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Cancellation

I was visiting a friend that I not had chance to see for a long time when my phone started ringing. I was going to ignore it as I didn't want to be rude by talking on the phone when I was with my friend but something made me pick it up. And I'm so glad I did. It was a secretary from University College Hospital London (UCL) offering me a cancellation- for the very next day! I was so excited that I think the woman on the other end of the phone thought I was mad but this phonecall had just made my day! Earlier in the week I had been to St Marks for a catch up with the specialist pouch nurses and my surgical team and it hadn't been too positive. Basically they told me that my pouch was completely disfunctional and that they didn't think there was anything they could do to make it better. So I either put up with the spasming and a million trips a day to the toilet or go back to a Stoma. A Stoma is the last thing I would want as I've spent the last 2 years having all the operations to make a J-pouch so that I could get rid of my Stoma. And let's be honest, they weren't good stomas so the thought of having a Stoma for the next 50 years fills me with dread. 

I scribbled down all the details and then the excitement started to turn to panic. We are driving to the Lake District for a friends Baptism the following day and were going to leave as soon as we got the kids from school. However the appointment I was being offered was at 2.30pm so this would upset those plans. And there was the added terror of having to go into London on my own. Would I be able to manage to navigate the overground and underground and then walk to the hospital? Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those women that can't understand the tube map or walk anywhere on their own in the dark. Or I didn't use to be. I was sassy. I was confident. I was independent. But the illness has eroded those things. I was going to say that the illness had taken them away from me but that's not entirely true. They're still there but now they're masked with illness and pain and medication. And I've turned into a forgetful numpty, fearful of collapsing if I walk too far. But there was no way, I repeat, no way that I would miss this appointment so my plans would just need to be adjusted. 

When I told Hubby he was so pleased and got straight on the internet looking at ways for me to get there and thinking of the best way for us to juggle the appointment and our trip way, way up north. We decided that it would be a waste of time for me to travel home after my appointment in central London so instead I would get a train north out of London and the plan would be for him to collect the kids from school and then drive up, collect me from the train station and then continue the journey to the top of the country in the car. 

I went to bed praying that the appointment would be as useful as I hoped it would be. There have been times in the past when I've waited and waited for an appointment with a consultant or specialist and actually they've not turned out to be that much use. But I had a feeling that this one would be different. Fingers crossed

NB x
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