The first thing was to work out a way to communicate with people. How else would I make friends?

The first notebook Dad got for me said on the front ‘Be your own kind of beautiful’. Seemed fitting, since I would definitely be challenging the normal ideas of ‘beautiful’ for some time (someone did just tell me I was totally rocking the look hehe – the ol swollen face look).

The scribbles start to make sense after a few pages, as the initial anaesthesia wore off. I was never far from my felt-tip pens or notebook. In fact everything was covered in pen – my arms, my sheets, my gown, at one point I even managed to draw on my Physio.

After the first couple of days of confusion, things got a bit clearer. I was helped through by some amazing people as I was recovering in the ICU.

Anna was the Portuguese nurse from Porto. I promised her that once I was better I would prioritise visiting her home town. She said to drink their special ‘Porto wine’, I of course agreed. I realised later we were talking about Port. Yes please, I will drink it all.

Then Maria took over. She was lovely. She had a brilliant knack of explaining things to me really well as she was doing them, putting me at ease and making sure I was informed about everything that was going on. This appeals to me so much. Looking through my conversation book from Maria’s shift, it appears I finally managed to work out the reason as to why my neck was sore – something that had been plaguing me – of course, they made quite a big cut in my neck to connect the blood supply, I’d known his all along but for some reason this was when my re-realisaion epiphany happened. I also wrote ‘Elephant’ and underlined it, so I’m sure that was important. The lovely Maria also came and popped in at another time, a few shifts later, she crouched by my bed and held my hand. She was great.

Then there was the amazing Rebecca, with a pixie haircut that gave me massive hair inspo, beautiful straight teeth, a great smile and very pretty eyes. It was Thursday, day 3 post surgery. My memory of my day with her is surrounded by sunshine. We put the radio on in the morning and had it going all day, managed to find a station that was just playing an awesome mix of retro songs. We boogied through the day and she would pop over to come have a chat/write with me. She also knew Sydney, which was fun. When she went on her break, she had a tea on my behalf because we drink it the same way. I got up and danced to the radio as my bed was made. Kat the Physio came by and decided it was time to go walking! So I got all my lines and drains bundled up and with Kat on one side and Rebecca on the other, Clarence under one arm and my parents as cheer squad/photographers, my support crew and I went thundering down the corridor. I, of course, was certain I was fine and was trying to do everything myself and quickly. It became a common theme of my friendship with Kat that she would spend a lot of time telling me to slow down, calm down. I appreciated that. I need these sorts of reminders when I’m not well. Later in the afternoon after everyone had left, Rebecca and I went for another walk. We danced down the corridor, and she took me on a short tour of the floor outside of our ward. We recommended each other our favourite Ramen places (Kanada-ya: mine, Koya: hers). I told her my legs were randomly itchy and she said it’s a side effect of the morphine and that I had a drug on my file that would counteract that! Brilliant! I was sad when her shift ended, I’d had such a fun day.

I was lucky however, as it wasn’t long until I met Ronnie, who took over from Rebecca, and had actually been there that first night with me in the ICU as I was coming out of anaesthetic. I didn’t really remember of course but I wanted to know all about it. Well, I was distressed and thought I was being choked (start the 11 day obsession with getting rid of the thing hat had been choking me – my tracheostomy). Apparently I was so stressed they got someone in to have a look if there was something wrong with it. Nope nothing wrong, but my body did think this new invader was trying to kill it. Anyway, we chatted and learnt about each other as she pottered around doing her work tasks (entertaining me was obviously the number 1 task). I wrote out my ‘list of demands’ that I wanted her to fill for me before bed (cheeky). In the morning, she cleaned my eye for me and put ointment and drops in it, and for the first time in 3 days we saw my left eye!

During this whole time I was in a shared ward, though our bays were big. The room felt so different with each person who was looking after me in that time that in my mind, each time the shift changed, I also changed location. This of course didn’t happen, but it could have! Someone could have been trying really hard to mess with me!

At some point someone described me in this time as a ‘big personality’. Just goes to show that you can be dopey and not able to speak and still get yourself across.