Mik Scarlet's Hospital Diary: Week Two

Amazing. It's only been just over a week since my op and I feel fine.

The pain is getting less and less, and I'm feeling as if the operation happened ages ago. In fact, it's very hard to remember just how short the time is since I was strapped to a table having my back rebuilt, bionic man stylee.

Of course, while it's a good thing to feel so well so soon, there is no way that I can go home yet. Even though I feel super, I have to stay here for at least two more weeks. So mega-boredom is starting to creep in. When I first arrived, I found the fact that the ward I am in is one person to one room a pleasant surprise, and it is a great set-up for doing those more intimate things. But I am finding it quite lonely. No one to talk to, swap operation stories with or letch at the nurses with. I won't believe it, but a situation I always thought would be a dream is beginning to get to me.

Bizarrely, as this ward has no electronic equipment in it, we are allowed to use mobile phones, so I have been 'txtng my m8s' like a man possessed. Passes the time. I've spent a bloody fortune on top-up cards for the mobile and bored all of my friends with stories of my op.

The high point of my stay at the moment is the amount of time the nurses and I spend discussing my bowels. Being fed a diet of strong pain killers while not moving, laying on my back in a body cast and having insides that are still healing, all lead to me becoming a volcano of poo just waiting to erupt. There, you know I'm starting to go a bit stir crazy because I am discussing my toiletry predicament with the nation. Deep joy.

In my last article I sang the praises of my surgical team, who were reported to have brought about a miracle by returning function to bits of my body I haven't been able to move or feel for decades. However, to make sure I don't stray from the tone of this article, I must now have a little moan about them. You see, I have been getting dribs and drabs of information as I lie here, and it transpires that while the op seems to be amazing, it wasn't the one we had discussed. Instead of a spinal fusion, I have had a spinal reconstruction. My spine was removed from L11 to T4 and replaced with titanium rods. The bits of bone left over from my spine have been packed around my nerve column and wrapped with wire. This is a much more dramatic operation and it means that I have a much longer recovery period, and have to face a massively more radical recovery regime.

Instead of three to six months in a plastic body brace, I have to spend six months in a plaster body cast, sitting at no more than thirty degrees, then three months in a plastic brace at sixty degrees, followed by three months in a corset gradually working towards sitting upright again. OK, it's only a year out of my life - and it will lead to a pain-free life - but I am a little pissed off because I made plans that will now have to be scrapped. I just wish I'd been told. Yeah, it might have made me think about the op, but surely it is my decision?

I do feel a bit ungrateful moaning about being kept in the dark about the severity of what my operation entailed, and I am more than thankful that I did have it done, but I really thought that I had finally met a team of surgeons who would make sure I knew everything. I suppose they could see that if I discovered I was going to become a human tortoise for at least six months I might have chickened out ... well, I would have turned into a big running-away rooster. This way, after a year of discomfort I can look forward to a pain-free life - a life where my titanium spine sets off every alarm when travelling abroad.

The only other thing about being so bored is that I can't think of anything to write about ... which is unlike me. At least the fact that I am back to moaning definitely shows I'm on the mend.

Anyway, I must go. Those laxatives are starting to work and I must call for a nurse ... NOW!