Day 5 - Date given for my op

My first night sleeping on the new mattress wasn’t a success It was a really strange feeling lying in bed when the mattress suddenly ‘moves’. It’s did nothing for the pain in my back, if anything, it made it worse… I got up at 3am as I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Kermit arrives shortly after breakfast and I told him about my decision.
“Excellent”, he replied, “in that case the operation will either be on Tuesday or Thursday. Sorry I can’t do it any earlier but with it being a big operation, I need to get all the equipment ordered, plus I need to book a bed for you in intensive care”.

He came back to see me later with the news that the operation will take place on Thursday.

An auxiliary nurse came into my room and asked if I’d like a bowl to get washed in. I said yes then asked if it would be possible for me to have my hair washed as I was unable to take a shower. No problem she said and headed off to get some extra towels and a jug. 10 minutes later and I had wonderfully clean hair.

I had only been in hospital for a couple of days but during that time I had hardly touched any food. I was still feeling a little sickly but it was mainly that the food was simply inedible.

For breakfast there was a choice of cereal - corn flakes, rice Krisipes or bran flakes; porridge (the last time I was in hospital it resembled wallpaper paste so I doubt it will have improved) and a cooked breakfast consisting of scrambled egg (if they hadn’t run out…), bacon or sausage depending on which day of the week it was, and some beans. There was also toast which tasted like rubber.

For lunch it was soup and sandwiches. The soup was usually vegetable or tomato and it was always lukewarm. There was a choice of sandwiches usually ham salad, egg, turkey and cheese savoury in brown or white bread. The white bread was really thin and stodgy and the brown was simply white bread coloured brown…

The evening meals were no better, and if anything they were worse. Beside each bed were two menus – week one and week two. The food on both menu’s were identical, they simply put them on different days. It was mainly meat (if you could call it that !!!) and two different sort of vegetables each day. The variety of vegetables wasn’t great, carrots, turnip, sprouts or marrowfat peas, all of which had been boiled away to nothing. Some days they did have pies or pasties but even then they were horrible.

The only edible thing I found to eat was the apple crumble. Amazingly that was lovely. However it was only served about once a fortnight.

It got that bad that as soon as the trolley arrived on the ward, the stench of the gravy made me feel extremely sick. I even had to ban my mam from reading out that day’s menu as that would make me feel sick.