Growing old disgracefully

They say 40 is the new 30 and certainly in my head I'm 25, 28 tops. Unfortunately the rest of me says I'm 40 going on 75, these old dears have more energy and moves than I do today. I'm off to try and shake my ample booty to my new Davina workout DVD. Creak to you later.

I wondered lonely as a clown

You know taking 6 weeks off work and doing nothing isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm bored and lonely and I'm only halfway through this sentence in stir. I'm sick to death of daytime telly and I've read all the new books that I bought.

I asked people not to visit me for the first couple of weeks knowing that I'd have a problem with looking presentable and getting to the door to let them in but no, no-one listened so I was inundated with visitors, cards and bunches of flowers in the first couple of days after coming home when I was too sore and weary to appreciate them. Now all the flowers are wilting and so am I.

My boss turned up the day after I was discharged. I specifically said no food but he turned up anyway with a huge lasagne and a chocolate cake that his lovely wife made. I'd told him no food because of Captain Scarlet's aversion to all things wholesome and my assorted food restrictions. I don't wish to sound ungrateful but I loathe chocolate cake and the lasagne was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. It looked as though the filling had been vacuumed out - it was just pasta sheets with a little chopped tomato on the bottom and a tiny bit of soft cheese squidging out of one side. I tried a taste but promptly wrapped it back up and left it on the table.

Half an hour later I shuffled back into the kitchen to discover that Cami thought the lasagne made a very nice, heated bed. I love the expression on her face. I can't decide whether to fib and say that the lasagne was lovely or tell them about the unfortunate cat incident - I'm sure they would be amused but I also run the risk of having another one delivered.

Set adrift on memory bliss

It's that time of year again. St Patrick's Day commences an emotional voyage through the rapids of memorable dates starting with my son's birthday today and ending with his death at the end of June. Henry would have been 15 today.

Fifteen years of healing, and it's true, time is a great healer, I am able at last to imagine what he would be like had he lived. I picture him as a tall, fair haired young man by now, with stormy grey eyes and killer eyelashes. He would have high cheekbones and a firm rounded chin, probably with a dimple. He would be bright and quiet and patient, not at all into sports, he'd have a wickedly silly sense of humour and his face would dimple whenever he smiled.

You might wonder why I choose to torture myself in this way but it actually brings me comfort. Almost as much comfort as the memory of him sleeping on my chest, a tiny, soft, warm bundle curled up wheezing and panting slightly due to his breathing problems but evidently very contented to be sleeping on his Mummy. That memory is wrapped up in many layers of other memories and whenever I'm too stressed to sleep, all I have to do is unwrap that precious gift and I begin to relax and drift away.

Deja vu (all over again)

Forgive me for plugging this again but while real world sponsorship is going well, the virtual handover of virtual dosh is virtually non-existent (said with tongue firmly in cheek, I know everyone is waiting to see if he completes the ride first).

Here's a copy of of the Cap'n's sponsor form just to show that everything is kosher:

Period. Full stop

Well folks, I'm glad to say that I came home yesterday, a mere 2 days post op. And what a trial those 2 days were The operation itself went very well and only took an hour or so but I was in the recovery room for almost 4 hours after struggling to come round from the anaesthetic.

I came back up to my hospital room at around 2pm and was soon feeling well enough to have a cup of tea and some water although I still had some nausea. I had expected to be in quite a bit of pain and indeed I was but it wasn't where I expected it to be, it was much deeper, I thought it was coming from my bowel. Damn that houmous, I thought. What on Earth possessed me to eat such a thing prior to surgery?

Fearing that I need to do a number 2 I asked to be helped to get out of bed. I struggled over to the loo, bear in mind that I was hooked up to a morphine pump and an insulin/glucose drip through one hand and I had a foley catheter plumbed into my bladder. Unfortunately nothing was forthcoming so I struggled back into my room got changed out of the surgical gown and into a clean nightie and sat next to the bed for a while.

My supper arrived and as I thought the nausea may have been down to not eating since the night before I thought I'd try and eat a sandwich. I mananged about 3 quarters of it before I started to feel very sick and just Capt Scarlet arrived I started throwing up violently. The odd thing was that it was just green water, bilious water that sloshed out of the bowl and all over me and my nice clean nightie. The Capt said it was just like that scene from The Exorcist and expected my head to start rotating.

Back to a hospital gown for the night. All through the night I was in severe pain and felt terrible again, I was given 3 different kinds of anti-sickness medicine and told off for not using the morphine pump often enough.

The next morning I managed some breakfast and was able to have a wash and changed into my only other clean nightwear which was a pair of M&S pyjamas ... while still sporting the catheter which created quite an interesting silhouette.
It was discovered that the canulas in my hand supplying morphine and other goodies were not actually going into the vein, they were just delivering the fluid to beneath my skin so they were removed leaving me with a lovely black and blue hand which is twice the size of normal.

After lunch - a shoe leather/cottage pie which I was unable to eat on grounds of it being inedible and feeling nauseous again, I was whisked off for dialysis.

I arrived at the unit feeling really sick but put it down to the wheelchair ride over - I was supposed to have been brought over in my comfy bed but the only bed route through the hospital to the unit lay through a ward which had just been closed to a c. dificle outbreak. My alternatives were to be taken by ambulance to the unit or go by wheelchair which would involved being wheeled outside on a bitterly cold sleety, snowy day. Not wishing to be a burden on the NHS I opted for the wheelchair.

At the dialysis unit I settled into my chair for a snooze but woke up feeling very queer indeed. I reached for one of the sick bowls that I had to hand just in time as I exploded with green watery nastiness all over again. This time it was so violent that it bounced off the bottom of the bowl and ricocheted all over my face, head, chest, arms, everything was covered. I was so upset and embarassed that I just burst into tears while the clinic manager, God bless her, cleaned me up and got me into yet another hospital gown.

Something was clearly wrong with me so I insisted on seeing a doctor when I returned to the ward. She informed me that most likely my bowel had suffered some paralysis during the operation. Bowels are sulky things apparently and if you touch them as you may well have to do during a hysterectomy, they tend to sulk and stop working for a while.

Well that nasty little tale brings us up to my last day in hospital wherein I was determined to come home. My sulky bowel has started to move things along although it isn't doing it quietly or gently. I'm up and about, had a shower this morning, washed & blow dried my hair, still having a little difficulty getting out of bed unaided but other than that I've made a miraculous recovery.

I haven't noticed any ill effects from being surgically placed in the menopause yet, but I can tell you it feels damn good not to have to go through a monthly period ever again. I have had so much trouble over the years, pain and embarrassment as pads fail to hold everything and I'm in a public place with a huge bloodstain on my clothes or office chair. Never again. Fantastic!!

Blast off

Well this is it, I'm off to the hospital in a couple of hours and the surgery is scheduled for first thing tomorrow morning. I think everything will be fine, I'm not as worried about it as I was the first time round although I'm questioning the wisdom of indulging my craving for my home made houmous (1 can of pinto beans/chickpeas/cannelini beans or whatever you have to hand, half a jar of sundried tomatoes, 1-2 cloves of garlic, olive oil & salt to taste - whiz them all up in a food processor, enjoy with crisp vegetable sticks) so close to surgery that will leave me confined to bed for a couple of days.


Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!

Fat bottomed girls*

Captain Scarlet, along with several nurses, perhaps a doctor and at least one patient are all taking part in a sponsored bike ride in a couple of weeks to raise funds for the dialysis unit. I would have a go myself but what with being only 2 weeks post-hysterectomy by then and it being 15 miles through the rough terrain of some Suffolk woodland it doesn't really seem like a good idea. I'll be cheering them on from the relative comfort of a parked car and hopefully I'll be up to turning a few sausages for an apres-bike barbecue.

The money raised will be used by Addenbrooke's Kidney Patients Association to fund all manner of quality of life projects for dialysis patients and their families.

So here comes the shameless begging part. If you would like to sponsor the good Cap'n , click on the button below or over in the sidebar and fork over as much moolah as you can spare. Also, I would be most grateful if you could link back to me from your blogs (or if you would like to add the button to your sidebar, please email me on the address in my sidebar - this post edited to remove the uncoded address due the fact that I'm being spammed left, right & centre).

In the interests of transparency I want you to know that initially the money will be coming direct to my account but I pledge that it will all go to AKPA. I was going to register with Justgiving.com but AKPA themselves have to open an account and I'm not sure they are going to do that (it does actually cost the charity a monthly fee plus fees are taken out of every transaction) so doing it via PayPal seemed like the next best thing. This way I can spread the word far and wide and reach people who I can't reach with a good old-fashioned sponsor form. In about a month's time I will write AKPA a nice fat cheque and Gift Aid it which should give them 28% more than the value of the cheque.

Please help me to raise a bundle of money for a worthy cause.

Thank you!!

*And boys**
**Although hardly any of them actually have a fat bottom, they're all supremely fit because they're medical professionals (snerk)