Below are updates post-operation, on Fr. Chris. To view earlier updates, check the first updates page.

Sunday 20th October

He came out of theatre at 1pm, and was transferred to ITU. He’s fast asleep but stable. He will stay in ITU overnight and then tomorrow, all still being well, he will move to the high dependency ward. Keep praying please.

Monday 21st October

He is doing well. He is awake and has managed to eat some breakfast in ITU. The move to high dependency will still probably happen later on today. His cousin asked about visiting today, and he said probably better leave it until tomorrow. Fr John will take him Holy Communion today, and just his family are visiting tomorrow, and we’ll see how he feels after that.

Tuesday 22nd October

He had his first visit today from his family, so we now have a clearer picture than we got from the telephone calls! 

We were probably left with a slightly inaccurate understanding of the situation (I was anyway!) when they said that ‘he ate some breakfast’ on the morning after the operation. In fact, contrary to my vision of him tucking in to bacon and eggs (!), it seems that he has managed to eat only a few mouthfuls of very easy stuff (consommé and coffee for lunch today, for example). However, this is fairly normal at this stage apparently.

He is moving on swiftly because this morning, he was in the ‘Progressive Care unit’ (whatever that is!), but by the time his family visited this afternoon, he was back in the Chester Suite, sitting up in a chair! He is still attached to some drips and wires, but the number of them is now substantially reduced. 

He was obviously delighted to see some family, but they found that he did tire very quickly and they limited their visit to 20 minutes. However, by the time he received Holy Communion at around 5 o’clock, he had revived considerably again.

Unless he tells us otherwise (and unless we agree with him!), visiting will be restricted to one person taking him Holy Communion for each of the next two days (Wednesday and Thursday). On Friday, his cousin will visit again, and another cousin will visit on Saturday. There will also be a Holy Communion visit on both of those days too. 

All in all, his progress is going as well as anyone could hope for. 

Wednesday 23rd October

Still recovering well. So well in fact that there were actually murmurings about the possibility of him being discharged tomorrow (Thursday). This has not been confirmed yet, and of course he will be going straight back up to Boarbank, but if he is discharged, it will only be 4 days after surgery! There’ll be no stopping him when he returns to us!

Thursday 24th October

 He is still making very good progress and is walking round, although in the end, they weren’t quite ready to let him go today. However, they are happy for him to be discharged tomorrow (Friday) morning and he will be taken straight back to Boarbank. This time (at least to start with) he will stay in the Nursing Home part rather than the Guest House part, but they are connected and indeed I think he said that last time he stayed there he would walk through to the Nursing Home wing for his meals.

I’m not sure that the weather is going to be terribly good, so please pray for a safe journey.

Friday 25th October

He is really doing remarkably well, and arrived at Boarbank in the early afternoon after a light lunch in the Royal Oak! He does still have some pain, but it’s only a problem when he coughs or sneezes. He has another bag of drugs to be administered by the staff at the nursing home, and his room this time has a beautiful view. 

If anyone would like to visit, it might be an idea to tell Julie if you don’t mind (or Pat while Julie is away) just so that if we know someone else is already visiting at your proposed time, we can warn you so that you can choose a different time if possible.  He did say that he would love to have visitors, so don’t be shy! (From Wednesday onwards, there will be copies of the directions to Boarbank (which work very well) pinned to the noticeboard, so please do take a copy if you would like to).

Once we arrived, we unpacked all his stuff and settled him in, and he was planning to have a nap when we left, as the journey did tire him out. Unfortunately, just outside his room, is the alarm which goes off when someone presses their buzzer, and even more unfortunately, there is someone who seems to press their buzzer quite a lot!

Finally, before we left, I told him that we would leave now and let him rest. To which my companion added, ‘In peace’!!

To view earlier updates, check the first updates page.