Put my bag down, flip it and Reverse it.

“@Listen to my voice Scott, listen to what I say.

Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. In, and out. Scott! Listen to me, breath in and out. Listen to my voice Scott, listen to it. Scott. SCOTT”.

I was pulling in to the car park of my apartment, and the phone rang. I was excited as I was for all phone calls in my car, as it comes through my car stereo, and even now I still find it exceedingly cool. I knew it was Leah when it interrupted my music and the call connected.

“Don’t get scared or anything Scott, but an appointment for your reversal has come through.

Are you there?”

I was still there, but I was shocked. “Yes I am still here”, I responded with. We spoke about it, and I was now getting excited. After the call, I sat in my car for around 20 minutes, with a huge grin on my face. Poois Vuitton was to be parting ways with me. It felt weird after the initial shock had slowly faded away. He had been a part of me since May 2014. How would I adapt? Would I be able to return back to how I was before? Am I going to be able to make time in my day to go the loo? After all, it had been mega convenient having my poo bag. Dodgy meal given me the runs? Doesn’t matter. That curry that had a massive kick? Meh not an issue. Now this means I will have to wipe my own arse again. Not ideal.

I only had 3 weeks before the operation, and in between the time I received the appointment, and the surgery itself, I needed to have a pre-operative assessment and a few trips to the blood place. And my week on/week off work commitments. I felt somewhat overwhelmed, however I had prepared myself to be going in with short notice. They did say I might get a few weeks’ notice, so really, I hadn’t done too badly.

Whilst doing bag changes, I kept reminding myself that this would soon be a thing of the past, and I did have mixed feelings. On the one hand, this little bag of dump was part of the reason why I was still alive, and on the other, it would be nice to revert back to how I was previously when I did a poop out of my bum. Afterall, this is what the bum area was invented for.

Days passed by, and with each passing day, I grew more and more excited, however excitement wasn’t the only emotion that was cursing through my body. I was very scared, extremely anxious at times. I felt like a very delicate pane of glass that was on the cusp of shattering. By this time, I had the information from the hospital about the procedure, and the risks, and the possible things that could go wrong. A few times I found myself sat in my bedroom, with these pamphlets, and each time I read them, the fear was instilling itself deep within me. Fear aside though, I also had a tremendous amount of hope and positivity flowing through me. I reminded myself that in May 2014, I went through the hardest challenge of my own life, and this was a much better scenario. I would be going for the surgery in a much better position. Previously when I was rushed in, my body was defeated and ready to give up. This time, it was planned; I knew what I needed to do in order to be the best I could be for it. With that in mind, I was optimistic for the surgery. That’s not to say the worries faded, they were very much present, but they weren’t the dominating emotion I found myself in.

I popped along for my pre-operative assessment, and of course I smashed it. All I had to do was turn up, answer a few questions and it was done. I did however have a good talk with the enhanced recovery team, and they readied me for the recovery. Apparently, switching the bowel back on after it has been dormant is not a simple task. There would be strict diets, exercises and a whole list of things I would be able to do, and things I couldn’t do. Being prepared for this would end up being absolutely pivotal for my mental state some time down the line.

Our emotions play a huge role in our lives. They allow us to express our most inner feelings; they can answer a question without a single word being spoken. And they can also stop us dead in our tracks. There was a day when I broke down, and I completely lost it. I ended up in a situation where I was completely lost. There were questions bouncing around in my head, and I was struggling to answer them. My biggest fear was that I would be put to sleep, and that would be the end of it. And when you are on your own, and there is no physical voice of reason, your mind goes into another gear that you didn’t know it had.

For absolutely no reason whatsoever, I just lost control. I was by myself in the living room, and I had the TV on but I wasn’t really paying attention to it. I started to imagine the operation, and my thoughts were dominated by the fear of things going wrong. Regardless of what scenario was running through my mind, it ended up in something going wrong. I kept thinking of the statistics I had been provided with on the pamphlet about the operation. It was a silly figure, like 24% of people having the operation would have complications. And it deeply unsettled me. I had already begun crying, I couldn’t stop these thoughts, and they had in a way taken over. But, and thankfully, they didn’t last long.

I needed to speak with someone, and that opportunity was granted to me. I had other things that were going on as well as the upcoming operation, and the culmination of various things just got on top of me. I was able to get a lot of my chest, and I spent some time talking about my concerns, and all it took was a friendly ear, and some re-assuring words, and I was in a whole other place. Just hearing things that I already knew helped me tremendously.

Then the operation got cancelled. Right before I was due to go in. It would be at least 4 weeks away now.

I need you to imagine yourself in this position. You are scheduled for another life changing operation. Each day that it draws closer, the worries, the nerves, the anxiety, it all grows. You have information that tells you the risks, but as each day passes by, you rely on the thought that you are one day closer to being fixed up. So there is a daily routine of worry, followed up by your voice of reason saying ‘hey, come on you are going to be ok’. The topsy turvy emotional rollercoaster is a little bastard. It isn’t nice. It was immensely hard to mentally prepare myself for this, but as each day came, I had to do it. So, when it was so close, and it was grasped away from me, I found that really hard to take. I was angry. So terribly angry. I wanted to lash out, scream, do something. I needed to outwardly express my anger. I felt I had been robbed of my time, my chance to have my reversal. I nearly fell into a ‘woe is me’, mentality, but that didn’t happen, as I was able to speak with someone about it again. I just needed to let someone know I was angry. I wasn’t angry towards anybody, nobody was to blame, I was just angry at the situation. It was particularly hard, because there wasn’t anybody to blame. They were just too busy to get me in, they didn’t have the bed.

It was at this time, that I had to park my feelings aside, and think about the whole thing. I needed to gain perspective on the scenario, and not feel so damn victimised. When I was rushed in to hospital in May 2014, I actually stopped some young lad from having an operation. Through no fault of his own, his operation was cancelled, and he was forced to wait. I made that happen.

I have a great relationship with my sister, and I spoke with her as well, I just felt like I needed someone else to talk about it. I needed to hear what somebody else thought about it, and she sorted me out. We decided it was fate, for one reason or another, I wasn’t meant to have the operation now, and I accepted that I would be waiting the extra four weeks. It is amazing how someone can flip an experience around, and turn something that I was so angry about, into being something that I was at peace with. I had stopped that little lads operation, now mine was being delayed. I was over it just like that, all thanks to a chat in a kitchen in Wolstanton, with a big bucket of Starbucks.

It also meant that I would have more time with my absolute stunner of a new niece, Phoebe. So, in a very short amount of time, I went from uncontrollable anger, real visceral anger, to being completely at peace with the situation. Isn’t it amazing what sharing an experience with family and friends can do hey? Remember that.

I did still experience the same worries and concerns I had in the build up to the rescheduled operation. They don’t just fade away from memory, I revisited the same worries and concerns I had previously struggled with, but this time, I already had the end goal wedged firmly in sight. I kept telling myself every time the fear crept in, that it is a relatively simple operation, and once it is done, I can hit the ‘resume’ button in my life again. So the next four weeks, I counted down the day, and each time the worry tried to set in, it was swiftly knocked aside with the positivity that had now become more prevalent. The biggest inconvenience was having to go to the hospital again to pick up some bowel prep. Yes, I didn’t discuss this earlier.

For anybody who hasn’t had the absolute pleasure of having a million issues with your bowel, bowel prep is what is done before an operation, so that the procedure is nice and clean, but also so the bowel has a shed load of nutrients it needs once the operation is done. Essentially, it is a huge laxative drink that has protein and carbohydrates in. The night before the operation, I had to make up a jug of the stuff. Have you ever wallpapered a wall? You know the paste you make, like a jelly, looks like slop. Well, bowel prep is like this. I had a jug of this to drink. Well, actually, four of them over a four hour period. Amazing. I was also not allowed to eat, so for someone who has been overweight for 105% of their life, I was in a real hangry place.

The first mouthful is always the worst. Well, this is what I was told at the hospital. What they didn’t tell me was that this is a lie. It is a great big huge nasty lie. Bowel prep drinks are horrific. Every mouthful is the worst. It is designed to completely flush you out. No part of a process that results in your bowels being stripped apart is going to be tasty. It is constantly vile. Plastering the word ‘Vanilla’ on the packets doesn’t make it taste nice. Every mouthful made me pull ‘the face’. We all have ‘the face’. It is an automatic reaction to something that is vile. I bet you know what your ‘face’ moment is. When you think back to a night out where you drank tequila for fun, and it made you violently sick. Just thinking of the tequila now makes you feel funny. And you’ll do the pretend retching action, just because the memory of the tequila stirs up that nasty feeling in your stomach. This is when ‘the face’ is most dominant. You can’t stop it, it is a reaction.

Every mouthful of this bowel prep made me do ‘the face’. I even tried to pinch my nose to try and help, but this made me slobber it out of my mouth, and then somehow it forced its way out of my nose. At times, I really do question myself. Sometimes I wonder how I manage to do adult stuff in my life. I still don’t know.

Bowel prep is very effective as well. It definitely works. Poois was already receiving lovely watery treats before I had even finished the first jug of the paste, sorry, the prep. I could go into detail about it, but I am almost certain you don’t need to read it. I am sure you can figure out what the rest of my night consisted of. I’ve never hit pause on my TV remote more than that night.

So, I now found myself on the morning of the operation. My alarm went off at 6am; I knew this because I had been awake since around 4am. I was a little nervous, but I had things handled quite well. The prep stuff was still doing its thing, albeit at a much more relaxed pace. I had my little sports bag packed, all my toiletries were ready to go, phone charger packed away. This was the day, and I was ready. I needed to be on the admittance ward by 7:30am, so my mum rocked up at 7 to take me. I closed my window, turned off the radiator, had a quick final check of my bag, and with that, I went.

My mum asked me if I was nervous and I was a little so told her, we spoke about how I would be alright and seeing as the hospital was a 5 minute drive away, we were there in no time. The admittance is patient only, so this was the end for her, and from here I was on my own. So I gave her a kiss goodbye, and headed off to be admitted.

The admittance ward isn’t what I expected; after all, my previous experiences were from emergency admissions. So when I got there, and men were sent one way, and women the other, it felt a bit regimented. Not because we were separated, but because of how we were led in groups down the corridors towards the ward, and our beds pointed out. It was like we were in some form of summer camp. You are there walking along corridors with another 5 or 6 chaps, and then you arrive on a ward, and you are given a bed. It was a surreal experience, but thinking back, as I had no idea of what to expect, anything would have been surreal. I was shown to my bed, I sat down, and then I was given the stockings. If you have been in hospital, you know what these are. They are these horrible tight green nasty things you put on your legs, to stop some trombones being played in your legs or something like that. They itch, they are just the worst. And they are a pain to get on. I was then told to put my gown on, because I was going down to surgery first. That didn’t bother me though; I was too preoccupied with the bastard stockings.

I had a bit of time to kill before I went down, so I did the usual stuff we do nowadays; became engrossed in my phone. I spoke with a few people, read a few stories on the internet, and then I sent a text.

“I’m going down theatre now, text you later x”, and then I sent it to my sister and mum. I put my phone away in my bag, and with that I was on the way. When I got to the theatre prep place, there was a nice guy called Lee, and he was part of the anaesthesiologist team, and me and him spoke, and we discovered we had a shared passion for F1. We spoke about the sport, and who our favourite drivers were, and not long into the discussion, the back of my mouth went warm, and I could taste metal. I knew exactly what was going on.

When I woke up, I recognised my surroundings. This was recovery, and it was where I had ended up after the May 2014 incident. In a bizarre coincidence, I was in the same bay, but it was a different nurse who I had. She was a Portuguese lady, but moved here 13 years ago, and married and had 3 kids. She didn’t look a day over 25. Not even joking. I had the driest mouth ever, it was horrible, and she had water ready for me, and she put the straw in my mouth, and I took a small sip. It was heaven, absolute heaven. I lay down, and she told me she would give me a few minutes alone. She didn’t leave me alone; she just went towards the end of the bed, as she was currently situated right next to me, constantly taking notes about my statistics. I allowed myself to become familiar with what was around me, as coming around form anaesthetic is a weird feeling, because you feel like your body is being pressed down, but then you feel sensations slowly returning to you. So I could physically tell my hearing was coming back, and my eyes were clearing up. I tried to move my legs, but nothing was happening. I moved my fingers, and they responded. Suddenly, I remembered I had gone for the operation to have Poois removed. I felt the lower left side of my tummy, and I could feel he was gone, and in his place was a thick dressing. Just above where he was, there was a tube coming out of me, and on the opposite side of the tummy, another tube was coming out of me. Then I felt the dreaded 3^rd tube. The one coming out of my didgery-doo. ‘For fucks sake’. That was my first real sentence that came out of my mouth.

I stayed in recovery for a while, and around 10:30pm at night, I went to the ward. I managed a few messages to say I was going to the ward. Whether they made sense or not was nothing to be concerned about.

It was as I was lying there, just taking it all in, that I said to myself ‘See, I told you Thursday November 17^th would come and go before you knew it’. It took a matter of seconds for me to feel like I had let go of a huge weight. In the build up to the operation, each day got harder to deal with in some ways, and reminding myself of the date of the operation actually helped. So to be able to recognise that the date had arrived, and I was fine, was such a spectacular feeling. Soon after, I was asleep.

When I woke on the Friday morning, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do. I had always intended to recover as fast as I could, and try and slip back into my normal ways again. I still felt down for Poois, this was something that I continued to do for a while, as he had been a part of me for 2.5 years. The nurses came around, and turfed me out of bed, and I got taken for a shower. I spent the rest of the day sitting on my bed, and just trying to relax. I had my visitors and my spirits were high. I remember one conversation with my sister where she was going to try and set me up with one of her tattooed friends. That still hasn’t materialised!!

Sometime over that weekend, I asked to have the catheter out, because if you can sit in a bed, and have your wee wee come out with no effort, there’s no incentive to make progress. So I had that taken out, which as I explained in my previous mammoth entry, is not a nice feeling. Stretch Armstrong comes to mind.

I also experienced the after effects of having a large volume of gas pumped into my body to help with surgery. So, the point behind it, is that they inflate the gut with gas, so when they are faffing about inside me via keyhole, there is plenty of room. There are consequences to this of course. The main one being that after a few days, this gas has somehow made its way inside the gut, and it wants to come out. And boy, does it come out. You need to remember that for the past 2.5 years, all poops and farts had gone solely into Poois, and now I was experiencing the sensation of gas travelling around me. I was sat in bed, and I could feel all this movement, and it triggered memories from the past of when I did a fart like someone does when they have control over their bumhole. I knew that it was wanting to come out, so I very gingerly got out of bed. I was tender as hell, because I was firstly inflated like a space hopper, and my insides were sore from being messed with. I had 2 tubes coming out the side of me, so I safety pinned the tubes and associated blood bags to my gown. The blood bags were there just to collect the blood that would inevitably be around my insides, but also to monitor how much blood there was. If there was a sudden deposit of blood coming into them, we know that something has gone a bit wrong. So I made my way into the loo, and, well, the gas came out. And it hurt like a bitch!! Imagine, it hadn’t pushed a fart out for 2.5 years. My bum was shocked, it didn’t know what was going on. It was almost like it was startled, and it didn’t know how to react. The toilets on this ward are literally opposite the nurse’s station, and they need to be because if someone needs help, they are closer to get to you. And they came for me!!

Unbeknown to me, the sound of 20 cubic litres coming out of an exit that is tiny creates somewhat of a certain noise. A noise that can be heard through the door, and can be heard by 4 of the nurses. The door was just about to be opened by one of the nurses, when I let them know I was ok. I didn’t understand the commotion at first, but what I did understand was I had just done what was potentially, the biggest, and the longest fart ever. It made me chuckle quite a bit though, scrap that, it made me chuckle a lot. When I came out of the loo, they were waiting for me, and the reason why they checked to see if I was ok, was because when I had done this huge fart, I had also let out an audible moan! It was that loud, they thought I was in pain. I didn’t even know I had made any noise with my mouth, but they assured me I had. I walked back to my bed, and got on top of it. ‘That’ll be what a fart is like then’.

The next few days were relatively drama free if I am to be honest. I had a huge great big incontinence pad that I sat down on all the time, because you know, well in case I had an accident! Not ashamed about it, this bum has been asleep for a bit, so who cares if he slips up every now and again!

My biggest gripe with the weekend and the start of the next week, was 2 patients that were sat opposite me, and next to each other. The chap directly opposite me had a colostomy bag, and the guy next to him was preparing to have a colostomy bag. With me being the new kid on the block, I kept myself to myself for the most part, but hour by hour, I was building up a little bit of anger. The chap who was directly opposite me was a real mood hoover. For a few hours on the Saturday, and quite a bit of the Sunday, all he did was berate colostomy bags, and made then seem like the most horrific thing a person could endure. The worst about it though, wasn’t the words he was spewing, but the impact they had on the chap next to him. You could see he was becoming clouded with fear and anxiety. I knew I would end up saying something. It is in my nature, if I need to rattle a cage to make the bird see sense, I’m going to rattle it. I’ve never shied away from opening my mouth and having my say, and I wasn’t about to start now.

The chap who was getting ready for the colostomy bag, had an array of previous medical history, I won’t be going into that, as it isn’t my place to delve into detail of someone else. Let’s just say for what he had been through, the guy was a fucking hero. And he had this negative Nelly filling him with dread and fear.

On the Sunday evening, I had my visitors, and I told my sister that the chap opposite me had put the fear of God into the other chap. I said I wanted to say something, and so I decided I was going to say something. I thought that I would just offer a few re-assuring words, so he didn’t have something else that he needed to be worried about. My sister left once the visitor’s bell rang, and I decided I would strike now.

Negative Nelly piped up for no reason saying that your life is pretty much over when you have a colostomy bag. I remember him saying you don’t sleep, you can’t go out, and you can’t drive a car. Walks out with the dog were a thing of the past, and the chap who was having a colostomy bag was fully drawn in. He had by this point turned to face him, and was soaking up every word he was being told. So I butted in.

“For the past 2 days, all I have heard is you saying how much this bag is going to affect his life.”

I looked straight at the chap who was going to be having the bag.

“You’ve got nothing to be worried about, I have played football, been in a pool, gone the gym, got jiggy with it, been on a plane, had holidays. Your biggest worry is going to be what you will do with all this spare time you will have.”

If I want to toot my own horn, I will toot it. Toot fucking toot to me, because once I started speaking with him, you could see his fears were literally evaporating in front of me. Negative Nelly did try and butt in, however I remain focused on the good chap, and simply ignored what Nelly was saying. He soon buried his head in a magazine and left us alone. I told good chap that having the bag is of little, if any inconvenience at all. I reminded him that I had a bag stuck to me at the age of 29, and that if a little brat like me can be cool with it, then this guy who has been through so much, would find it an absolute doddle. He asked me questions about the bag that were a bit dumb. But they were only dumb because Nelly had made out that he wouldn’t be able to do anything. He asked me how I took showers so I told him that I normally start with washing and conditioning my hair first, and then body but always leave the balls and Johnson until last. He liked this and laughed, and because I didn’t mention the colostomy bag as being part of my shower routine, he knew that it was insignificant. We spoke for a few more hours, and I could see this guy transforming before me. What made it completely sweet, is one of the nurses called Lisa said she needed to break up our mothers meeting because she needed some bloods from me. She then told good chappy that he needs to see me for any questions about bags because I smashed it when I had mine. That really humbled me.

The next day, good chap had visitors, it was his mum and sister, and they were equally as concerned about the bag situation, all because of Negative Nelly. They then came over and spoke with me, firstly thanking me for speaking with him, and also for reassuring them. We had a good heart to heart, and I wrote them my email address and various websites to seek help with colostomy bags. For example, what causes leaks and all sorts of useful information. They asked if they could email me with any questions, and I of course said yes.

I haven’t heard from them since, so my hope is that all is going well, and he has learnt the easy way, that having a poo bag stuck to you, isn’t as bad as people would have you believe.

Before I knew it, Tuesday had rocked up, and I was told that I was able to go home. I was a little bit taken back by this as I had only had the reversal on the Thursday; however I was assured that my bloods were fine, and seeing as the occasional little trump was popping out, I was ok to go. I had started to eat, albeit a bit bland. White bread, chicken and soup was pretty much all I could have, for at least 2-3 weeks to start with. So, feeling good in myself, and having been told by Dr’s that I could go, plans were set in motion for me to leave. I let all the folk know who needed to know, and over the course of the day, I packed up, spoke with good chappy again, and by midday, I was on my way home. My good pal Nic picked me, and she dropped me off at my apartment. I had some pals popping over later to see me, and run me to Tesco, so I just relaxed for a bit in the afternoon and waited for my pals to pop over.

Croxy, Greeny and Adge rocked up, and they bundled me in the front of Greeny’s Jeep, and we made our way to Tesco. On the way they handed me 2 cards, I opened one first that said ‘Sorry to see you go’, and it was taken from my hands pretty quick, and I was told to open the other one first. I opened the first one, and it was a get well soon card, and then the other was given to me, which was a bye bye card to Poois. We laughed, which hurt me, but it was very funny. We got to Tesco, and they then gave me a PS4 game. Bless them, the little sods buying me a game!

They helped me around Tesco; I got bottled water, soup and a chicken sandwich. I ate half of the sandwich as I was really hungry. They took me back, got my shopping bits upstairs, and then I needed to sleep, so they left me, and I went to sleep. I slept very well.

I woke on the Wednesday, and I felt good. I felt re-charged, I was absolutely exhausted in myself, but the sleep had sorted me out as well as a good sleep could. I remained in bed until around 11am, just laying down and thinking. It was one of those moments where random thoughts pop in your head. Nothing too strenuous, just stuff to keep the mind ticking over. After a shower (which took some time) I got dressed, and made myself comfy in the living room, and I put Sky 1 on. I remember seeing the TV guide clock showing 2:05pm.

That’s when it happened.

With no warning, whilst I was sat down, I felt a pop inside my stomach. That may seem hard to believe, but I felt it. It was a deep popping sound, and the sound was accompanied by a hot burning pain. I could feel the pain spreading very fast all around my abdomen. The pain hit me like a bullet. If you have read my post about the first instance in May 2014, you may remember I describe that as being some of the worst pain I have endured. Well, the May 2014 episode was but a scratch compared to this. I thought I had experienced pain, but this was on another level. I somehow got off the sofa, I say somehow because I aren’t exactly sure how I did, but I found myself in the bathroom. I don’t know why I went to the bathroom, I can’t remember making my way to the bathroom, but I was there. I was wailing at times, but all I could think of was ‘why me’, and I also had no idea what to do. I was crying obviously, I was shaking and I do believe I was making noises that nobody would have recognised as being human; they were real deep groans coming from my mouth, but sounded like they emanated from deep in my gut. A truly bizarre sound. I felt sick, I felt weak, I was scared, and then I was gone.

I sort of jolted when I came around, the movement when I woke only served to cause me great pain. I was in the bath, I was naked and I felt like I was in hell. The entirety of my abdomen was in an extremely elevated notion of pain. I don’t think I could correctly portray the pain levels, as you would all need to have some base level of pain to start comparisons. Put it this way, if I had £5 million pound at that exact time, I would have given up every penny to have it stop. I had the remnants of vomit on my chest and hands, and the tub had the result of my bowels opening inside it. Not an actual poop, but a combination of blood and watered stools. I must have been a little sick from both ends some time during being in the bathroom. I immediately looked for my phone, because I needed the hospital. I knew exactly what had happened, and I knew straight away that I needed surgery. I started to prepare for it, because I absolutely knew what would occur. I couldn’t see my phone; as it happens, I had left it in the living room. I crawled into the living room, each movement causing a wave of pain to curse through my body. I could see my phone was on the floor; I grabbed it and immediately dialled 999.

“Ambulance please. Me. the patient is me. I need go the hospital. The Hartmann’s procedure I have had has gone wrong. No I am alone. Newcastle. I’m on the top floor. No there isn’t a lift. Yes this number. 27^th May 1984. Please help send someone. I think I’m going to pass out. My arms feel numb. Please send someone. Please.”

The flat is on the 3^rd floor, and there is no lift. Walking down the stairs wasn’t going to happen. And the ambulance crew wouldn’t be able to get in the bottom locked door. I needed to get there. I had grabbed my superman pj bottoms, and they were sort of on me, but things were on show. I didn’t really care. The flat door is on the landing, and the stairs start about 4 feet away from the door. I slowly sat down at the top of the stairs, and then leant back. I dragged myself down the stairs, so my back was thudding against each step, all the way down to the next landing. Then I rolled onto my stomach, and pulled myself forward on the floor, like you see the army men doing when crawling under barbed wire. I repeated this exercise until I was at the very bottom of the stairs, and then I crawled to the door. I could see the flashing blue lights of the ambulance, and I managed to get my right hand onto the door handle, and push it open. The extension of my chest and arm to push the door open seemed to take the last of my energy. As it swung open I screamed, and they knew where I was. That was it; I had nothing else I could give. The door closed, but my arm resting on the floor stopped it from closing.

The crew was a 2 woman crew. One was a young blonde girl; the other was an older dark haired woman. Once they saw where I was, they must have known it was going to be a challenge. This is because the door I had opened, and was keeping open, opens up into a big shrub. I think it’s a shrub. Like a hedge type of affair. A tiny path ran alongside the hedge, and this is where they would need to navigate me through. It was at this stage though, that the older one asked if I could walk to the ambulance. I muttered something back, but me not showing signs of movement gave them the idea. They somehow got me in the chair, and in doing so they asked why I had bandages all over my stomach. I tried to explain I had come out of hospital yesterday, but the pain wouldn’t let me. I was trying to breathe in such a way it didn’t hurt, but every breath added more pain. They repeatedly told me to take big deep breaths, but the expanding action of my chest was causing even more agony. I ended up lying down on a stretcher, with my legs pulled up towards me, as this offered a tiny sense of relief. They seemed to really procrastinate in the ambulance, it felt like hours before they got moving. I live less than a 5 minute drive away from the hospital, and I kept saying to myself ‘5 minutes and you’ll be there’. The elder woman debated a cannula, but she said by the time they had put one in, I could be at the hospital. The younger woman showed the older woman some rugged looking iPad type device, and she said ‘we need to go now’. Within a few minutes, the sirens were on, and I we were off. I focused on the bumps in the road to plot where we were, but before I knew it I felt the cold rush of air flood in the back of the ambulance. We were at the hospital.

The 2 times I have been rushed in a hospital have always felt so surreal during the event, and also after. What struck me about both my hospital gate-crashing’s, was the organised chaos that surrounds you when you are there as an emergency. When I was wheeled into resuscitation, I remember 2 things vividly as the first memory. Firstly, someone who was in resuscitation was not happy in how long it took for me to get there. They were quite vocal towards the paramedic and even said ‘he lives less than 5 minutes away, why has it taken 20 fucking minutes to get him here?’ The second thing is the organised chaos. You are surrounded by people, literally surrounded. Yet they all know where each other is. They don’t bump into each other, there is no confusion; everyone has a role, and they know what it is. There is always a face peering over you, always a voice with you. I was experiencing a great deal of pain, and I was very audible. I didn’t let off for ages in telling them my pain levels. I did a great deal of wailing. Before I knew it, I had lines in me, I was in a gown, a catheter (ffs) had been put in, and a mask was on. I begged for pain relief, and I kept being told I had been given it and it would start soon. I didn’t feel it starting at all. Nothing. The pain was coming in waves. It would be at a base level, and then increase with fast progression. At its worst it made me scream, and then it would subside. This was a continual pattern, and it lasted until I was unconscious.

I now had a Dr with me, and he asked me what had happened, and I just told him the reversal had popped, or gone wrong, whatever it was it was to do with the reversal. It was the same pain as May 2014, but a whole lot worse. He could see I was in a great deal of pain, and I asked for pain relief. He re-iterated that I had been given a lot, but clearly it wasn’t working. The final morphine count was 215mg. enough to knock out a few horses. And it hadn’t touched me at all. Not one bit. He got some other drug, oxycodone hydrochloride, and that started to go in my vein. Within a few minutes, I could feel the edge coming off, but it was still hugely painful. As I had experienced the worst of the pain, the welcome relief of having just the edge taken off was magical. I was still in crippling pain, but it was better than 10 minutes ago. I was asked if I wanted to contact someone, and all I could do was repeat my sister’s phone number over and over again in small blocks of numbers. Trying to say it in one breath wasn’t a possibility.

I cannot recall what happened immediately after this, my mind is a blank. The next thing I can recollect was hearing my sisters voice, followed shortly after by my mum and aunts voice. They were obviously being filled in about what had happened. I must have been for some form of scan, as I was now being told that the repair had torn, and waste was leaking into my stomach again, and all over my organs. This is what the burning sensation was that I had felt in the minutes following the initial pain at the apartment.

My aunt was in charge of keeping my head cool with wet flannels, but every few minutes she needed to wet it again as I was burning up. Someone dropped a small gauze on my stomach, and it only just brushed against some stomach hair as I found out soon after. It felt like someone had punched my stomach, and I remember my aunt saying ‘how has he felt that, it literally brushed a few hairs?’ To me though, it felt like I had been gut punched.

The wave of pain was coming back again, right when a few surgeon types looking blokes showed up. I was told that I needed theatre straight away, and so within the space of a few minutes, I was getting ready to be wheeled to theatre. I was so thankful because the pain was too much now; I just wanted to be knocked out. I told them I wasn’t bothered what they did, just to fix me. My sister leant over me.

“@Listen to my voice Scott, listen to what I say.

Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. In, and out. Scott! Listen to me, breath in and out. Listen to my voice Scott, listen to it. Scott. SCOTT”

I couldn’t do what she said as it was just too much. I felt like giving up, I just needed to be pain free. It’s hard, and damn frustrating when you are being told to do one of the most basic functions we perform all the time, but I couldn’t take deep breaths, it hurt too much. It needed to be small sharp breaths. Soon I was on my to theatre, and when we got to the anaesthetic place, I recognised Lee. He was there for the last surgery, and he was here for the emergency one. I tried to explain what was going on, but I am sure he knew anyway. I remember he said I need to be better soon because I need to watch the last F1 race of the season.

Before I knew it, that warm metal taste was back in my throat. And I was gone.

I can’t tell you some euphoric experience that I went through here, because it felt like I was put to sleep, and then I was woken up again straight away. That little sleep I had was a good 6-7 hour sleep. When I woke, I didn’t open my eyes. I just listened; I could hear the machine beeping out my heartrate. I could move my fingers, and I checked the left side of my body. No bag.

Then I checked the right hand side. There was a bag attached to me.