It's Been A While

Well this blog has been somewhat neglected as I thought my fibroid days were long gone.  And luckily after enlisting the services of a personal trainer for 6 months my abs actually started to look like a normal human beings again. So the op was in Dec 2009 and to get back to full fitness was a big challenge.  

To me I thought 5 years would be a good window to hopefully meet someone, have a kid and not have to face the fibroid thing again.  But the odds are worse in black women so now in 2013 my stomach is starting to have that familiar rotund look, I am starting to feel very very shattered and my periods are getting heavy again. :(. I know they are back and have a blood test next week and am in the process of being set up for a scan to see what is going on in there.

Once confirmed, I guess it's the conundrum of take pills to mask the symptoms as the fibroids continue to grow or go through the pain of another op.  I guess removing them when they are relatively small as opposed to when they have grown would be better but having to think about what to do next is scary. Anyway, for now I won't worry but wait for a diagnosis then face the conundrum when I have to.  It's my body, I am single but would like to have the option of having a child but not have periods that are a nightmare and a swollen stomach. 

Slow But Steady

Recovery post myomectomy was slow and I had to take things easy.   I was in tears after 4 nights in hospital as I just wanted to go home. I had just been told that I'd have to stay another night which just sent me over the edge. I'd had enough of not sleeping and bad food and just wanted my own bed. Luckily in the end I was allowed home.

My friend helped me home in a taxi and  I basically was so tired and just slept and slept and slept.  The main thing was that I had made some simple food before I went for the op and ate simple things.  Also, online grocery shopping was my saviour as I couldn't really walk far plus it was snowy and icy outside so I couldn't risk even walking to the corner shop at first in case I fell and ended up back in hospital.  Also, wasn't supposed to lift heavy things for a good few weeks.

I did do a lot of sleeping, lots of afternoon naps and once the weather cleared up a bit I started walking around to the local shops and things like that to build up strength.  When I did go back to work - 5 weeks post op it was still a bit of a shock to the system.  I did less hours and tried not to do anything too taxing.  The first few weeks were tough and I was so shattered by the end of my shortened day.  It was even uncomfortable sitting up in a chair all day - my core just was so weak and my lower back was working lots.

God I walked slow too.  Slow and steady.  Felt like an old lady.  But thank god I am back to normal now.  The whole myo thing made me appreciate my life and what I normally tend to have.

No Shame

 

The one thing I have to admit that I really did learn was to have no shame in hospital.  Nurses an doctors want to know all the details about your bodily functions.  When ya pee, when ya do a number 2, quantities, frequency, texture, colour, you name it, someone somewhere wants to record it.

I guess it all adds to the overall picture about the state of your health and how your all important recovery is going and influences when you will be able to leave the 'asylum' as it were.

In some ways once I had got past my Englishness/shyness I got used to these probing questions. I guess it's good training if one day I choose that I want to have kids as I think the whole pregnancy experience is of a similar nature.  

I do have to admit though the no shame thing doesn't go as far as hospital gowns.  They're all open at the back and sometimes it would be good for a patients dignity to be considered.  When I could hardly move it would have been nice to have had more help getting on more clothes before male visitors arrived on the ward in the early afternoon.  It kind of meant that at times I was welded to a chair so that I wouldn't flash people my rather curvy derrière. 

Pain Like No Other

Ok that's enough for now about my fellow inmates  patients at the hospital.  Now back to the reason that I was in there, to have an abdominal myomectomy.

I went in for my op on a Tuesday and went home on the Saturday.  It has to be said that I have never experienced pain like it.  For 3 days post op I had my own morphine pca, basically press a button for pain relief.  I kind of liked it but after a while morphine is very strong so the docs and nurses wean you off it. Oohhh noo.  Anyway, my body basically felt like I'd done 10 rounds in a boxing ring.  My stomach was swollen and tender.  I had a catheter in for most of the week and didn't go for a number 2 for a good 3/4 days.

As you are less reliant on morphine, you are encouraged to move around a bit more as that's gets your body working and heading back to some kind of normality.  Generally at the beginning when I tried standing and walking around I felt dizzy and unsteady but slowly but surely I got used to it.  It was nice to walk over to talk to other people on the ward. I certainly was no 100 metre sprinter and generally had a hand pressed on my abdomen as it gave me some comfort.

Once the morphine had gone it was onto those lovely painkiller 'cocktails' codeine, ibuprofen and paracetamol.  Lots to begin with at regular intervals during the day.  Week 1 and week 2 post op were definitely the most painful.

It hurt to past wind - oh my god did it hurt.  Part of the stomach bloating is due to a build up of gas so that needed a means of escape and it was certainly painful,  you really found out how gas passes through your body, could have made your own map! Sneezing also hurt, as did laughing.  All these normally usual bodily functions turned into pain.

Getting out of bed was another excuse for pain.  As your ab muscles are not working, being able to manoeuvre yourself in and out of bed, chairs or anything else was an art in itself. The trick was to rotate  your legs to be over the side of the bed then to swing your body over and push yourself up with your arms.

And The Jumper

Ok, as well as the addict, the other fascinating character was the one in bed opposite.  She must have been mid to late 20's, was married and had her mother who came in to see her often.  Basically, when I was brought in and coming around from the general anaesthetic and the morphine highs, I kept smiling at her.  All she did was scowl back.

Anyway, it turns out that she'd tried to end it all by jumping out of the window at her mums flat.  She survived with a broken leg and the left side of her face was drooping a bit but on the whole she was alive and relatively unscathed.

Anyway, for the first few days she had lots of docs and psych people visiting her and drawing curtains around her.  I have very good hearing and an uncanny knack of turning in and out of conversations so I managed to piece together her story from those conversations.  In the main she just wanted to be discharged back into her mums care but her mum did not want that to happen. She called her mum a witch and blamed her for everything - in many ways it was like viewing crazy teenage tantrums which were far worse as they had had such a dramatic and almost devastating ending.  

Her hubby didn't seem like the brightest kid on the block but he seemed to try and do all he could to make her happy.  Her mum by no means seemed perfect but she did care so that was something.
During the night the jumper was bloody annoying as she was like a whining child moaning and asking for painkillers.  In our part of the ward, her general moaning was stopping everyone from sleeping.  There was one night when the others turned on her and told her to shut the hell up.  It was about time really as she in many ways was there due her own devices and the rest of us were there for ops etc.  You could tell she wasn't used to being told off in that manner as she soon shut up.

In the end, an ambulance came by one day and she was carted off to a mental hospital nearby.

The Addict

Oh yes the craziness of the patients on my ward just went on and on.

The Scouse Addict
A recovering heroin addict on methadone who was in hospital for stomach pains - which roughly translated to she wanted a safe place to stay with warmth and 3 square meals a day. Actually on the food front we would be served 3 courses for all meals and she would always go for 2nds and large portions.

She was actually one of of the friendliest people on the ward.   She was talkative,  actually at times a bit too much and one of the few people that said hello to everybody and I mean everybody.

Being on methadone also meant that she knew her way around a drug cabinet and her rights and entitlements.  She would automatically wake up when it was time for drugs and at times chase the nurses for them.  Yes when this was in the middle of the night it was not conducive to those of us who actually wanted to sleep at night in order to get the well and get the hell out of there (me).

The other thing was that she drank so much tea.  Day, and night "can I have a cup of tea please nurse" " can I have some hot water please" as she even had her own ready supply of tea bags, milk and sugar.  Supposedly tea helps methadone get into the system quicker apparently.

She also had some kind of behavioural problems - once a thought was planted in her head she would just go on and on and on.  Oh my god believe having someone asked repeatedly for drugs or tea did get kind of annoying and at times I did scream in my head.

Patients - The Good, The Bad and the downright crazy

Well my first foray into the hospital was certainly interesting esp as I had 2 different locations on the ward during my stay.  The patients were certainly a mixed bag and in many ways the inspiration for me to write this blog - just fantastic characters to observe when there's nothing else to do as you're stuck indoors.  Here's the cast list:

The Surrey Princess
The ultimate in posh bitchiness.  She was a classic, skinny,dirty blonde, demanding - someone where only the best would do. Actually, on the 2 days that I was on the ward with her, I don't think she actually spoke to me - maybe I just didn't come across as being posh enough.  Anyway, she certainly knew her painkillers and was an expert in saying oohh no, such and such doesn't work for me, I prefer this and that one (the more expensive pills from  what I can ascertain).  This girl knew her drugs and her rights.  Her nervous disposition compounded her fear of needles and her own shadow by the looks of things meant that she wasn't the best patient when it came to getting a line put in or having bloods taken.  I have to admit it was kind of funny to watch.

She did display the ultimate example of bitchiness though. One of the other patients whose mum had flown over from Georgia as soon as her daughter was rushed into hospital arrived outside visiting hours straight from the airport. Anyway, the Surrey Princess told the nurses that it wasn't fair that her mum was there outside of the official opening hours and that she should leave.  Basically her parents had been told that they would have to wait until official opening hours to see her.

It was divine retribution though when her parents arrived early too and the other girl got to say to the nurses that that wasn't fair and they were asked to leave and come back later. She shouldn't have been a cow in the first place.  It was hard enough being in hospital as it was.

The Georgian
Apart from her run in with the Surrey Princess she seemed quite nice.  Although her and her boyfriend seemed to spend most of their time hiding behind curtains - not sure if her encounter with the princess meant that she just didn't want to have a shop window open to all on the ward.  Her mum was lovely though. Plus her mysterious boyfriend seemed nice.

The Joan Collins Esq Glamour puss
Defo my fav character that I met in hospital.  She was an old lady from a bygone area - who did her hair and put on make up just before major surgery and was chatting up the young docs (she must have been in her 80s).  She was just fabulous and had such a zest for life that it was just infectious.  Rouge, bouffant hair and powdered face.

She was Italian and lived in Highgate with her elderly brother who she helps to look after. Constantly reading Mills and Boonesque love stories and having energy and having a smile on her face. She had fractured her leg and left it for four days before coming to hospital as she thought it was nothing and didn't want to waste anyone's time.  How amazing was that and humbling. I loved chatting to her as she was fascinating and I have her number and will defo call her to make sure that she is ok.  Plus help her out I guess - once I'm fully back on my feet.

It has to be said if I'm anything like her when I'm her age with energy and spunk I'd be one happy bunny.

More about the characters in my next post .......