I was in Intensive Care for three days, but I can’t remember much about it as I kept drifting in and out of consciousness, but here is Phil’s story…

“The day of Karen’s operation was the longest day of my life. We were told that the operation was to take about 12 hours, but if there was nothing that could be done then we would hear from the surgeon a lot sooner than that. So when the time edged past 11.00 AM, I knew that the operation was going ahead. I had told friends and family that I would contact them as soon as I heard any news, but some couldn’t wait and messaged me wanting to know if I had heard anything, I couldn’t really blame them.

I went to work as I couldn’t face sitting at home all day and needed something to take my mind of it. The day went past very slowly and at last at about 10:30 PM I received a phone call from Dr. West, the surgeon, to say that the operation went well and Karen was in recovery. The relief was immense and I telephoned the family to let them know. The next morning I passed on the good news to our friends.

We didn’t know if I could visit Karen in Intensive Care so we didn’t really make any arrangements, but I was told when I phoned up to see how she was doing that I could visit, so I went there that afternoon. Before I saw her, I was warned by the nurses that there would be a lot of machines and drips and tubes so I was to be prepared to be shocked. They were right, there were about seven drips, five machines and tubes from anywhere there could be a tube and in the middle of all this was Karen.

I didn’t recognise her at first, she had ballooned and her skin was really tight, we were both emotional when we saw each other. I would be talking to her and she would drift off to sleep, so I would watch all the machines and take note of the numbers that were being shown.

The nurses in Intensive Care were fantastic – Karen had two nurses looking after her at a time, they were washing her, taking her blood pressure, doing blood tests, cleaning her teeth, moving her into a different position every two hours so she wouldn’t get bed sores, just chatting to her when she was conscious, nothing was too much trouble for them.

The part of the Intensive Care Unit that Karen was in, there were no windows so she didn’t really know what time of day it was, her bed was right next to the Nurse’s Station and I noticed that they were always keeping an eye on her. I noticed as well that Intensive Care was very much no thrills, there were no comforts, no bedside table, no cupboard or drawers to put things in, but I suppose people aren’t supposed to spend a long time in these wards.

Each time I visited Karen she had less tubes and drips which I assumed was a good sign. She was still sleepy, but we could have a conversation now.

One morning I received a message from Karen to say that she had been moved to the High Dependency Ward which was a relief as that meant she was getting better and when I went to visit her that day, she was actually sat up in a chair next to her bed and that was only four days after her operation!“