We found out the day before our surgery what order we’d be going in, Kirsten was second, and I was third, which put my surgery time around 11-12am.
I woke up around 7am, mainly because Kirsten and I shared a private room, so when she was woken up, I was too. Otherwise, I probably would’ve slept until 8am.
From 7am to 9am, my focus was on reassuring Kirsten that this was the right decision. The nerves before surgery are intense, and we had agreed that Kirsten would go first since she tends to worry more. I didn’t want her stressing about me, and the hospital kindly accommodated this, which was a big relief.
The idea was that after Kirsten woke up from the anaesthesia, I’d be back in the room with her, so there was no need for her to worry. If I had gone first, she would’ve been imagining the worst-case scenarios. Kirsten was taken to surgery around 10am.
Between 9am and 9:30am, I took a shower and then put on my medical gown. I spent the next half-hour continuing to reassure Kirsten, who was understandably nervous. After she was taken away, I passed the time on my phone until it was my turn.
When it was time, I was put in a wheelchair and taken to the surgery room. The nurses kindly took a detour so I could see Kirsten one last time before I went under. Despite all my reassurances to her, I was also incredibly nervous and just needed to see her for my own peace of mind.
In the surgery room, everything happened quickly. I was laid on the bed while one nurse connected me to monitors, another applied EKG pads, and the anesthesiologist administered the anaesthesia. Meanwhile, another nurse kept talking to me, probably to distract me from everything going on.
As I started going under, I experienced the strangest sensation my vision began to darken, not all at once, but gradually. Objects in the distance faded to black, and that darkness seemed to creep closer, while everything near me became blurrier until it all disappeared. I could still hear for a few seconds after losing my vision, but it didn’t help much since everyone was speaking Latvian, which I don’t understand.
After that, I was out. They performed the surgery and then moved me to the observation area before eventually bringing me back to our private room, where Kirsten was already awake, though I was still completely out of it.
When I finally came to, a nurse was by my side. She called in a few people to help transfer me to my own bed, and I quickly fell back asleep. I think it was around 5pm when I woke up and could stay awake.
I talked to Kirsten for a bit, but soon after, a nurse told me I needed to get up and move around. They gave us small challenges, like walking to the water fountain halfway down the corridor, and later, to the end of the corridor where we could get Actimel, which we could have the next day, and even tackling the stairs.
At first, I was doing okay, feeling weird, but we all thought that was normal after surgery. But by 7pm, it became clear something wasn’t right. I stood up and fainted. This happened about 10 more times, and a few of those times, I had a seizure.
At that point, the nurses were concerned and told me to stay in bed for the rest of the day. They said this was likely a side effect of the anaesthesia, possibly postoperative hypertension, so I was instructed not to get out of bed without a nurse or Kirsten with me.
That kept me in bed until around 2am. During that time, I focused on sipping water and playing on my phone. By 2am, I really needed to use the toilet. I was embarrassed to ask for help, and Kirsten was finally asleep, so I decided to go on my own. Luckily, our room had its own bathroom.
I remember walking into the bathroom, but that’s where my memory stops. The next thing I know, I was being dragged out by several nurses, bleeding from my nose, lip, and incision wounds. Kirsten told me she heard a loud bang, got out of bed, and found me in the bathroom. Apparently, I fell and hit my face on the toilet, then landed on a bin, hitting my stomach area. She saw me stand up, only to faint again and hit my face on the sink, there are pictures of this on the aftercare page of the website.
The nurses cleaned me up, stopped the bleeding, and helped me back to bed. I was in a lot of pain but fell asleep once they gave me painkillers. Around 6am, a nurse woke me up and took me in a wheelchair to redo all my pre-operative tests, which took about two hours. These tests were much more painful this time, which made me realise something was wrong.
I was taken back to the room and fell asleep again. The next time I woke up, the surgeon and nurses were there, and they were stripping me down. This was around 10am. The surgeon told me I had internal bleeding and needed a second surgery right away. I was so out of it from the painkillers that I don’t remember much, just being strapped down and going under again. But when I woke up later that day, around 2pm, the relief was instant, no more pain. I felt so much better that I even walked down the stairs, much to the nurses amusement and Kirsten’s concern.
I later had a follow-up meeting with the surgeon, who thinks that when I fell and hit the bin, the impact caused internal damage. It was an extremely unlikely event and definitely not the norm.
That’s how my first day and most of the second day after surgery went. It was eventful, to say the least, and mostly because I ignored the professionals’ advice out of embarrassment. Looking back, I wish I had just listened – I caused a lot of unnecessary worry for a lot of people.