Recovery 1.2

WARNING – GRAPHIC CONTENT DESCRIBED BELOW….

So after an idyllic few days on Dilham, where I thought that the world was rosy and while getting out of bed continued to be a rather inelegant movement for me to do, it all went a little pear shaped to say the least.

I started to feel quite sick, and the eating became less about actually wanting to eat and enjoy food and more about knowing I needed to. This wasn’t a great sign. Also, my stoma wasnt giving the output that it should have been.

All of this indicated that I had suffered what I believe is called an ileus. This is where part of the intestine goes to sleep for a little bit meaning that there can be a build up of food material and potential blockages. It is relatively common after bowel surgery to have this and the only way to solve it (I think) is to have an NG tube fitted. This helps to drain the stomach of the blockage basically.

Having an NG tube fitted has to have been one of the most scarring experiences of my life.

The nurses came at me with this tube that they wanted to stick up my nose and down into my throat. They said to me that at the appropriate moment I should drink some water and that would make it easy to go in. This was an exaggeration on their part.

As they shoved the thing up my nose, my god did it hurt. I dont know whether it’s that I have had too many knocks on the nose playing rugby but the top of my nose it really small (apparently) and so trying to shove a tube through it was incredibly painful. I pulled their arms away twice while they were doing it because I couldn’t handle it. Eventually they managed to get it past my nose and I was instructed to swallow the water and it was in. Then came what is arguably the worst part.

I was sick. And I dont mean a little bit. I threw up about 2 litres of vomit all over myself. They caught some in a bowl…. but most of it went over me.

I personally despise being sick and will go to great lengths not to be sick. So this was an incredibly traumatic experience. Not only had I had a tube shoved up my nose and down my throat (with rather large amounts of pain involved), but I also threw up a large amount of stuff all over myself!

They had to leave the tube in for at least 24 hours and honestly it was the most annoying thing ever. I could feel it at the back of my throat, I barely spoke in those 24 hours because it was just so irritating to my throat to talk. As the time went, the bag that was attached to the tube was meant to fill up with stomach contents where my body wasn’t processing it, but this didn’t really happen either, so periodically I would feel as though I needed to be sick again and I would have to have someone come and use a syringe to take the fluidy gunky out of the NG tube.

All in all it was a scarring experience and after 24 hours I called time on it and said that I could no longer stand having the thing in. I was warned by the nurses that if I took it out too early then I risked having to have it put back in but honestly I couldn’t do it anymore. It was really difficult.

After they took it out, I actually ended up being sick again (which they had told me would mean putting it back in. For some reason, they didnt give me the NG tube again (I don’t know why and at the time I was just pleased to have avoided it) and everything seemed to start working.

All in all a massively difficult experience to go through. I always said I was going to be honest when writing this blog and while this might scare some people, I think it is best to be able to prepare yourself for what is to come. If someone had told me what having an NG tube was really like, then maybe mentally it would have been easier for me? Who knows. All I do know is I NEVER want to have to go through that again…