Butterflies and the process of transformation

Butterflies teach us how to transform...

We can learn from creatures that transform drastically throughout their life cycle and a prime example of this is the butterfly. I have always been drawn to their subtle complexity, a life lived in apparent frailty but disguising great strength. I meet the owner of the Butterfly House and he shows me a Gold Rim Swallowtail caterpillar, it it black and bulbous with red spikes, and secretes a wax-like substance when under threat! I am reminded of the way my body oozed and expelled liquids post-op, something no-one ever discusses in conversation. The processes we go through when healing can be regarded as disgusting or they can be looked upon as a necessary part of transformation. As a butterfly.

The chrysalises hang apparently dormant in their cupboard at the back of the Butterfly House, they dance as if celebrating their imminent emergence into a new life. I spoke to many women before I had my hysterectomy and heard their experience of it, all of them said they didn't regret it and it was the best thing they'd ever done. I maintain that view also regardless of the complications that arose during my surgery and the pain I endured. I am grateful to those professionals who helped me to combat endometriosis, a debilitating and life-changing disease. I felt hysterectomy was the only option left to me if I was to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

I will leave you with a photo of the Tree Nymph butterfly, a gloriously large creature that flies as if it is tissue paper swimming on the breeze.

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

'You are the doctor too...'

Have you got that jittery feeling?

Yeah, me too! Time has passed by so quickly over July and August perhaps because I'm willing my body to heal and function better than before I went in for my op. Yesterday proved how time is still needed and healing processes cannot be rushed even when  your head is telling you, 'get on with it'. I still feel a long way off from 'normal'.

Yesterday I took a trip out to a garden centre, ate lunch on a particularly uncomfortable chair, walked around a bit and felt bone tired and in need of rest after. I felt my demons surfacing, the usual self-loathing for not being as healthy as I want to be but a pep-talk by my partner helped. I am the only one putting pressure on me, no-one else is. I've allowed myself so far to surrender to the process and it really helps having a philosophical outlook. Talking really does help sometimes or you just let all the monsters sabotage your own unique way of approaching what your body is telling you.

If you start all actions with creativity then you will succeed. I start with nothing but that, it is a burning hole in me, the fuel that expunges the words from my soul. The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, speaks to Franz Kappus about such a feeling advising him to:

"...remember that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself of foreign matter; so one must just help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and break out with it;...you must be patient as a sick man and confident as a convalescent;...you are the doctor too, who has to watch over himself. But there are many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait."

So I wait...settling into my solitude...

Drug free cinematography...

After the Stent...

I woke the day after having the ureteric stent removed with renewed energy and thankfully no nasty bits coming out when I wee. I can't believe the transformation from having it removed, which is likely to have been causing me all this discomfort over the past 6 weeks.

I feel now I can really concentrate on getting my body healed and well again without the restriction I've been feeling. I did a short walk to the local garage and back, very slowly but it was enough for one day. I knew when I'd done too much moving about the house as my abdomen gets really achy so I spent the afternoon watching TV. I'm at that stage of recovery where my mind races ahead of my body and I need to be mindful and take care. 

I have not received a follow up from my gynecologist yet and feel I've been overlooked by the system. This is not unusual apparently and it is worth taking control of your own healing administration, chasing appointments etc. (I am in the UK so this maybe different if you are reading from other countries). I have been disappointed with the lack of follow up following discharge from hospital when I was reassured that all the appointments would be made for me and I'd be notified by post. A phonecall in the early weeks would have been really helpful to talk with a nurse who understood about the recovery process just for reassurance if nothing else. I had no idea that a stent could produce such uncomfortable symptoms.

As well as reading I have watched the following films:

• 12 Years a Slave
• This is Martin Bonner
• American Hustle
• Blue Jasmine
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• August: Osage County
• The Counselor
• Now Voyager
• Back to the Future (1 & 2)
• The Italian Job (1969 original)

I'm partial to a Lamborghini-driving older man with his shirt sleeves rolled up - anyone?????

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.

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

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.

Bed bound

Things you notice when you can't move....

As you've probably guessed I love writing so will scribble away about almost anything to pass the time and keep me sane. I had taken my notebook with me into hospital to record my account of having a hysterectomy obviously not expecting to feel as rough as I did.

So I just decided to observe those things around me and here is what I wrote:

...on my right side attached to a catheter, a bag of rose coloured pee, ranging from claret (yesterday) to elderflower cordial (today)...

...drugs have their place, thank you opium fields...

...on the wall of my hospital room I can see:

• a Danicentre glove and apron dispenser, blue gloves in the shade of the Caribbean ocean in small/medium/large. It looks like a 3-eyed old square faced man, its mouth set like a pith helmet.
• below, a green plastic dispenser called Clinell containing an open pack of wipes
• above the white ceramic sink, some Purell liquid soap and chrome fittings. A Gujo gel dispenser and Tork paper towel unit
• then some art as an antidote to the clinical fittings - a black framed photo print of a stream, green banks of long grass and luminescent weed travelling in gentle water. It speaks to me of seclusion, wildness, a brackish past set free by fresh flow. In the far right of the picture there is a turn in the path of the stream suggesting its history, it has come from somewhere unknown but will continue from this point I see before me. I am drawn back to the clump of long grass like a horses mane brushed by the current, coloured to a sandy stripe amid the dark water....

enough of that....

• there is a clock with 24 and 12 hour markings, the second hand in red.
• on the bathroom door is a wipe-clean 'Daily Aims Board', my daily aim for today is have a proper fart (there is a medical term for this but no-one ever uses it and anyway fart sounds more satisfying, it's proper onomatopoeic. I have achieved this daily aim. Another daily aim which seems an obsession also of every nurse who visits me is 'have you had a bowel movement yet?'. Sadly not. However, I have eaten half a weetabix with milk; 2 bourbon biscuits; some veg soup; cucumber; lettuce; tomato; some strong coffee; some herbal tea; cauliflower cheese and a hot chocolate.
• I am told I must 'mobilise' more before I'm discharged. This is difficult when I feel so weak every time I sit up or attempt to stand (more about this later).
• Next to the Daily Aims Board is  yellow sign with a drawing of a white toilet (clearly a male toilet as the seat is up!)