Drain Drama: Take Two

Friday 1st August

As suspected I didn’t have the best night’s sleep. I was so nervous that my boob would be extra swollen and painful as the drain wasn’t doing its thing. 

In reality I was fine - I did get up early though and rang the nurses number at 7am left a message to explain the situation from the day before. 

When I hadn’t heard back at 9:15am I called again and left another message. This time I got a call straight back.

Apparently no one was able to change the bottle, the only person that could was Laura (who I was down to see at 2:30pm) but she was unavailable that morning, she (the person I spoke to- Michelle?) was going to speak to Vanessa when she arrived in a few minutes to see if she could do it - otherwise I might just have to wait until 2:30pm.

I was quite nervous by this point - shouldn’t it have been changed sooner than this?

I had another phone call about 10 minutes later from Laura, saying come in now, I’ll squeeze you in as soon as I can.

Mum came over to collect me and we went to QE2 at 10am.

I was nervous as the receptionist didn’t seem to understand that I was coming outside of my appointment time and hadn’t done anything visible to let Laura know I was there.

I needn't have worried though as Laura came out to get me after just 5 minutes of waiting.

She got me some spare bottles and showed me how to change it in case it happened again. I videoed it in case anyone else needs it in the future - https://youtube.com/shorts/ovLeS1-Db4o?feature=share

She wanted Mr Cathcart to look at my nipple as it was a bit darker than it should be. I hadn’t noticed this as I’d not really spent a lot of time without the support bra on.

He came and took a look at it. He didn't seem massively concerned but said it might scab over and (the scab) come off, the rest of the nipple area looked healthy and pink. 

He told me to keep an eye on it. 

He also checked everything else and asked how I was feeling, which was generally fine now the drain bottle situation had been rectified. 

I asked if it would be possible to get another bottle of Oromorph as I was nearly out but still needing it relatively frequently.

He wrote me a prescription and Laura scheduled another appointment for the following Tuesday to have another look at the nipple and potentially remove the drain. 

I mentioned that last time round I had been given a prescription exemption certificate to save me having to pay for all the many drugs I had to take, was I eligible this time round too? She said I was and hurried off to get me the form.

The pharmacist at the hospital kindly accepted the un-submitted exemption form for the Oramorph and after about 45 minutes of waiting I was on my way home again.