I had an operation last Tuesday to remove a lump in my throat/neck. Wasn't anything serious - had the lump for about 3 years, and have only recently had the time to have it out.
So, I was told it was going to be a very minor operation, and that I'd be in and out the same day (was told this as I was being wheeled into theatre even)...
Woke up a few hours later to find tubes sticking through my neck (I was in a pretty bad state to be honest, so wouldn't have been able to go home anyway that day) but I was then told the tubes would have to be in for the next 3 days. I got out of hospital late on Thursday night - I was feeling perfectly fine from Wednesday morning onwards - just had to wait for the drain lines etc to be removed...
Waited over the weekend, and by Sunday/Monday, the swelling hadn't really gone down at all. I was in any pain as pretty much all the nerves in my neck are still fried, but it was pretty uncomfortable and so I got back in touch with the hospital to see if it was a problem...
They asked me to go down straight away (even though I then had to wait 3 hours for the doctor to come and see me), and then I had a 2 massive syringes of blood drained from my neck. This was the worst experience of my life - having 2 very large needles stuck into my neck, held in there for about a minute, whilst a doctor pressed down on the swelling to assist with the draining.
After this, he said I needed to come back on Wednesday to have the stitches out - which were painless. However, as the swelling had come back again I had to go through the agonising procedure with the needles again to drain out the excess fluid.
...He then told me to come back the following day for it to be looked over again, and as it was swollen up again, I had to go through the same thing for a 3rd time.
At the end of this, he said there was obviously a problem as I was bleeding internally with no signs of it improving on it's own...
I'm now having to go back into hospital tomorrow morning at 7am, to have the wound re-opened for exploratory surgery in order to find the source of the bleeding.
As this was supposed to be a very minor operation - having to stay in for 3 days at the start, then go back in 3 times before being readmitted for another emergency operation I'm not exactly feeling too great about it all now!
Oh well!
If any of you want to see the state of my neck while I was in hospital:
http://imgur.com/2rSoJpZ
I've not embedded the image as I'm sure some of you really won't want to see it - so be warned!