More than just a bag lady

I had been looking forward to Mothers Day, not for the usual lie in or breakfast in bed but because it was the one day of the week that I got to see Hubby and the kids.  Hubby had told me that they would be coming early, around 10am but then on Sunday morning I got a message from Big Fella saying that Hubby had forgotten to put the clocks forward so they would aim to get to the hospital for 11am instead.  Fancying some toast, me, Sue and Sarah (from side room 6) went down to the restaurant and met my friend who is on Fredrick Salmon ward. We had a little browse through the M&S mans wares and then did our walk.  As we were going round we got to our bench and couldn't believe it when we found that it had been replaced with a new one! It was such a monumentous occasion that we decided to take a selfie of the 3 of us on the new bench.    Nearing the end of the walk Hubby text to say they had arrived so I made my way back up to the ward. Sitting on my bed were Big Girl and Big Fella

I've was out of it most of yesterday and today I've slept a lot following the general anaesthetic so here's a quick update as to what happened in theatre.  They took me down at about 9.15am but couldn't get a cannula in me in the anaesthetic room. Whilst they were trying Surgeon C strolled through the anaesthetic room into the theatre clutching her handbag and a coffee. "Morning all" she said chirpily as she passed by. Is it normal to take coffee into theatre I wondered? I was struck by the fact that this was obviously just another day at work for her while for us patients going to have an operation, no matter how minor, it's a worrying thing. Surgeon D, all scrubbed up even popped his head out from behind the theatre doors to say hello.  So knowing that I had surgeon B, C and D all in one theatre all shortly to be staring up my bum and lady bits gave me confidence that they were going to sort this out. (Good job I had gotten up early and had a bit of a ti

The nurses woke me early this morning because I'm going down to theatre for my investigation. I've got my gown and special stockings on and a draw sheet on my bed.  I'm not feeling nervous. Having a general anaesthetic doesn't really bother me any more. I just hope that they find whatever is causing the pain and that they can fix it.  I think the worst thing that could happen this morning is to come round to be told they didn't do anything or that they don't know what they can do to sort it out. I'm confident though they between Surgeon B and Surgeon C they will sort me out.  NB x

I've not been feeling up to blogging every day do thought that I would do a round up of the week. It has been a busy week, full of surprises. Compared to this time last week I can't believe how things have moved on. So here goes.... On Monday surgeon C came to see me. She specialises in pelvic floors and botoxing (if that's the right term). She had 2 other doctors with her, one was obviously a junior as she was scribbling away in the notes and didn't speak.  She said the Surgeon B had asked her to come and take a look and she didn't ask many questions. It was straight down to the 'business end' and her finger was in before I knew it! She examined me very slowly and carefully went around my back passage saying that she wanted to see if we could locate the exact spot where the pain was coming from.  Millimetre by millimetre she went until "aaaarrrrrgggghhhhh, that's the spot, that's the spot" I screamed. "What here?" Surgeon C asked

I had a lovely weekend. On Saturday my bestie came to visit with her Hubby and kids. He did homework with the kids for an hour while we had our time chatting and catching up. I had bought her a top from the M&S man who had a stall in Costa earlier in the week as a thank you for having my kids so often. Because he was there all weekend we decided to take a walk down and have a look at what he was selling.  We've nicknamed him the M&S man as he has lots of M&S clothes for sale, plus stuff from Tesco, Next and places like that. It's all really cheap- tops £3, jeans £5, jumpers £5 and some of the stuff even has its labels still on. He had a gorgeous men's winter coat from M&S with the label on of £159. He was selling it for £25!! I was going to get one for Hubby but they didn't have his size. Always the way.  Kitty had gotten the kids some arts and crafts sets so we took the monster puppets set to the dayroom and the kids did that while we chatted some more.

The meeting between Dr7, me and my Hubby took place on Friday. It was supposed to be at 5pm but Dr7 was running late and it didn't start until nearly 5.45. It didn't matter to us; it was nice to have half an hour with my Hubby. We sat talking and catching up, because we only see each other in person for a few hours each Sunday and then the kids take up most of our time and attention.  Anyway we went into the meeting room and sat down. There was an awkward silence. Dr7 began to talk. I'm not going to go into all the detail of the meeting- I don't think that would be fair to Dr7. But I will give you a summary.  Dr7 maintained that the pain is anxiety caused/driven despite the fact that Surgeon B had been to see me and given me a diagnosis that explained the pain. When I said this to Dr7 he said he still thinks that there is a psychological element to the pain and thinks I should explore some psychological treatment.  I was frustrated by this and was about to retort when H

On Friday I was lucky to have my sister come to visit me. She had driven all the way from Derbyshire and she must have known that I needed some support.  When she arrived I was trying to tackle a form for the benefits office. I'm sure they make them difficult in the hope that people give up filling them out and so don't bother to apply for benefits. I think trying to do these things when you're ill is particularly difficult and my mind was all over the place thinking about the meeting with Dr7 that evening.  She arrived and sat with me, helping me to fill out the form and listening to me as I ranted at how hard everything was, how unfair things were and how I felt that I just couldn't cope. "You have to cope. There are 3 people at home that need you to cope" she told me.  Kelly hadn't been there long when Kitty arrived. I was pleased that Kitty got to meet her and they seemed to get on. Kitty was going to help me prepare my questions, comments and concerns

On the phone to Hubby on Thursday evening after what has been possibly one of the hardest days of my life he suddenly stops talking and there's just silence.  Asking him what's wrong he said he's just read an email sent from a friend about my blog. I've only received positive feedback so far but thought that perhaps there was someone who didn't like what they had read and was emailing to tell him that.  But no. It was much worse than that.  The email was from one of my friends friends (if that makes sense) who had showed my blog to one of her friends. You with me so far? This friend works for a law firm and said that while she sympathised with what I was going through by using the Doctors names in my blog I am being libellous.  "It can't be libel if what I'm writing is just the truth though" I tell Hubby. But after a quick google I realise that maybe I am.  Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.  She said that if the doctor read what I had written he could sue me

Good morning. I didn't blog last night because I was so exhausted that by 6pm I was dropping to sleep reading a magazine. I would usually fight it and try to stay awake but I didn't have the fight in me last night so I gave in and got tucked up around 6.30pm. I don't think I was awake for much longer after that.  So here's my update of what occurred yesterday, which as you will read, is actually quite a lot.  Tuesday night I didn't get to sleep until 12.30am (so it was technically Wednesday) and then woke up at 4am in pain. The pain lasted a good hour or so but by then I was wide awake and thought that I might as well stay awake for the 6am observations and medication. I have a long lasting, slow release morphine tablet at 6am and 6pm so didn't see the point in drifting off only to be woken up to take it.  It turned out that they actually didn't bring it until 6.45am so after that I checked my emails, groupon and Facebook and decided to get up.

When I woke up on Thursday I still felt exhausted even though I had slept pretty well. I think it was like an emotional hangover from Wednesday.   I decided that the best thing to do to cope with how I was feeling was to blog. So that's what I did for the next 3 hours. I needed to finish off the post detailing my barium tests and episodes; I wanted to do this so that my story was complete. I also wanted to write about Wednesdays ward round while it was still fresh in my mind but without all the high emotions I had felt on Wednesday clouding my judgement (and writing style!) I spent hours writing, pouring my heart and soul (and tears) into the blog posts. I find that writing these posts is very cathartic and it also helps me to have something to go back to- to help me remember the details of a day or an event after they have passed. And of course you guys love reading them too! While I was writing my sister text me and asked me if I had looked at Facebook. I hadn't because the F

Wednesday afternoons is the other day Dr 7 does his ward round. I had missed the ward round on Monday because I had been down having the barium X-ray test, although I was told that Dr 7 wasn't there on Monday anyway. Yesterday morning I had been called down for the anal ultrasound. When the woman showed me the ultrasound probe I winced- it looked so big. It didn't have the ping pong ball bit on the end as I thought it would but it was still pretty long and quite wide.  Suffice to say it hurt and the doctor wanted to stop but I was determined to have the test done so that all the tests were done in time for the ward round. I was sure they would show a cause for the pain and incontinence also.  That afternoon I was sat on my bed waiting expectantly for the doctors thinking that today might be the day I get some answers and a plan of how they're going to fix my bottom and take all this pain away. What I didn't expect was for my whole world to come crashing down