Stent Irritation

You cannot see inside your body...

but you can certainly feel it. I have never been very good with non-organic stuff and the stent sitting in my ureter latched between my kidney and my bladder is a prime example.

I had been considering the stages of healing following my hysterectomy knowing that it was not quite as straightforward as I anticipated due to the cut ureter and it's own healing process. Each day I felt less tired but it would creep up on me like the weather beside a British coastline, one moment the sun was out and then a bank of grey would loom over the horizon of my body. Tiredness creeps, it doesn't hit you like pain or emotion, it is a creature that leeches you like a parasite. 

After I wee my right side aches as if someone is drawing a sharp line with a blunt magnet, the tiny trickle is followed by a hot flash up my face and neck - this could be hormones or the elimination of drugs still working through my system.

Drinking only water helps - lots of it, to flush through and reduce the challenges my body is facing.

I keep to my mantra and listen daily to Deva Premal:

deva premal - listen

Aren't showers blooming marvellous...

I feel clean clean clean clean.....

Hooray, hooray the catheter came out today nearly three weeks since surgery. Goodbye plastic friend who gathered my urine day in day out, I will not miss you one bit.

I cannot tell you how much freedom I feel and it really wasn't that painful (men make a bit of a fuss apparently due to the longer length - these were the nurses words not mine). I quaffed a jug of cold water and managed to pee exceptionally clear urine - twice - had an ultrasound and was told there was a little teaspoon left in there but it all looked fine.

The nurse also kindly looked at my scar which was clean and hadn't bled for 4 days so advised to leave the dressing off. So I did. Thanks nurse. What I didn't envisage was needing a wee so quickly after leaving the hospital so spend most of the journey home in agonies and had to rush (well shuffle at a quicker pace) up the stairs as soon as I got home.

Joy of joys I love to shower, it is so refreshing to feel clean running water wash away all the detritus associated with recovery.

The weather has been hot and dry so I can lounge around drying naturally and letting my body use the balmy air to soothe it. Summer is my favourite season, the light and heat a natural remedy. My pet cat is being careful and affectionate, using his innate intelligence to sense that something is not quite right with me.

Cystogram and sense of humour failure

Catheter remains after being told it can come out two weeks post-op....I am disappointed....

I drag my poor bruised body back to the hospital for a cystogram, which is a scan of my bladder and it's workings. First off, the radiographer says 'so we're scanning your left ureter today'. Uh no!! I say, I've been told it's my right one that has been cut. 'Oh well' she says, 'we'll soon find out' as if left and right were mere accidentals but I like to know the whys and wherefores having been told the reason  why it was cut. Thank god they aren't cutting off my leg or removing a diseased kidney - right, left, right, left, oh let's just toss a coin. Panic over, it is the right ureter and I see on the screen the stent posing ominously like a conductors baton in my waterworks.

Anyhow, it all seems to be flowing well with no leaks (I feel like I'm a washing machine and they are the plumbers), so I ask if they are going to remove my catheter now. She says they don't do that there and I'd need another appointment but she'd check for me to see if there was any space 'on the list' today. There isn't.

My heart sinks. So I go home with the plastic bag of piss still attached to my leg but hey ho, at least I know it's all flowing in the right direction. In a metaphorical way I am actually reflecting my predicament by feeling pissed off at the thought of another appointment on another day. It exhausts me.

Meanwhile in another department that morning I'm phoned by the gynecologist's secretary to say that my GP requested someone look at my wound while I'm at my other appointment. I know this is not how it works, so why didn't my GP know this, we all know departments don't talk to each other, a bladder is a bladder, a womb is an entirely different matter (not that I have one anymore).

The end result of the day is my sense of humour failure but underlying it all I still have a great deal of respect for those I meet and whose care I have received face-to-face. How can I not, I depend on them.

It's all about me, actually!

Getting well after surgery is a personal thing, some like company and lots of fuss while others (like me) prefer to quietly sit like a wounded cub licking her wounds....

The World Cup Final, not that I care in the slightest but some people do especially if they are Argentinian or German football fans. I wake from such a heavy dream filled sleep leaving my body set in concrete and aching in my abdomen, a dense kind of pain as if I'm drowning within myself.

Mornings are always so testing. I get up slow as a sloth and manage to empty my bowels without too much prolonged agony. I feel better after washing like a deranged bashed up old hag leaning on the sink and sponging my body.

The catheter sits like a plastic leech on my leg, now I'm producing warm elderflower cordial and find pleasure in categorizing my wee into various liquid refreshments as it is on display; rose wine, weak ribena, scrumpy medium cider, peach squash, lemon liqueur.

I enforce my boundaries to refrain from visitors which includes pretty much everyone except my mum. This is my surrender moment, a time to heal and I'm not going anywhere so there is no point in resisting it. 

If you resist what your body needs, your body will stop you and make you surrender in no uncertain terms. Be kind. Treat yourself as you would a dear friend.

I have found my diary or blog a preferred way of expressing all these inner feelings, a cathartic release of sorts. Naturally you will have friends who want to see you bearing gifts and tidings of goodwill but it's not about them. It's about you. If you don't feel up to visitors make that clear and tell them you're not ready. There's plenty of time to convalesce when you can enjoy their visits especially if they are offering you specific support. Fetching a few shopping items for you, making a bit of lunch, doing a bit of vacuuming or ironing can all help. 

You need to empower your inner manager and prioritize what it is you need right now.

My main reason for not seeing too many friends in the first week home was because they make me laugh.

"Laughing really hurts after abdominal surgery - stay miserable a little bit longer!"

About a Ureter

Until now I hadn't given my 'ureters' a passing thought.....now they are very much in my lexicon....

Ureters are the ducts that allow the flow of urine from the kidneys to the bladder, humans have two, I have a poorly right ureter as it was accidentally cut during surgery to remove my right fallopian tube and ovary. I was told there was some scarring possibly from the previous operation to remove an endometrioma, or caused by the endometriosis, which resulted in these parts of my body being stuck together like glue.

Being a fan of woo-woo and looking at all possible connections as to why this should be an issue for me, I turn to the queen of woo-woo, Louise Hay, who looks at the emotional connections we have with our physical body. Here is what I found:

Damage to ureter:

Fear of relationships / low self image

The bladder is about holding on, held anxiety. Holding on to old ideas. 

Fears of letting go.

Doesn't that pretty much sum up most of us if we live in the real world!

Then I'm told that the bladder asks us to be present. I'm all for that at the moment - what else can I do? I can't even walk to the bathroom without shuffling along and feeling like an old crone.

Oh, and each time new space comes into my life, something happens (what does that mean?) I suppose it means that when you have to sit still or lie still in my case at the moment, you are in a kind of enforced state of mindfulness, you have to listen to your body or it shouts back at you to STOP MOVING.

So here are some affirmations to combat this added challenge to my situation:

"I am strong and powerful and I have the knowledge and ability to handle everything in my life."

"I release all restrictions, and I am free to be me"

"I release the pattern in my consciousness that created this condition. I am willing to change. I love and approve of myself."

Imprisoned by my body

I feel yukky.....

Three days post-op and the dawning realisation that I am actually quite poorly has set in and my mind has decided to tell me that I actually feel really ill.

I feel imprisoned by my own body and it's attachments. The fucking drain, a subject of much discussion by the visiting team of urologists and gynaecologists is talked about, looked at and I'm told it can be removed but it hasn't. It sits in my side congealing making me feel sick, I'm surprised vampires aren't swarming around the ward - I'm easy pickings right now.

This catheter is hindering my already limited movement, on the plus side it is useful to not have to get up and down to have a wee. I feel sick today. It could be the thought of having to have a blood transfusion - do something new everyday - ok I'll have two big bags of someone elses blood please!

Oh and I feel dirty and smelly and can't do much about it other than sponge myself while sitting. My head aches, my neck is stiff from all this laying about. There is no striking pain but I feel grotty as if I've been put in a room with no air, had my insides ripped out, been drugged, and not washed for a week - I think that is pretty much what has happened.

Ok, enough of this negativity although I am justified to feel a little bit sorry for myself considering all the problems I've encountered with this hysterectomy.

THEN SOMETHING MARVELLOUS HAPPENED.....

I had a blood transfusion! If you can imagine filling up a car with petrol or a glass with some delicious nutritious juice or one of those charts you see on game shows where the tube gets filled up the more noise you make....that is what having a blood transfusion feels like.

Almost instantly my colour came back into my cheeks and I could feel my energy renewing. 

THANK YOU SO MUCH BLOOD DONORS OF THE WORLD - I REALLY, REALLY APPRECIATE YOU.

If you ever want to give blood (and you will definitely help people who are in need of it like me) then contact the NHS blood and transplant service.

A visit from my surgeon

Highlight of the day is....

chatting to my gynecologist, the kindest most compassionate surgeon I have ever encountered. He has a manner that refreshes like a cool breeze in a forest clearing, he makes me feel better just by being in the same room (bit ironic really), he is rare, a jewel, a shot of elixir in my veins (or it could be that the drugs haven't worn off yet).

It seems I am popular today, a delicious young doctor who hopes to be a GP when she has finished training comes to take my blood. She hardly makes a mark on my already poor bruised arm, it turns out I'm anemic which pretty much explains the woozy head when I stand up, the extremely low blood pressure and general feeling of being a transparent sheet of tissue paper.

I'm holding out for an egg mayo sandwich on brown, this is what I ticked on the menu sheet yesterday although what you select and what you get is a lottery. 

Oh and I stood up after shuffling on to the edge of the bed, then I sat down again! It is not easy being attached to tubes and bags filled with your own body's fluids.

Result: I get my egg mayo sandwich and a delicious pear! Little things and all that...

Here is my mantra for the day:

Every day I heal more easily and regenerate to become healthy and stronger. 

Memorable moments of the day!

Please remember I am still prone in a hospital bed so any action is deemed as exciting....

It is useful to live in the moment, particularly after major abdominal surgery with problems, this includes being prosaic which can help you stay grounded and focused on your healing.

So I listed my memorable moments of the day, here there are (sorry about the crude language):

1. I farted! (major achievement for my poor bashed and bruised bowel)
2. I actually stood up for a while although had to cling on to my catheter bag on my right leg and the bag on my left side containing the blood that was draining from a hole in my abdomen (yuk!)
3. My brother visited me in hospital and made me laugh (laughing really really hurts)
4. I emptied my piss bag in the toilet, life skills are always worth adding to.
5. A cloud shaped like a love heart appeared in the frame of my window - nice!
6. Seagulls create good television if you like that sort of thing and have never watched television before and are shit bored!
7. My lovely partner declared that hospital icecream is the best icecream (he has obviously never eaten gelato in Venice then!)
8. The lovely health care assistant who brings me food and drink on a really noisy trolley is from Krakow, Poland (I love it there so we had a chat about the city and her home country)
9. 5pm - 2 paracetamol and 2 codeine phosphate = better pain relief. Sunday is a slow drug day.

and now a view from my window - can you see any seagulls???