I was back at the outpatients department of the Bath Clinic every couple of days for them to check the drains and also keep an eye on the leg. Despite the drains being in place, I started to get quite a build-up of fluid in my leg so they had to stick a needle in to drain it off. Luckily, if you can call it that, the top of my leg is completely numb as a main nerve had to be cut to get to the lymph nodes so the needle was completely painless. Despite everyone’s best efforts the leg got infected. It became very red and it was hot to the touch. It happened over a couple of days and I had a bad feeling about it. It was getting worse quite quickly one morning at home so I called the clinic and asked to see one of the nurses that morning which they accommodated. It was one of the usual nurses who saw me and she was generally pretty relaxed with everything. However, she took one look at my leg and said she needed to call Mr W. She went into the office next door to make the call. A few minutes later she returned and the first thing she did was ask if I’d had anything to eat or drink that morning. I knew that wasn’t good news and another general anaesthetic was coming my way. Whilst I’m told regularly about the importance of eating breakfast, I often don’t and as I don’t drink tea or coffee either, all I’d had so far that morning was a bottle of water so everything was put in place to get my leg operated on that afternoon. I went home to get an overnight bag, made a few calls to let people know what was happening and I was in my latest room at the clinic just after lunch. Kathy left work to be with me which helped to make the waiting go quicker. Mr W popped in to see me and run through things and he confirmed that he needed to open the leg up and give it a good clean to get rid of the infection. He said that whilst another operation was not ideal, the wound would recover much quicker and better this time round and I wouldn’t have as many of the issues or pain as the first time.

I was wheeled off to theatre late afternoon and as usual, things went smoothly and without any issues. I was in recovery for quite a while and didn’t get taken back to my room until close to midnight. Kathy had been regularly on the phone to the recovery room to check everything was ok but it was much too late for her to visit so I settled back into my room and tried to get some sleep. As with the previous operation, that first night was horrible. I was in a lot of pain and regularly called the nurses. Unfortunately this time, the clinic was almost full up and I have to say that the service I received was very different to before. I often had to press the call button 3 or 4 times before anyone came to see me during that first night, which was really not what I needed. It was a very long night and it was a big relief when morning came and some of the discomfort subsided.

As usual, Mr W was round first thing the next morning. The man seems to work so many hours, it’s untrue. He was happy with how everything had gone and suggested I stay in the clinic for at least 2 or 3 nights but said it was up to me, I could stay longer if I wanted. I planned to stay for at least his recommended number of days so they could control my medication, drains and dressing but I thought it may well suit me to stay for longer, as I had done before. However, 2 days later, I got up and walked out of the place. In the first 48 hours after I came out of theatre I can remember 26 different staff came into my room for one thing or another. It may have been more. Now admittedly, that number includes a couple of catering staff and cleaners who were all lovely but I had a different nurse every visit and it was as if they refused to speak to each other and they couldn’t read the medical notes on the end of my bed. On the first morning after the operation, one nurse was adamant that the dressing needed to come off my leg, despite the 30+ staples in the 12 hour old, 10″ wound under the dressing. I knew that was wrong as Mr W had told me it needed to stay in place for at least a day or 2 but the nurse was sure of it. I had to physically stop her for taking the dressing off my leg. She was not happy with me at all. She stormed out of the room, telling me off like a school kid who’d been caught eating sweets in class and literally shouting at me that she was going to call Mr W immediately. She came back 10 minutes later to tell me that she had spoken to Mr W and they had decided to keep the dressing in place for a few more days. What a surprise. No apology though, she actually made out like it had been my fault and she had managed to rescue the situation. There were plenty of similarly poor situations where I ended up telling the nurses what medication I needed and how to change the drains. It was terrible. The service I got was significantly worse than I had received in the NHS hospital in Bristol for the WLE / SLNB a couple of months earlier. And yet, what I can only call shambolic treatment I had for those 48 hours was from a private hospital that was costing my insurance company around £500 per night. I’d had enough. Mr W came to see me 2 days after the operation and could sense I was pretty unhappy. He took a look at the drains and said he was happy to take them out and fix drainage bags directly to the wounds. The leg was bleeding much less than it had first time round and the bags would be much easier to manage and deal with myself, so he took the drains out and put the bags in place. He then told me to get home and recover in the comfort of my own house. So I did. Even as I was leaving though a nurse insisted on changing my nearly empty drainage bags and attached the new ones incorrectly, against my advice. As I was hobbling out to the car park to meet Kathy I noticed the drainage bag was leaking and I was bleeding all over my shorts. I was glad to leave.

I spent the next few weeks much the same as I had after the previous operation. I was settled into a routine that involved a lot of sitting and copious amounts of TV. I was back at the outpatient’s part of the clinic every 2 or 3 days for check-ups and for them to change the drainage bag and dressing on my leg and this time it went smoothly.