surgery

Living with a hidden (not so hidden) illness…Part 4

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   So here I am…3 months after my surgery. I wish I could say that it was all plain sailing and that I’m doing great. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the reality at all.

Recovery at Home:

   After I got home, I genuinely thought that recovery would be a whole lot faster. And it did…to an extent…I no longer heard women vomiting at all hours of the day…I was no longer sleeping on a plastic bed…I had my own bathroom again.

   But you know what? Getting on and off the sofa is really hard if you don’t have someone to help you! Using the stairs was an absolute pain and climbing in and out of the shower (we have a shower head over a bath tub…) was again, only possible if I had some help. I was literally living the invalid life. I couldn’t do anything without help.

   My poor parents gave up their bed for me as I couldn’t climb into mine (I have a mid-sleeper (similar to this…https://amzn.to/2Hagjco). So whilst I couldn’t use my stomach muscles…that bed was impossible to get in to! But it was a goal I could set myself…I gave myself two weeks, optimistic I know…but I managed it!

Stitches:

   The part that I dreaded the most was getting my stitches removed. Well, stitch. I had one running stitch with a bead on either end. I had had multiple nightmares about waking up and having pulled my stitch out in my sleep…but luckily that never happened. Instead, 10 days later I found myself at the hospital (unfortunately not the one where I had had my surgery and appointments) waiting for my name to be called.

   My doctors surgery was extremely busy, so the options I had was to wait a further 3 days and have them removed at my doctors, or go to the local walk in centre and have them removed there. So off dad and I went to the local hospital. My nerves were all over the place…Was it going to hurt? Was the entire wound going to open again? Would it be infected?

   After an almost 2 hour wait, my name was finally called. To say that the nurse was confident…that would be really pushing it! She looked so intimidated, which as someone with anxiety…it really didn’t help! Luckily the actual removal of the stitch and beads, I didn’t feel at all.

   However. She proceeded to look at the wound and didn’t look happy. Of course, where the beads had been, the wound hadn’t fully closed. She was also convinced that it was infected and proceeded to tell me that she was going to put a plaster over the entire area and it would have to stay on for a week.

   Alarm bells went off in my head on the way home…growing up, I always learnt that an open wound needed air to close. Not be completely enclosed. But, her being in the medical profession, dad and I trusted her opinion. So guess what…7 days later when it was time to remove the plaster…the plaster had turned to jelly and it was completely infected.

   So off I went to the doctors office where it was confirmed that it had become infected and I needed to go on antibiotics for 10 days.

 

Becoming ‘Normal’ Again:

   A couple weeks after the surgery, I was finally able to get in and out of the shower on my own, I was able to climb into my bed and I was finally able to move around, without moving at a snails pace.

   Reintegrating into society was different though. If you have read my previous blog posts, then you know that I suffer from anxiety. I had gotten so into my head over the previous weeks…scared that someone would hit my stomach and that would open the stitches again. Luckily that never happened…but I had to be careful.

   Even though I was physically starting to look ‘normal’. I still had to be careful. I learnt that the hard way when I decided to make my chunky veggie chilli (chunky-veggie-chilli/). Chopping the vegetables hurt. I ended up in bed for the following 2 days in pain. The frustration was unreal!

Life After:

   So here I am…writing this 3 months after my life changing surgery. Still a far way off being in full health. But a lot closer to that than I have ever been! I’m learning now what its like to have a healthy human body. The swelling is still going down and I’m feeling better in my skin.

   The one thing that no one warned me about was how intense the changes would be and there was no mental preparation. I also didn’t have any followup appointments for how I’m coping mentally. So the last couple months have been hard. I’ve been dark, but I’m working through a day at a time.

   Now I’m just looking forward to all the things that I couldn’t do before!

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Living with a hidden (not so hidden) illness…Part 3

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So here we are…a couple months after the last update and what a couple months it has been!

So after the hospital visit and finding out my surgery date, I have been busy getting the house and office pod ready for my recovery and getting mentally prepared for what was going to happen. Mum and I also planned a trip away for before the surgery as a distraction.

This trip was the perfect thing and exactly what I needed. We first as a family went to Holland to see the rest of the family for a couple days, and then mum and I went on to Paris and Disneyland Paris for a week. We came home only 2 days before my surgery so I didn’t give my brain the chance to panic too much. The day before my surgery was just spent buying the last few bits that I would need in the hospital and stuffing my face at Yo Sushi.

The morning of my surgery started early…the alarm going off at 5am so that we would arrive at the hospital for 7am. It was a bit of a blur once the hospital gown and compression stockings were on, a blur of blood draws, blood pressure and heart rate monitoring and questions. Before I knew it though it was time to walk to the operating room.

So now for the details…I panicked a lot before my operation and actually needed to go on oxygen for about 15-20 minutes before they could put me under anaesthesia. When I came back out I was in the recovery room and I remember falling asleep a lot. One of the times I was awake, I remember the doctor came to see me and all I remember was her telling me that there were more fibroids than they had thought and I asked them if they were able to save my womb, which they did!!! I fell asleep again and before I knew it, I was back on the ward waiting for my parents to come in.

When they came in they both told me how worried they’d been. The surgery was only meant to be about an hour…however, I had been in for 4 hours. I was also super pale as I had lost a lot of blood during the surgery and had had 1 transfusion. The pain was unreal and I felt super nauseous. I also had no appetite and only ate a little bit of a yogurt and a few sips of hot water.

The next day was horrible. It started with another blood draw at 5:30 in the morning, followed by multiple blood pressure and heart rate checks. This was followed by the nurses telling me that they want to get me up into the chair so that they could take the catheter out and change the bedding. For anyone that has had abdominal surgery (my incision was through the abdomen from my belly button down) you know that it is incredibly painful to move your stomach muscles. I was told to use my arms to push me up out of bed however, I still had my catheter in and on my right hand I had a canula with 3 ports which pulled when I moved my arm, so using my arms was hard. But somehow with the help of the nurses, I managed to get up and into the chair. I tried to eat a bit of toast with jam and some hot water but I instantly regretted that. I felt the waves of nausea build and I tried to hold it in as much as possible. However my body had a completely different idea. Before I knew it I was reaching for the sick bowl. The pain that followed was unbelievable, my pain killer pump didn’t even make a dent.

Several hours later, my parents came in along with Althea (essentially my second mum), however I cannot remember much of what happened at all. I was still so out of it. All I remember is that I had another 2 transfusions but my levels were still very low. They were still very worried about my heart rate and blood pressure.

The next few days were a bit of a blur of more blood tests and blood pressure readings. But before I knew it, I had been taken off my pain pump and put on oral pain killers. I was able to walk a little more and able to walk to the toilet on my own. But after 3 nights I was ready to go home. The plastic bedding and no air movement just meant that I was boiling hot all the time and severely uncomfortable. So Monday morning I was convinced I was going home. I felt well enough to go home. However, my haemoglobin levels were still very low and they wanted to bring it back up to what it was pre op before I could go home. So one final blood draw was done and several hours later I was ready to go home!

Now my recovery is far from over. Walking goes at a snails pace and stairs still have to be taken slowly. But I’m getting there, pain is almost nonexistent now and every day I’m able to do more and more.

So when they opened me up, there were more fibroids than they thought. They reckon there were close to 100 fibroids in total with 5 large masses (15cm each). They also estimated that my fibroids had taken about 45% of my total blood supply and I lost around a litre of blood during the surgery. The best news though was that they were able to save my womb! I can still have kids!!

But for now…there’s still a long road to recovery but I am on the way 🙂 So far…this is the end of this chapter!

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Living with a hidden (not so hidden) illness…Part 2

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So here I am almost a year after writing part 1. I thought it was about high time that I updated everyone with my situation as a lot has happened over the last year!

So back in the beginning of the year, I had just had enough of waiting and so I made another appointment with my GP to chase what was happening. I finally found a GP who took my case seriously and chased it up for me straight away.

Fast forward a couple months and here I was waiting at the hospital for my first appointment in almost 2 years! I knew that I wasn’t going to be seeing the same specialist as last time which made me a bit nervous. However, the second I met my new doctor, that anxiety went away. I explained my case to him and he was upset to hear that my case had ‘slipped through the cracks’ for so long.

Well this is where it all changed for me. Normally these appointments only last about 10 minutes and I tend to come out of them still as confused about what is happening than when I went in. Well this time, the specialist took a long time to really understand my situation and to update the notes on the system to include as much detail as possible. He took the time to really explain to me what was happening inside my body and what my options were. Well, lack there of. He called in the head of department and between the two of them, they fully discussed my situation with me and put me at ease.

After a quick feel of my abdomen, they noted very quickly that unfortunately my fibroids and my uterus had hardened meaning my only option was for surgery. And not just a small surgery which we had all hoped for…but quite a serious one. My fibroids had hardened at 15x15cm. This meant that my uterus had grown to the size of 7 month pregnancy. All of these factors meant that the surgery incision would have to be a midline incision from above my belly button…all the way down. They tried to put me at ease saying that I should get an anchor tattoo afterwards to hide the scar and something that is fitting with me.

After about 5 minutes of laughing and coming up with ideas…they sat me down and talked me through the procedure and the recovery time. This was the bit I was most afraid of. When the doctor starts the sentence with ‘There is one more thing and some women think that this is outrageous…’ my mind instantly fills in the blanks. I knew a hysterectomy could be on the cards for me. I had been previously told that the risk was extremely high considering my situation. However my chance was actually at less than 1%!!!! AND the chance of having kids afterwards would be high! So not only would I be getting my life back, but my chance of having kids wasn’t completely ripped away from me!

45 minutes later I finally left the hospital knowing exactly what the plan of action was. And here we are…less than a month away from my operation. Yes my anxiety plays up from time to time thinking of all the ‘what ifs’ but I am just going to take it one day at a time.

First things first…I have a lovely trip away with my mum for a well deserved holiday (for mum) and a great distraction for me! See you on the other side!!