Filling the womb space...

but you are not defined by a part of your body...

I read about this recently when looking at the forums for women who have had a hysterectomy and feel a sense of loss after surgery. I really understand this complexity, don't get me wrong, but women are more than just a uterus, we are living, breathing organic beautiful beings capable of being much more than the sum of our parts. Even women with healthy functioning wombs are often unable to conceive or have children so living without a womb needn't prevent you living a full life.

I suppose the closest I have come to the grieving process (and hormones play a large part in this) was after the final meeting with my lovely gynaecologist, who I still have a major crush on (for the record, he is strictly professional). I'm notoriously bad at letting go so any perceived ending or closure is very difficult for me. However, from the recognition that I was going through a process I could deal with it and look at it in a more positive role. 

Positive thoughts include:

• I am getting fitter every day
• My hot flushes have ceased completely
• I'm driving long distances again
• I can work 
• I'm following my dream of becoming a full-time writer by doing an MA in Creative Writing.
• I don't have debilitating, exhausting periods anymore! Hooray!

So, wherever you are in your story, believe me, it does get better. I am now 3 months post-op having had a TAH with a cut ureter so extra surgery was needed, catheter and stent during the 6 weeks following surgery - pain, discomfort, limited mobility, fatigue etc etc. 

Today I had a CT scan of my pelvis which is  a painless procedure and I have a follow up appointment in December with the urology consultant. The strangest thing today was being asked when my last period was (they need to check before a CT scan in case of pregnancy) and I cheerfully stated that I'd had a hysterectomy on the 4th July. It made me realise I'm not ruled by the cyclical symptoms that harangued me for most of my life and I'm focusing on filling my womb space with creativity and joy.

Channelling the Fire Goddess...

We seek that which is lacking within us...

This is something I have learned in my experience so far and the synchronicity of healing and the paths we are steered upon. I had been buzzing about like a headless mosquito for too long, ignoring the pools of sustenance that lay before me; my life as a writer was waiting dormant in those pools until I had the courage to immerse.

My passion has always been reading and writing, I live for it so this period of convalescence has allowed me to be still like a great lake, breathing and adapting to its change of season. Summer has supported me well this year, the element of fire has complemented my earthly grounding, the irony of a cut ureter marking the water element in my chart and the gentle breeze of words rustling through my head as I read and read and read.

I keep getting hot flashes that rise up through my upper body and head, it could be the hormonal surges but may also be my body cleansing itself. It is not unpleasant and I prefer to call it 'channelling the fire goddess' - a much more positive take on the menopausal bad press of 'hot flushes'.

I have used sage tablets to calm the fiery goddess from getting out of control. Sage comes from the word salvere which means to be saved. So to all you glorious women out there who are channelling the fire goddess I wish you the silvery cool leaves of sage.

Doing too much...

Pain in the neck?

My neck and shoulder ache is in response to my body getting back into alignment after so much contraction and concentration on my pelvic area. I can only describe this as a feeling of being pulled in at the middle by a tight elastic belt, it is uncomfortable and needs gentle easing rather than a sharp pull which would only snap. After all the pain I have endured over the years with endometriosis I find that the worst feeling is having pain in the neck or head area and being unable to get comfortable or think straight. 

When I do eventually get to sleep I sink so deeply that when I wake I feel paralysed by my inactive muscles as if they have petrified like a fossil. My dreams are crazy-vivid, full of people demanding me to be in control, to make decisions. In one I call an ambulance for a man who has a wooden stake through his right femur, it's dark and the door to the house is extraordinarily narrow. Then the ambulance drives past, missing the address and gets waylaid assisting a bunch of drunk men, I'm frantically trying to get their attention to assist a much more worthy patient and to hurry.

I have been having Cranial Osteopathy and my Osteo feels I'm doing too much, straining my body with too much action, yet I feel so lazy for sitting still, for gentle movement. This is a western trait in the glorification of  busy, why do we reward the process of accumulation, achievement by the amount we have amassed and how much we fit in to our daily lives. The aggrandisement of frantic living is definitely not for me, so just as well I live in a sleepy part of the countryside and can sink into the gentle pace that is so much more beneficial.

I need to reign it in and rest, rest, rest. 

Sleep Deprivation

A woman without sleep is a shell...

You can tell a person who does not sleep well, their eyes are glazed and they have a demeanor that leaks energy, that is because sleep is so important, there are myriad studies on the benefits of sleep, especially following an illness or in my case, surgery.

Having been what I term a 'good' sleeper most of my life, I find lack of sleep or poor quality sleep most frustrating, affecting not only my physical body but my mental faculties and most importantly for those around me, my mood. The restrictions of abdominal surgery mean that certain positions are uncomfortable, and lying on my back is not my preferred position for sleeping; I am a curled cat, a foetal sleeper. I miss sleeping on my side.

Now, I am 7 weeks post-op but I've only really been active over the past two weeks and only pain-free for 1 week following the removal of the stent from my ureter.

My strategies for getting to sleep include the following (no sheep were involved in the counting):

• Listening to mantras
• Breathing slowly and deeply
• Counting down from 100
• Listing all the states of the USA in alphabetical order
• Numbering the alphabet e.g. Z=26
• Trying to remember the Capital Cities of Europe
• Pulling my hair out!
• Trying to lie really, really still

My post-op reading list...

"There is no time for boredom"...

I have used my healing time also as a time to read, which is a great use of time. Here is a list of books I have read:

Life After Life - by Kate Atkinson
Perfect - by Rachel Joyce
One Hundred Years of Solitude - by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Pride and Prejudice - by Jane Austen
The Great Gatsby - by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Letter in the Bottle - by Karen Leibrich
Case Histories - by Kate Atkinson
A Cat, a Hat and a Piece of String - Joanne Harris
The Lover - by Marguerite Duras
The Luminaries - by Elinor Catton

Don't over do it...

That's all I have to say on the matter....

Appearances can be deceptive when you are healing. I look well but I know my insides have a long way to go before they are fully healed. It is 5 weeks since the hysterectomy and I still have the stent inside me which is not pleasant, so there is still shock and trauma held at a deep level.

It is dry yet breezy today and if I'd have been well I would've been at our local village's Harvest Home celebration. This is a rural event upheld in small communities around the area I live in, dating back over 100 years. The usual characters all partake in these events including a big meal of local meats, salads and trifles followed by speeches then later an afternoon tea, games and a live band in the evening. All held in a large marquee in the middle of a field. 

I can almost smell the chunks of fresh bread, cubes of cheese, pickles and condiments mixed with the soft, country smell of the grass underfoot. Flowers dotted along the long trestle tables and the bustle of the feast as people consume jugs of ale and cider.

But as I said, there is no way my body could cope with that so I rest. And wait.

Holistic Treatments to help after hysterectomy...

Choose a holistic treatment to aid your recovery...

If you feel anything like me after having surgery you will want tender, loving care and not a full on massage which can probably be detrimental anyway if you are still bruised inside and sore outside too.

Some gentle treatments that can really help include reflexology and you can find one near to you via:

Association of Reflexologists

I am lucky enough to know therapists in my area who practice many different types of therapy so have found homeopathy, reflexology, cranial osteopathy and acupuncture all widely available and very effective at getting me back on track.

My homeopath has prescribed me:

Staphysagria - for post-surgical pain. read about it

Arnica - for bruising and trauma. read about it

Thuja - a fascinating remedy that taps into the divine feminine - read about it

Today I had my first cranial osteopathic treatment with one of the best practitioners I know. This is not to be confused with conventional click and clunk osteopathy that realigns the bones and joints and ligaments but a more gentle intuitive type of therapy. I have found it most effective in dealing with the excruciating symptoms of endometriosis in the past, especially chronic pelvic and back pain. If you are responsive to subtle, gentle approaches I'd really recommend finding a good cranial osteo and have some treatments. I find myself just wanting to sleep very deeply afterwards which seems to be my body's way of realigning itself, like a mini-hibernation.

Here is a link to my fabulous osteo

Be kind to yourself - treat yourself as you would a thing that you love most

Pain v People

4am...

I keep waking in pain, or more of an ache really, the sort you get just before a period, but having a hysterectomy means I won't have to experience them again. I can only lie on my back as it is too uncomfortable to lie on my side with a 21cm incision (I have just measured it with a ruler).

My dreams are fleeting, last night I dream of my gynae consultant - he holds my hand and traces his index finger across my palm???? any dream experts out there, interpret that for me.

As an antidote to pain other than the usual self-medications of codeine phosphate, paracetemol and ibuprofen I have found that people are quite good at making me feel better (providing they are not extremely funny as it still hurts to laugh).

The weather is turning ready for a predictably unsettled August; it was really windy although still warm and today the clouds have amassed to a smoky grey wash. I feel the frustration at my practical limitations which restricts me but also reminds me to learn to surrender. There is no point straining and lifting and forcing something that only time will heal. I'm reminded so often of people saying 'listen to your body'.

A gentle circulation of friends throughout the week who visit and bring me lunch following my morning routine of breakfast in bed, shower, dress, walking about a bit, reading and writing my diary. My afternoons normally involve watching tv as my brain seems to stop functioning altogether and tiredness creeps up on me.

For the record, I do feel I am improving a little each day and in the right direction now but I have decided I'm not well enough to travel to a friends wedding, it feels too much of a challenge at this stage of my recovery. She is understanding and I feel so blessed to have such great friends.

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.

Panic! My incision started bleeding 2 weeks post-op

If it's going to happen it will happen on the busiest Friday of the year at 5pm......

I was daring to feel more positive about my body on its road to recovery, moving about more but not overexerting, resting a lot and eating sensibly. With support from my mum during the day I was really lucky, she had gone home and I pottered into the kitchen when I felt something dripping down my leg, looked down and saw blood - aaaarrrrghh!!!!

This is quite a shocking thing to happen when you think you're all glued up and told that nothing can drop out, but the blood was coming from my incision and had soaked through my dressing, saturating it and then when I stood up....drip drip drip....horror movie or what???

So my initial reaction was, 'ok I'm not going to die' so I shuffled back to the sofa and called my partner and my mum. Then I called 111, the NHS helpline and a nurse asked me several questions to ascertain what was going on. As the doctors surgery was shut for the weekend (this still makes me laugh as people get ill on a Saturday and Sunday too) I was advised to get to my nearest A&E or call an ambulance. So holding a towel against my belly I was driven to the A&E department where I hoped to get some treatment and also to find out why this had happened two weeks after my surgery. I have great respect for the medical profession but follow-up care is sadly lacking in the overstretched NHS.

After being poked, told that the gorier the better for one A&E nurse(!) and talked about while still in the room, I had my blood taken then waited 3 hours in a room with the door closed (and no call button) before having more dressings put on my seeping wound and told to come back tomorrow if it had soaked through. Apparently, a bit of blood can be trapped after surgery and needs to come out somehow, with me it chose to come out on a Friday evening. 

It was not an experience I ever want to repeat, not only was I told that someone would see me 'in a minute' (they didn't), they didn't let my partner and mum know I was waiting in the room alone and being an impatient patient I shuffled off the bed holding my belly like a pregnant woman (ironic as post-hysterectomy!) walked past at least 10 members of staff looking like death warmed up, and into a packed waiting room. I reckon if I was auditioning for a zombie movie I would get the star zombie role handed to me there and then!

I turned to mum on the way home in the car and said, if I need my dressing changed tomorrow I'm doing it, never, ever take me back there! I know I sound ungrateful but with the correct information and reassurance I would have been able to cope with what was happening to my poor healing body. If someone had said to me, it's just a part of the process, just allow it to drain and keep it clean, then I could have approached it with a better frame of mind. It's just as well I'm extremely positive and able to cope with these setbacks.

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!"

Support and routine to aid recovery

Keep positive...you will get better....

Advice for a healthier recovery period:

• Drink water all the time - keep your body hydrated.
• Fuel your body with clean foods, fruits, vegetables, fibre, seeds, nuts, pulses.
• Mulkosan is a whey based nutritional drink that aids digestion - my friend gave me a bottle of this, you can drink with water or fruit juice.
• Ask for help - you will need it in the first few weeks after surgery to do the most simplest of tasks, like fetching you drinks, meals, washing up, cleaning the house, making your bed, lifting things, driving you to appointments and generally being there to help. 
• Have a routine, get up out of bed, it does make you feel better when you  are upright for a bit and gets the digestive gases moving down and out, if you get my drift.
• Be mindful that everything takes more time than usual.
• Sleep.
• Rest.
• Shower daily when you are feeling able to, remember to let your incision dry fully so it can heal well.
• Set daily aims no matter how mundane they may seem, every step towards recovery is a step in the right direction. I love reading, doing puzzle magazines, listening to music and watching films so if your operation is planned why not line up a few books, make some playlists to put on your ipod before you go to hospital, line up some films to view that you've been meaning to watch for years.
• Most of all - listen to your body -rest, move a little, eat, rest, cleanse, breathe slowly and deeply, sleep, hydrate, smile.....

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???