Kate Dalziel
show transcript
The issue of pain, around and after the transplant, was really not on one’s mind at all – it was the least important thing. And the symptoms of severe heart failure are pretty devastating. There was a continuous background discomfort, you know, you had huge numbers of things stuck in various bits of you, most of which were uncomfortable. And I think there was a bit of me that was anxious about how brave I would be. After the operation, because I’d had a lot of orthopaedic surgery as a child, in days when you were not given analgesics, you were not given painkillers. And I had come to the conclusion that I was a wimp. And so I was jolly glad when I found after the transplant that I wasn’t a wimp at all! [laughing] It was fine, I actually barely needed any painkillers. It was not … compared with orthopaedic surgery – it was not a painful operation, remarkably. And a bit of codeine was, I think, about all I needed. So I was really very lucky.