It was an interesting time as I say and like I said, it's the small
things that become big achievements in your life.
My name is Jeremy Latham, I'm an orthopaedic surgeon specialising in hip surgery, I
practice at the Nuffield Health Wessex Hospital in Southampton. I've been a
surgeon for over 20 years. Most patients come to hospital at about
7:30 in the morning, the nurses greet them at the hospital,
take them up to their room and then they see me. I mark the correct side
and go through the consent form, they're seen by my anaesthetist who goes through
what the anaesthetic process is going to be and then the patients are taken to
theatre. I see them again in the anaesthetic room and make sure we're
doing the correct side, then the patients go to theatre we do the surgery
and they come into the recovery room for about an hour or so and then back to
their own room. The nurses take care of them, give them pain relief and often
we get them up on the day of surgery, so things move along fairly promptly on the
day of surgery. I'd met the surgeon several
times before the day, so I was very very comfortable with him. When I arrived the
staff, the nurses, were very very friendly and if anybody's nervous they needn't be
because you're immediately put at your ease. It was very easy, very
smooth and it was fine. So the morning of the procedure I got up very
early to make sure I could have some coffee and have some food before
surgery. Then me my husband headed to an Nuffield Health Cambridge Hospital
where I was shown to my room, which was a lovely room and the sister came to
visit me and we had a good chat and she gave me my gown and showed me around the
room and let me know that, you know, everything was there for me. Following
that, my anaesthetist came to visit me Dr Marouf and again we had a
conversation where he asked if I had any concerns or fears and he helped you
know, allay those fears and he was just very calm and reassuring. When he left
then I just spent the next half hour with my husband just sort of
getting ready and just actually looking forward to it, if you can believe that.
So initially, in recovery, patients will be greeted by the nurse looking after them
make sure that they're comfortable, they do a set of observations and then a
few days after the operation they have some blood tests
and also an x-ray. They also meet the
physiotherapist to get them back up on their feet, make sure we can do things
like stairs and that they're safe on their crutches. Then there's basically
myself the surgeon, the anaesthetist, the nursing staff the physios make sure and
assess the patient in terms of their fitness for discharge, which tends to be
two to three days after surgery. Just after the procedure, the first day, you're
obviously in your room you, don't get out of bed at all. The nurses are constantly
there, coming in and out, but the following day after that, you are always
in attendance, the nurses are there, walking up and down the corridor, on crutches
but again, if you felt any pain or any discomfort they were there to guide you
back to the room, which I didn't I mean it was absolutely fine.
Immediately after the operation, I think I was in pain, but I had a lovely
supply of drugs to help with the pain. The next day I got up, I got dressed, I
felt like a human, although I had a new hip which wasn't a human hip but it was
still good. I had the physio come to visit me and we did some exercises
and my body did feel like it had major surgery, there's no denying there was a
bit of pain, but it was a positive pain it was the pain of knowing that this was
the beginning of things getting better.