I am back home as planned after Friday's surgery.
I was doing really well last week, keeping busy, seeing old friends and having fun. It was especially lovely to catch up with my old college friend Aziz in London on Tuesday, and to meet her 8 month old baby for the first time.
I put off thinking about the surgery as much as I could. On Wednesday my lovely friend came and helped me in the garden - we pulled up loads of dead winter stuff and hacked back the ivy. We filled 2 huge builders bags, which Rebecca then took to the tip for me.
I filled Thursday with a thorough tidy up, clean and reorganization of the kids den downstairs. I moved cupboards, shelves and toys, and tidied up all the bookshelves and DVDs. I popped into Reading, bought black curtaining and a track, and sewed 3 curtains to partition off that section of the garage. And then I put up the curtain track and curtains.
So I only really became unbearably squeaky and frightened at about 8pm, when I packed my bag. Bill tried really hard to be nice and ply me with cheese and wine and mindless tv. But I found fault with him, the world and everything and hoped that by huffing off to bed, I'd make the time go away.
Friday morning was no better. I had to be at the hospital at 7.30. Bill insisted on taking me in. I was happy with a lift to the door, but oh no! He insisted on accompanying me up to the ward and 'settling me in'. But he didn't offer even to carry my bags! In the ward, I was shown to my bed, told to wait there, as the staff were in the middle of 'hand over', and someone would come and book me in. Bill stood there for approximately half a minute then made his excuses and left. He was finding this every bit as difficult as I was. I was cross with him, for not reaching out to me in my angst and hugging me and telling me everything was going to be ok. I would have been quite happy with this lie.
I sat in the chair and tried to read my book, and not notice time ticking slowly by.
The first person to come was the anaesthetist. After checking my name, he upset me straight away by asking me what I was having done. I couldn't even say it out loud. I just cried a lot, and tried to say - 'what is this? a test?' I thought
he really ought to know what I was having done, and not have to rely on me to tell him!
This was the beginning of the farce.. He then misunderstood me through my sobbing and thought I'd said to him that I had come in for 'some tests'. So he got worried that I didn't fully understand the nature of my operation. He peered around the curtain to ask the surgeon, who was waiting his turn to ask me the same questions. He asked him, 'what's she in for? she thinks she's just in for some tests.'
Mr Surgeon then came around the curtain and gave me a big patronizing smile as he said, half to his colleague and half to me, 'we have met before Mrs White, you do know what you are having don't you?' He then leafed through my notes to find out.. ' A mastectomy and axillary lymph clearance. What side is it on?'
I was horrified to see him checking my notes there in front of me. I said between sobs that I was really upset and that I wasn't confident in him, as he hadn't even checked my notes before seeing me, to know what I was having done. He should have read up about me before saying hello. And his colleague the anaesthetist should have known what the procedure was.
I think of course that the anaesthetist did know I was having a mastectomy, and he could have said 'you're having a mastectomy and axillary lymph clearance on the right hand side, is that right?'.. and I could've nodded, or whispered yes; not been pressured into trying to say the words out loud myself.
Mr Surgeon drew arrows on my chest to remind himself where to operate and even wrote 'mx' on me, so he wouldn't accidentally forget what to do when I was wheeled in. I was upset by this too, and asked him how much of a factory production line this was going to be. Were there going to be so very many of us one after the other? I told him that although I know why they did it, (to double check and confirm and to allow no mistakes) it actually made me feel even more insecure in their abilities - that they couldn't think for themselves in theatre.
They left me alone for a few minutes while I cried and cried. Eventually they came back and completed the pre operation checklist, and consent form.
My breast care nurse came after that, and let me know it was okay to cry. I pulled myself together, and asked a few sensible questions. I was to be 2nd on Mr Surgeon's list, and I was his only 'big' operation that day, and it would take about an hour and a half to 2 hours.
From then on time went really quickly, and I got changed into a gown, and was walked down to theatre by the nurse. She was really gentle with me and kept up a steady prattle of small talk , as I was walking so slowly, partly through apprehension at what was to come,and partly because I could barely see without my contacts in.
I woke up quite happily, with no pain, and soon asked to go back to the ward. The operation had taken two and a half hours. I phoned Bill, who came to visit, and texted everyone to say it had all gone well. I had been given a morphine thing so I could dose myself whenever I wanted.
I had a very good time for the first 48 hours, and had lots of visitors.
Bill decided that he would demonstrate his love and care by making food for me - so I wouldn't waste away on hospital food. He filled a cool box with 2 slices of pizza, a ham and mustard sandwich with home pickled onions on the side, a cheddar and homemade onion chutney sandwich, 2 smoked salmon and rocket bagels, a prawn salad wrap, a chill and ginger infused salmon steak ciabatta, a prawn salad ciabatta, 4 mini pork pies, 6 mini scotch eggs, a punnet of baby plum tomatoes, a bag of satsumas, 5 apples, 4 large bars of chocolate, a box of Thorntons chocs, a bag of hard wine gums, and a bag of soft wine gums, some gu chocolate pot puddings, and some gu extra special individual cheesecakes, 4 yoghurts, 8 mini cans of lemonade, several bags of crisps, and 2 bottles of squash concentrate. He didn't forget the disposable cutlery and mini sachets of salt and pepper. He must love me very much, huh? Feeder.
The tubes they left under my skin, called drains, collected fluid into vacuumed bottles by the side of the bed, but by Sunday evening they were causing such acute pain as they rubbed internally against raw nerves. I was either in agony when I moved, or very frightened of the pain and therefore too afraid to move lest it hurt. So I got into terrible frozen positions for what seemed like hours, not daring to move and developing stiff, sore shoulders and neck.
The nurses said not to worry because drains can often hurt like this, and they would be removed on Monday morning. In the end, I was worrying enough to warrant a house surgeon being called to examine me, and I had to insist they give me some oral morphine to get me through the night.
And - this morning they removed the drains and I gradually regained enough confidence to move, get up, get showered and dressed and get ready to come home. I only need paracetamol and codeine for pain relief now.
By the time Bill came for me at 2pm I was happy and cheerful, and fully able to move freely.
I may need to go back to the walk-in 'Seroma Clinic' on Friday to have any more fluid syringed out of my wound, and then back next Tuesday to hear the results of the surgery (what they found when they examined what they removed), and to be handed over to the oncologist who will be planning any medical treatments I undergo after I heal from this surgery (4 to 6 weeks).
Lots of things occur to me when I look at my body... the whole wound area is covered by a large see-through plastic dressing, so nothing is hidden. I'm shocked, and repulsed and I feel sorry for myself. I am disturbed by the shape I am left with. I feel robbed and damaged and I want to blame someone. This has surely got to be someone's fault? Then again, maybe they've actually cut off all my cancer? Perhaps I haven't got any cancer left anywhere at all? I'm also weirdly fascinated by the surgical work that's been done. I wonder how they know what and where to cut and what to sew up. Looking down my teeshirt I can see straight past my ex-breast, and I am suddenly inescapably aware of how big my belly is! Good job I managed to get the night shift staff to help me out with Bill's cool box.
