Profiles

I have my booklet which tells me what to expect and when ie GOING HOME The operation is behind you and you probably feel stronger and excited about going home. When you arrive home you feel weepy and anxious.

How right they were.

Friend appears and we pack up flowers, sweets and cards from well wishers. She piles me and everything else into a wheelchair.

There is no time to say goodbye and we are off down the corridor.

We bump, almost literally, into a man in the lift who is looking for a wheelchair. I see him look at mine and then at me.

Think he may be wondering if I am going to make it the front door.

It turns out he’s a sheep farmer from Gilsland and since I must have the look of a sheep inquires into my breeding. This is normal practice in rural circles.

I try to appear interested but all I can think of is “get me out of here”.

Breakdown on the sofa

The trip home takes about 45 minutes by car. I never want to travel in a car again. My ability to cope has disappeared. It is dark.

Another friend has switched on lights and has a large roaring fire in the grate.

The cat is wailing. I ease myself onto the sofa, nothing happens quickly.

 I open the cards which have sent to my home. And I cry and cry.

Joan at work on the BBC Bus

Bedtime comes early, am amazed can almost skip into it like a lamb.

Hadn’t realised how worried I was about small mobility problems like getting in and out of bed. Not a problem.

First day at home

Will my bowels ever work again.

I can pass wind, I can win championships passing wind. (Post op this is a good sign.

It indicates that your internal workings are behaving themselves and trapped wind from the operation is escaping, If it doesn’t the wind can be very uncomfortable.

The nursing staff can give you peppermint oil which is very effective

It’s not all high tech you know. However in a crowded ward escaping wind can be a tiny tiny bit embarrassing until you realise that everybody else is at it.)

Caring friend goes off to purchase papers and I am running to the loo. Yes a result, another step on the way to recovery, and no pushing , no pain to the lump.

There is no place like your own loo.

Peeing is still uncomfortable, I am drinking lots of fluids in case of infection, my theory being that if the bugs don’t have time to settle they can’t do any harm.

I have decided to refer to the very large and swollen bit of tummy above my cut as “the lump”.

It has a character all of its own, unresponsive and unappealing rather like having an unwelcome stranger attached to your body. I am squeamish about touching it or looking at it.

I have to accommodate this thing though, it requires special attention when sleeping , I will never sleep on my stomach again.

Second day at home

Today signals a change of the carer guard. One of my friends has decided that the millions of pounds unclaimed by carers could be hers.

It is useless to persuade her that she will probably not qualify, she is undeterred by our mature counsel and in the end we decide to share the loot among us.

Daughter and her uni friends visit, daughter brings very beautiful cosy red dressing gown, feel like model.

Ask her friends if they would like to see picture of my womb. They are very polite and do not tire me with a long visit. 

One week post operative

There are some similarities between childbirth and recovery from Hysterectomy.

I am beginning to establish a kind of routine, just without a small yelling smelly bundle. Note to children - I still loved you despite all that.

My day consists off, getting out of bed very slowly, peeing, most important and most uncomfortable part of the day.

Coffee and check my horoscopes, it is amazing how many different horoscopes there are on the web. And none of them are the same.

None mention an unhealthy interest in my internal organs either.

Although one did mention that 2006 was a year when I should take care of my sex organs! Mmmmm.

The early part of the day is better spent alone, as wind is still very much a problem.

I then consider a short walk,still in my cosy dressing gown and fleecy slippers I can manage the garden gate some 25 yards away from the house.

Later in the day I try for a walk around the garden, another 100 yards.

Together with my pelvic floor exercises I am in training for Olympics.

Light breakfast and time for a bath, how I love my bath.

Then back to bed for a short nap, then lunch provided by another caring friend
I arrange myself as elegantly as possible on the sofa and have visitors or chat on the phone

I have learnt to laugh with the top of my chest , belly laughs are a thing of the past
Thursday I am having male visitors so I decide I must make effort with clothes.

Dare to put on a pair of tights they are surprisingly comfortable over the lump.

Supper, by which time I am back in pyjamas, is courtesy of the cordon bleu chef who lives just round the corner

Another early night and I arrange the duvet so that I can lie propped up on my side, Life could be much much worse

At the end of the week with the daughter back from Uni we attempt a trip to town.

Hauling myself in and out of cars and coping with what seems to be sub zero temperatures has me gritting my teeth, my feet are like ice blocks.

Slow recovery

I return home and take to my bed with a hot water bottle. Recovery is beginning to look like it may take forever.

Sunday, and my father takes us all out for lunch, lovely, after yesterdays shopping disappointment I feel that today sitting in the pub a glass of wine and a roast lunch I am beginning to feel better.

The KBFU, “kid back from uni”, take £30 from my purse and go off to buy a Christmas tree. So that’s why the student loan doesn’t last I think, the tree is beautiful but too big but the male KBFU soon fixes that, we reminisce over past trees that were too big and I wonder why we never bought a decent saw.

As the decorations go on and the lights don’t work and the rows break out between the KBFU’s, a lump come into my throat.

This job that used to be mine, that I did for them, is now being done for me.