Yesterday was quite chilly. The temperature was forecast to rise to 9° C in the middle of the day, but most of the day was just 7° C, and there was a fair bit of wind to make that feel even colder. There was some rain in the middle of the day, and some of it sounded quite heavy on the roof of the hospital toilet (which had no windows so I could not see outside).

  The heart valve, made from metal and (apparently) animal products, was made in Germany, and by popular opinion should be made like "a brick outhouse", and will hopefully last a long life time (a Chinese one would probably break in just over a year if it was like many of their cheap trinkets).

  The actual procedure (done yesterday morning) was done under sedation rather than a general anaesthetic (although local anaesthetic was used when they made the holes for the catheters. As such I was conscious through the whole procedure. It was often quite interesting, and on the whole painless. I did feel the new heart valve being pushed into the heart. That felt indescribably weird. There was no pain, but I guess the heart was momentarily stopped as it happened. I did have defibrillator pads on, if my heart didn't restart, but as far as I am aware it wasn't needed.

  "As far as I am aware" features a lot in this description. As the anaesthetist warned me, I would be pumped full of "happy juice" (which I think included Donald Trumps favourite demon - Fentanyl), and that would mean my memories would almost seem like dreams. I must admit it was a very hazy hour that the procedure lasted. I can remember a few bits of it. I can remember a spray of my blood when the hole in the "groin area" was cut, and maybe there was some mild pain despite the local anaesthetic. The pain seemed a little sharper, but was over in less than a second when they cut the hole in my right wrist.

  I can remember be Cardiologist asking how I was, maybe about halfway through, and I replied that I felt sort of sleepy. He suggested I close my eyes and go to sleep if that felt good. I am unsure if I did fall asleep, but I may have done. It would have been natural, although chemical aided sleep if I did. My memory of being dragged off the operating table onto my bed (using either a board or a special sheet) is very hazy. I may have been asleep while m bed was pushed back into the ward.

  Maybe the "happy juice" was wearing off by then because I definitely remember feeling hungry, and wasting no time in scoffing a tuna and mayonnaise sandwich that was left on my table ready for me whenever I was ready for it - which seemed to be instantly. I think I was left along to snooze after the sandwich, but I don't recall snoozing. In fact I can remember getting very little sleep while in hospital.

  Occasionally my blood pressure was checked, and I was wired up to a heart monitor the whole time.  I passed some of the time reading. At one point I was observed by one of the Cardiologists going to the toilet to have a pee. A bit later on he had a word with me. He asked if I had felt any discomfort on that short walk, and asked if I was always able to walk to the toilet. I said no pain, and walking to the toilet was the easiest thing in the world. He said it looked very possible I would be discharged the next day on that basis.

  The next big thing was bedtime - except I hardly slept at all. Laying there in the dark I became very aware of my heart, and while it is not the sort of thing you can make any big observations about, I did get the distinct (even if imagined) feeling I could feel the heart valve as a sort of foreign object. Even the beat of my heart felt odd. A day later and I do wonder is some of what I think I remember was actually dreaming. I think I did get a couple of hours of real sleep, and there must have been some dreaming in that time.

  The next morning I felt good and bad. The bad was I was very aware I had built up quite a sleep deficit, and the good was that I did feel pretty good. One of the first things of the morning was to have an ECG. I had one after the procedure, and the cardiologists were not happy with it. The one taken yesterday morning needed to be scrutinised to see if it was safe to discharge me later in the day.

  So started a very long wait with nothing from the Cardiologist about that ECG trace. A couple of other people who had the same procedure were being prepared for discharge, but nothing was heard about me. It was early afternoon when one of the nurses found an email from the Cardiologist team that said I could be discharged. The IT system in the hospital is a bit crap, and somehow the email was sent, and was readable if found, but had not arrived in an inbox. A sharp eyed nurse saw it,  read it, and announced the good news to me.

   I needed to be prepared, and my transport booked to take me home. The preparations were mainly to do with re-dressing a few places and removing a cannula. The cannula was in the back of my hand, instead of the more usual arm, and so the skin around it was less fleshy. I was reminded of how much blood could leak from even a small artery. Te nurse told me to put a lot of pressure on the dressing after she had pulled the needle out. I did so, but not for long enough because it was slowing me down getting dressed. As soon as I took the pressure off it started leaking huge amounts of blood. It was a great way of being reminded how important it was to look after the dressing over the hole in my groin. That leads to a very big artery, and it could pump out gallons of blood !

  After a while I was in my outdoor clothes and my transport had been booked. Then it was a case of what I think they call in the army "hurry up and wait". I was feeling really good at this point, although most of it is was euphoria because I was going home. I said to speed things up I would walk down to the transport lounge, but I was told in very strong terms to wait for the Patient Transport man who would take me down in a wheelchair. That felt annoying, but now I think it was quite reasonable.

  Eventually the man turned up, and I was on my way. When we got down to the bus he said he was only taking three of us home, and that meant a shorter journey, and although he still followed a weird, allegedly traffic avoiding route, I was the first drop off. I arrived home in daylight (although it was starting to fade) and unbelievably it was dry. (It seemed almost every time I have gone in one of those Patient Transport buses (a modified Ford Transit van) it has been raining, and mostly it was heavy rain. It was a treat to get home in good light and in the dry.

  As expected, it was freezing cold indoors after two nights of no heating. I turned the heater full on in my bedroom, and once I had changed into casual clothes I ordered a pizza In fact it was one 12 inch and one 9 inch pizza, plus a side order of spicy chicken wings). My original idea had been to go to Tesco to stock up the fridge before I went off for my procedure, but I was not feeling up to a walk in the rain. Hot pizza was a great substitute.

  I am unsure what time it was that I went to bed - my own bed, in my own bedroom in my own house - pure luxury !! At the latest it was about 10pm before I fell asleep. I did not fall asleep instantly, but I laid in bed for maybe 20 minutes reviewing the day, and it was then that I realised how dreamlike my procedure was. I thought I could remember the whole thing, but just like dreams, some memories just seemed to evaporate to nothing.

  While laying in bed I also started to feel a few aches I had not really noticed before. Even before that I became aware that my right knee was quite stiff, and even mildly painful when going up or down stairs. That had nothing to do with the procedure, but was just from not enough use to keep it in a free condition. Once again I started to feel my heart feeling weird - although I think that was sort of imagination. When I mentioned it to the cardiologists, or maybe to a nurse (I seem to forget now) that I had the impression that the heart felt bruised, I was told it was a bit unusual to be able to describe it as such, but I was essentially correct. Inserting the new valve had effectively bruised the area (or whatever the heart does if it doesn't bruise like ordinary skin).

  It is possible I dreamed getting up for a pee (although when I checked my blood glucose I would have been surprised if I hadn't had at least one pee in the night. Otherwise it felt like I had slept solidly for 7 or 8 hours. I almost felt refreshed when I got up this morning. Sadly there were a few things to dampen my enthusiasm, and one of them was the rain. The rest were a new appreciation of some of the negative effects of my procedure or the preparation for it.

  It was not until this morning that I began to feel how tender the "wound" in my "groinal area" was. I cant usually feel it, but it takes very little disturbance to provoke some dull pain. It is also the "wound" I fear the most. If it starts leaking I could lose an awful lot of blood very quickly. I have a cunning plan to get it dressed again, but I'll get to that later. maybe more of a surprise is how my right wrist feels. It feels like a muscle was partly cut of something. Once again, with nothing to stimulate it, I feel nothing, but if I bend my wrist, which is incredibly common when doing so many things, I can feel it is sort of stiff and painful.

  Another pain I can feel this morning, but it was worse last night, is sort of like frontal neck ache. I have no idea what the reason for that is unless I managed to fall asleep while still in the hospital without my head being fully supported...or something weird like that. Maybe I was supporting myself in a weird way when on the operating table. Other than that, I can't explain it.

  After getting up I did the usual - a trip to the toilet - still no movement or discomfort from my bowels, but at least another big pee. All the peeing was good, and it does make me wonder if I peed more in the night than I remember, because this morning my weight was rather pleasing. My records are a bit incomplete because of being in hospital (but I did use their scales when I could. My weight has been a bit up and down, but this morning it was 900gm less than what I think it was yesterday, and is certainly back down to what I was on he 28th January when after a downward trend it started inching up again.

  What was not pleasing was my blood glucose. Like many times in the past, it seemed to be moderately high in hospital when it I was sure I was eating carefully (and usually smaller portions than I typically eat at home). I think it goes up when stressed and/or not sleeping properly. Now I admit that enjoying a lot of pizza last nigh probably did me no favours, but even so my readings were bad this morning.

  The highest reading was by my latest meter, the "GlucoFix Sensor), and it was right up to the red line - 9.9mmol/l. (the red line being 10.0mmol/l) The next highest was the Nexus GlucoRX meter with a reading of 9.7mmol/l. At least the Bayer Contour meter read a basic 8.7mmol/l. I am going to try to eat more safely today.

  Eating more safely might be easier because I don't think I am going to do a shopping trip to Tesco today. For one thing I don't fancy going out in the rain. Secondly, I am not sure if I am ready for that short walk just yet. It seems silly that I feel less ready when I was doing the walk before the procedure that should cure the discomfort with almost no problem. Maybe I just fear damaging the healing of the very important "wound" in my "groinal area".

  The fact is that I have plenty of Diet Coke, and I have enough pizza in the fridge to do all my meals today, and there is plenty of other stuff in the freezer. I am not sure why I feel I wanted to go shopping - maybe it was just to see how it felt. I think I am going to spend the time more usefully by snoozing and reading. Tonight (starting mid to late afternoon) I expect I will have several visitors for another beer tasting session. I reckon that unless I try anything stupid, which is unlikely when indoors, I can drink anything I fancy tonight. It should be the end of the world if I get drunk. It might be very enjoyable !