On the 16th July I went to hospital. I wasn't due in for a few days but had another big bleed so went in earlier than planned. So I had blood transfusions while I waited for the day of surgery.

I was actaully excited about the surgery, hungry for a new life, a better life than I've had the last 2-3 years. The last few years I have had severe and uncontrolled bleeding intermittently from my bowel and have constantly required blood and iron transfusion. I was used to feeling half alive, no energy and simply existing until the next transfusion so I would get a small boost of energy and then watch the same thing happend again and again and again.

When I woke from the surgery they told me that anaethetist had punctured my lung while putting in a central line. I was absolutely terrified. I begged them to put me back under but they claimed I had to be awake and they proceeded to insert a tube in the side of my ribs. While the whole memory is hazy I just remember feeling so scared and petrified something was going to go horribly wrong. The one thing I remember  clearly is seeing John when I first woke. He was standing behind several nurses and doctors with a look of absolute fear on his face. I could see him trying to move forward toward me but the nurses and doctors were holding him back and everyone was talking really loudly. The gut wrenching feeling of John trying to get to me and him being held back will never leave me. It's seared into my brain like a photograph.

I spent 3 days in ICU, where my lung improved and recovered. However I had so much pain inside my stomach that I assumed was from where they had cut the bowel inside. Once I was back on the high dependency ward 3 days later the pain was almost worse. On Sunday I noticed a red rash around it. I asked the nurses to call the ward doctor who tried to assure me it was probably nothing. But when it worsened during the day I asked for the doctor to come back. He phoned the surgeon and I was put on oral antibiotics. I felt like they thought I was over reacting. When the surgeon came the next morning I told him I must have a low pain threshold as it was incredibly painful insid my stomach and I assumed it was where he had rejoined the bowel inside me. He told me the join was mostly over the other side on my stomach.  Then he looked at my stomach and I saw his face fall. It was obvious something was wrongs. Admittedly I didn't have a high temperature or abnormal blood results that clearly indicate and infection so it wasn't as easy to identify as it usually is. The surgeon immediately sent me for a scan, which took place within minutes. Then I spent the rest of the days waiting and waiting for the results. By the afternoon I was scared. I knew I'd obviously had this infection since the surgery and it had gone unnoticed. It begs the question why was my stomach and wounds not looked at regurlarly enough that the redness and inflamed site was not noticed. I felt completely helpless and so so scared that something bad was going to happen and no one seemed to care. I was crying and asked the nurses to please get the results. This went on for several hours and they told me the surgeon would give me the results when he came into the next day.  I cried even more saying I reall;y expected him to see my tonight to figure our what was happening. The nurses should have called the surgeon to ask him to get the results so I could be told what was happening. It was only by sheer chance that my gastroenterologist came in to see me. She phoned and got the results straight away and assured me there was nothing too bad going on, no mass or lump or anything gone wrong with the surgery. It looked like an infection in the abdominal wall. I'd been put on IV antibiotics that morning. When the surgeon did come in the next morning I told him taht I'd been upset and incredibly worried that he hadn't been able to get the results for me the day before. He shurgged his shoulders and said 'I can't help it if I got cuaght up in a meeting'. It made me angry. The infection was slow to respond and increibly painful. Now more than 3 weeks later there is still some pain and the infection still has not completely gone. I simply hope that it gets better and I can be completely well again.  I literally feel quite traumatised  at what happened and I'm desperate to get past this and start living a normal life.