"Breast explant surgery"

My surgeon and anaesthetic team were amazing, cannot fault them. As I also could not fault the day surgery team from when I checked in until when I was taken to surgery. When I came back to the ward, I found it was a different story.

I spent from around midday to late night-time asking for anti-nausea medication as I wasn’t able to stomach any food. My nurse kept saying they were either going to ask for it or that this was normal after surgery. Given that I was in a lot of pain, I didn’t fancy trying to vomit as well. I got offered ice chips for my nausea. Around evening, I asked for my blood sugars to be checked as I was also dizzy and lightheaded. No problem there but still no meds. Things got progressively worse until I eventually made it out to the nurse’s station to ask for a sick bag and ended up in tears when someone asked if my nurse was aware.

My nurse then came back to my room and said I should have told them I was feeling sick, which I felt I had been all day! They said they would call and get something. When they came back and finally administered the anti-nausea, they said didn’t the ice chips work? 🤦‍♀️

Close to midnight, my lovely night nurse Amber took my obs because I recall they hadn’t been done since early evening.

The following day, the nurse said to let them disconnect that IV, it hadn’t been connected since the day before and had been hanging there just chilling since then. It seemed the nurse then injected me with heparin only to tell me a few minutes later that they didn’t realise there was no medication in the injection and I would have to have another one. I recall they said it’s their bad. Well that’s good because it certainly wasn’t my bad!

Overall it certainly hasn’t been the private hospital experience I was expecting. I felt the food was shocking (1 slice of bacon for breakfast anyone?), the water didn’t get regularly refilled in patient rooms unless I asked a staff member (who in my experience then pulls a face at you). Based on my experience, I will be avoiding at all costs in the future!