In My View: Surgery opened my eyes to true hospital heroes

However that has all changed as I tore my anterior cruciate ligament in my knee playing football and needed to go under the knife to get it fixed.

This resulted in an overnight stay in Wishaw General Hospital and during my stay it completely opened my eyes to the difficult tasks the nursing staff have to go through every day.

With the surgery a success, thankfully, I was left trapped in bed unable to walk and had to rely completely on the help of the nurses on my ward and I am taking this opportunity to thank each and every one of them.

Effectively waiting on me hand and foot, helping me move when nature called, making sure I was comfortable and waking me up during the night to ensure I took my pain medication, the nursing staff certainly offered round the clock care.

Until my brief and slightly painful experience in hospital I had no idea how much work is involved in being a nurse. Every person I dealt with, or maybe it should be dealt with me, always had a smile on their face even if they were five minutes away from finishing a 12 hour shift.

I now view nurses as underpaid heroes who deserve a lot of credit for what they do and if I ever meet a nurse who is not in the happiest mood or looks stressed or tired I will completely understand why.

And for me I can now focus on my long road to recovery and look forward to setting off metal detectors at airports for the rest of my life with a knee that is more metal than man.