Thank you all for your good wishes
I'm not at all sure what my first thought was on waking up. I must have come to in the recovery room upstairs or they wouldn't have sent me back to the ward, but I don't remember that and nor do I remember actually coming around on the ward. I wish I had some profound or even interesting thought to relate, but the whole waking up thing is just a grey fog.
I seem to have done some pretty extensive bleeding in the night, although no one seems at all alarmed about it, they just gave me some more pads and net knickers.
I've had a more extensive glimpse of my new anatomy today as I did try to clean up a bit with a feminine wipe as it seemed pointless to put clean stuff straight on. There's a lot of swelling and bruising so nothing down there seems very promising yet.
I'm dreading the thought of having to poke anything into it in a couple more days, but it will have to be done - I didn't come this far and go through all this just to let it close up.
I have to correct a wrong impression I gave earlier - I didn't walk to theatre alone, I was accompanied by one of the two specialist gender nurses, a new one who has only recently joined the team.
My complaint was that I walked at all and didn't get knocked senseless by a pre-med and wheeled into theatre, as happened the previous two times that I've had a general anaesthetic. I used to be utterly terrified of hospitals and stuff and I'm still pretty frightened now, so the calming effect of a premed would have been very welcome indeed.
That my stress was compounded by the late arrival of the anaesthetist was unfortunate.
The nurses in here are caring but I think that they're a bit short staffed so I do find some aspects annoying and having to wait and repeat my catheter difficulties was one of them.
