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Out of my hands

After agonising over whether to go in for the 'Fanny Assessment' on Thursday I called St Marks yesterday and left a message saying that I would go ahead with it.

It hasn't been an easy decision to make and I sought advice from friends and family where opinions were split 50/50. 

In the end I decided to go ahead with it as I thought it was a relatively straightforward procedure and would require an overnight stay at the most. Chances that anything would go wrong were slim and it might just speed things up in terms of the next operation in 2014. 

I hadn't heard anything yesterday so decided to give them a call so I could get some more details and prepare myself to go back in. 

However when the admissions clerk answered she said she was going to call me to tell me that it wouldn't be going ahead on Thursday after all as Surgeon A wanted to do the reversal at the same time (as long as everything looks ok down there) and they didn't have a big enough slot on Thursday. 

That took me back a little bit but I was gobsmacked when she said it was likely to be on the 9th January. She just had to double check with the Surgeon A as she didn't have his diary in front of her. 

After hanging up I just started crying. I'm not sure if was relief that I wouldn't have to go into hospital this close to Christmas, fear of the next operation being weeks, rather than months away or just a release following the last few weeks. 

The only problem was I was in the car in the carpark at Tesco and people were looking. 

My hubby says it means that we can relax and enjoy Christmas but I don't know if I will knowing that the next op is so close now. 

I know it's not as big as the op I had in July but the thought of going under the knife again, the pain involved and the recovery afterwards is quite daunting. 

It's also quite a scary prospect of saying goodbye to my stoma. I've had it for nearly 5 years and had to spend a long time readjusting to life with a stoma. The thought of entering the unknown, having to readjust all over again is not one I'm looking forward to. 

Everyone tells me that this will be the start of a new chapter and I know that this stoma has been nothing but trouble but there is the old saying of 'better the devil you know'. 

I have a million worries about who will look after the kids, how Hubby will cope, if I have lost enough weight, am I well enough, will my line last over Christmas, how I will recover, when I will be well enough to go back to work, how we will manage financially... I could go on and on.  

But the decision has been taken out of my hands and I'm going to try to put it all to the back of my mind and enjoy some family time over the next few weeks. 

NB x
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