I’m never going to forget the day I had my colon surgery – September 11.

It also meant that got at least two forms wrong as my head couldn’t work out the difference between UK and US dates given other events that have happened on the same day.

When you think about 400 or so forms that you have to fill in or check before removing a chunk of your body though, I guess it’s not too bad a ratio.

Tonight will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining

Before my colonoscopy I had to take a preparatory solution called PlenVu to flush out my insides.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that having to do the same was the bit I was looking forward to least of the whole surgery.

I woke up at 6:30am one day before surgery, for a “final” meal and then it was on to the MoviPrep. Sadly not getting me ready for a big screen shirtless debut but a combination of powders which trigger the most frightening of laxative effects.

Think of the scene in Team America but from the other direct. Luckily I was moving no more than 10ft from the toilet all day.

The flavours of MoviPrep were marginally better than PlenVu but the main benefit was the litre of water to dilute this solution where previously it was a half pint.

And then we just wait for the magic to happen.

To give an idea of just how relaxed I was about the next day, I went to bed at 11pm and Garmin gave me a 95% sleep score. It’s probably the first time in a couple of years that my watch has been nice to me. Usually it just says I’m out of shape and need to recover for a decade after popping to the shop for milk.

The big day had arrived.

Goodbye colon my old friend

I really wish I’d taken voice notes on a Dictaphone like Alan Partridge: “Idea for a programme – a game of Operation but in real life”

Instead it’s a bit of a blur of visitors and pacing around my room. First the anaesthetist who was slightly out of breath from climbing the stairs to the ward (six flights to be fair), then a physio to talk me through the first few days of physical recovery, a couple of nurses, someone with a menu for dinner (I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to eat), my surgeon with the head of the ward, and then nobody.

I was just stood pacing back and forth waiting for the call.

There were two operations before me and a likely time of 10:30 for my surgery. I’d not eaten since the previous morning, I’d been up since 7 am to finish my last pre-op drinks, and now I could do nothing but wait. I wasn’t quite tetchy, but getting there. Somewhere between excited and hangry.

The only thing to do was get into my lovely hospital robe and accompanying paper pants. The ensemble was completed with white knee-high compression socks.

I’m very fortunate that my work has comprehensive medical insurance (although as mentioned everything to date had been “States”) and thus not only did I have my own room with a view out to St Aubin’s Bay, but I also got a white dressing gown.

Finally my lovely nurse Kelly came to take me downstairs. With the whole outfit, paired with my own sliders, I could just as easily have been heading to a spa treatment or massage rather than the halving of my large intestine.

The surgical units of Jersey Hospital are on the ground floor, through a seemingly never-ending series of twists and turns. If Kelly had left me at any point, I’m not sure I would’ve made it back to the outside world.

Luckily she instead led me to the promised land of surgical reception where I was asked more questions and filled in more forms but yet another person in Crocs. No matter what happens to me on this “journey” I will never wear Crocs but thank you to those who do while carrying out an incredible job.

From Crocs to cannula, as I was taken by the anaesthetist team through to a little room, which looked like a lobby but with a wall filled with enough tech and digital instruments to send someone to moon. In this case though, all they had to do was find a vein in the back of my left hand, insert some liquid, and before you could say, well anything, I was out like a light.

This ain’t no movie scene

I know films and TV are intended as entertainment but you’d think they would have a bit more realism to them.

As a kid, we couldn’t watch Casualty as my dad would be infuriated by the inaccuracies of medical procedures.

And coming out of surgery under general anaesthetic, I think about all of the shows where the patient blinks their eyes slowly and then begins to discuss counter-insurgent projects or saving the world.

My one role in this was to lie down on a bed and recover, and I was so out of it that I could barely do that.

To even think about pulling the various lines out of my body and leaping off the trolley to save the world makes me feel a bit sick even now, so I’ll leave it to Daniel Craig and Steven Seagal.

My movie would essentially consist of me slurring my words through video calls with family and apparently not remembering the dressing being redone on my stomach as it was bleeding quite a bit.

I think I got back to the ward around 5:30pm and unsurprisingly I wasn’t able to have anything to eat. The catering team were nothing if not optimistic though and left me a little menu for breakfast choices. I promptly fell back asleep.

My overriding memory of that night was not pleasant.

The drugs that people refer to as “the good stuff” are usually opiods which have a tendency to bung up the movement of bodily waste, and having just cut my processing unit in half, I was only allowed paracetamol.

Alongside a solution to get me hydrated, I was given antibiotics to minimise potential infection.

All well and good except apparently this made me feel sick. And if you’ve ever laughed or coughed having hurt a rib, imagine trying to vomit from an empty stomach while horizontal and five fresh wounds in your belly held together with metal staples.

Like I said, not pleasant.

The nurses on the night shift were amazing though and stopped the antibiotics and gave me some anti-sickness drugs so that I could fall asleep again.

So now what

Now we wait. Expected time in hospital is five hospital and I’m one miserable night down and hoping that it gets better soon.

Given that I didn’t sleep much, a lot of day one was drifting in and out which thankfully saved me from the horrors of daytime TV and poor wifi. I can’t confirm that Inspector Morse with sign language made me doze off but it definitely helped.

The physiotherapy team popped in to take me through my exercise routine – basically bed bound yoga – with breath work and slow, very slow, movement of my legs.

Even more exciting, and slightly weird, was getting out of bed.

At the end of most yoga I’ve ever done (which isn’t a lot) there is a bit where you just lie down and close your eyes. It does have a name and I could google it but that would make me seem more like I know what I’m talking about than I do.

Well after that, you slowly turn to one side, and push yourself up. The bed version is pretty similar except that you could tilt it up and make it easier and also hide the fact that the surgery had not given me superpowers or upper body strength.

And once turning to become fully upright, that is about the moment that I remembered that I still had a catheter connected – a plastic tube leading directly from my bladder and out through my…body to a bag hooked to the side of the bed.

It’s not painful but it’s also not the most comfy. And there’s also something very strange about being followed by a woman carrying a bag of your wee as you shuffle up and down the ward but she seemed happy enough. Mainly with my walking I think.

After the excitement of walking, it was back to daytime TV and snoozing. But then,

FOOOOOOOOOOOD!!

Well soup. And soup is the worst of food. And I’m not even sure what kind of soup it is apart from slightly greenish but dang it felt good to have something other than water and tea.

And then ice cream! Soft serve plain vanilla food of the gods.

And from there to scrambled eggs in the morning! And Brooklyn 99 repeats on some super hidden Channel 4 subsidiary.

And changing into my own clothes! And then onto climbing stairs. And doing press ups!

OK so the last one isn’t true but all the rest is.

A slow, slightly faster than expected, return to doing simple things again. Savouring the tiny increments in progress and being frustrated it isn’t even quicker.

Moving from soup and scrambled eggs to toast, rolls and a yoghurt. Walking up and down the ward, pee tube free, ascending and descending the stairwell like I was in a 1930s stage show, even managing to shower for the first time in days if you count wet wiping.

I’d love to say that there was more hardship but I don’t think there was. Weekend morning TV before 9am is probably the worst part about it, no wonder people are worried about the kids these days.

I even got a visit from Rob and Bex (complete with bottle of tequila and Lucozade – not combined) and at least weekends bring sport, listening on the wireless like the good old days!

True Progress – slightly more graphic

So the other progress I was making was a bit more about bodily functions, which is to be expected considering the old colon cancer thing.

From day two, most of the medical team asked me whether I’d passed wind. I’ve never had so much interest in my flatulence, much less encouragement while in bed.

And if the delight on the faces of the surgeon and nurses when I confirmed a little peep had parped was strange, the sheer joy once I’d gone for a “number two” was beyond measure – basically high fives all round. If I could’ve got out of bed quicker I think a chest bump would’ve been on the cards.

For me though, it was a bit scary.

The gas, followed by the solids, were the sign that two sides of my large intestine sewn back together in the operation had connected successfully.

If the first…pass…wasn’t successful, it might mean more surgery and possibly a stoma bag.

Luckily after two days of tooting, I graduated. Just like my degree, only just.

The closest way I can describe it, without completely grossing anyone out or potentially getting a new niche new audience, is like the look, and smell, of new born baby poo.

But poo it was, much to the delight of all.

And just like my higher education, it meant that I was sent packing into the world. Back then it was trying to find a job in local newspapers around Somerset and the out boroughs of London.

This time it was a discharge for home rest, complete with 28 days worth of anti-coagulant syringes to prevent blood clots, some paracetamol and ibuprofen, and the well wishes of the team on Sorel Ward.

I really can’t stress enough how much admiration I have for everyone I met on the ward. At all hours of the day and night, no matter how trivial my discomfort, or how gross I must’ve looked and smelled while basically being sick on myself, they were true professionals, delivering top rate care and attention throughout.

Next up, home time and some less fun news…