her epidural was removed and her catheter was taken out which meant she had no choice but to get up to go to the toilet. Each time she got up got a little easier. On day four her morphine infusion (which had been running 24 hours a day since the day of surgery) was removed. This, together with the epidural, had given good pain relief but now she could cope with just morphine and paracetamol orally. Exactly a week after surgery Romy was discharged.
Helen & Tom
