At the end of the day......

Well, today is the day. I'm due into the hospital at 11am and envisage going down for the surgery around 1.30pm.

I said on Facebook and Twitter last night the technical term for how I felt was 'shitting myself'. After a sleep (replace the word sleep with toss and turn. Mind you won't be doing that for a while following surgery!) I've worked through the things it could be.

The result surprised me.

The actual operation doesn't worry me. Nearly 40,000 hysterectomies are performed each year, of which I'm sure I read over two thirds are elective (not mine) Yes, I will wake up with pain which will last several days/weeks but it will get easier, especially if I do as I'm told! A surgical menopause isn't something I'm looking forward to, but HRT will help the symptoms

The cancer itself is worrying, but treatable. At the moment we don't know how advanced it is and won't until my redundant 'bits' are sent off for tests. If it's contained within my uterus, no further treatment. If however it's more than half way though my uterine wall, then chemotherapy or radiotherapy will be needed as it could have spread to other organs. It's something which we will just need to deal with.

So what was it, specifically, that was bothering & nagging away at me?

It took a while to work it out, but it's the not knowing when I will actually get the pathology results, not what the results actually are. I still have to have the surgery, I still have to recover from that surgery, I still need to have HRT, that won't change. But once I know when I can expect the results, I can then prepare for that stage of my recovery.

Once I worked that out, I felt better.





So instead of getting through the next few days, I am going to actually look forward to some new events, things I've never experienced before!

Last year my team and I were lucky enough to spend a day with a guy called Jamie Edwards (on Twitter he is @JamieEdwards) and part of the session he talked about changing the story board to make a blockbuster movie. No-one wants to see a boring film where things just happen, the story needs to be told to make it attractive and appealing. It's about looking at things in a different way, essentially reframing them. (I have paraphrased Jamie heavily but that is the gist!)

So my list of new experiences so far are:-

- Being able to see the colour of my pee before its diluted by the water in the toilet pan!
- I get an electric bed all to myself to play with (don't think it will have a vibrate function though)
- Morphine!
- The TV remote will be all mine for the next five days
- Breakfast in bed for 5 mornings (in fact lunch and dinner too! How decadent)
- Morphine
- People visiting me in hospital, instead of the other way round.
- Chuckling at my Dad when he visits because he hates hospitals (I know thats cruel, but he does look so funny, he reminds me of Fagin, wringing his hands)
- I can sleep all day if I want to and no-one will think its odd.

Can you help me with some more I haven't thought of?

Am sure by the end of today, I will not only be a few pounds lighter (hey, I'm a woman, my weight had to come into the post somewhere!) plus know when the all important results will be back, but will have some wonderful comments on this post, Twitter and Facebook to read through and make me laugh!


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