Ep.18: Get a life

‘FUUUUUUCK!’ I shout loudly in pain as I do as I’m told and sit up for the surgeon to inspect my back.  The shock of it floors me and I pant.  ‘I told you the hard work starts now’ he said, then sets out my goals for the day, up, a shower and into a support bra.  Given the pain I’ve just experienced each of them seems insurmountable.  ‘And I don’t want you on this’ he says, nodding at the morphine drip I’m still guarding preciously, ‘it’ll just delay things and make you constipated’.  So the morphine drip is removed along with the drain from my breast and the catheter.

I’m feeling slightly punch drunk.  I’d expected the morphine to allow me to sleep like a baby but I’d been awake all night, watching the clock slowly wind forward to my next visit from the night shift nurses. Every half hour through the night they’d taken note of my blood pressure, heart rate and monitored the level of fluids being produced from my back and my breast.  My blood pressure is low, very low and each time they take it they frown.  I become obsessed with the numbers and strain to read the monitor as the cuff inflates, so much so they quickly learn to turn it towards me so I can see what they see.   ‘What’s normal?’ I ask, ‘120/80’ comes the reply, I’m consistently dancing around 95/47.  In the middle of the night one of the nurses comes to give me a shot of antibiotics into my cannula and I flinch in pain.  She looks concerned.  The cannula isn’t behaving and now, even when I click my morphine friend, I wince.  She suggests we get another cannula put in my other hand but I’m resistant, I think I’ve had enough needles and I hate having a cannula inserted but I start to obsess with the fact that the one in my right hand isn’t working the right way.  Time ticks by til the next visit, ‘I think we should put a new cannula in’ I say and she agrees.  The doctor who comes is quiet and efficient and I cope.  My blood pressure remains stubbornly low and in response my new cannula is furnished with a drip that swings above me.  At 4am I ask for yoghurt to try and calm my scratchy throat but the nurse suggests icecream instead and I have the curiously guilt free pleasure of scooping ice cold cheap vanilla icecream into my mouth in the middle of the night.  Finally I fall asleep at 5am then wake for the next check at 6, it’s the longest I’ve slept all night and I feel slightly spacey until the surgeon arrives to kick start me into action at 7.30.

I’d already anticipated the potential side effects of the morphine and sent an SOS to my friend Jo to bring supplies of dates, figs, mixed nuts and fizzy water.  Since I figured I was going to be alive for some time yet it seemed sense to set out on a slightly healthier regime than presented by David’s Easter Egg and Jelly Baby combo, although I had cracked open the Jelly Babies to celebrate my cannula bravery.  Jo came in at 9 and it was lovely to see her, while she was there Karen, the Breast Care Nurse, stopped by with a soft, front fastening bra and a heart shaped cushion to tuck under my arm.  Then Jo and Karen left to be replaced by Janice the physio who talked me through the exercises I need to do 4 times a day.   With the catheter removed I had to get myself across to the bathroom to pee, each time bracing myself for the task of getting out of bed, shivering with the effort.  Emily, a young trainee nurse who I’d met a couple of week’s earlier when I was in for my lymph node biopsy, came to help me shower.  She carefully dried between my toes and I wondered at her patience and compassion for the naked, bruised, battered and bandaged form I’d become.  She helped me gently into the bra that Karen had supplied then back into the hospital gown, I wasn’t feeling brave enough for the pyjamas I’d brought.

The checks on my blood pressure continued at regular intervals along with injections into my tummy to thin my blood and deliveries of pain killers, white paracetamol and pink ibuprofen plus a yellow one I didn’t catch the name of.     I continued my clock watching between all this busy-ness and activity, waiting for when B might appear.  My girl, my little girl.  I hadn’t wanted her to visit when I was first back from surgery, worried at how I might appear, but now I was aching to see her.   A constant stream of messages from friends and family came through on social media, so much celebration.  Eventually B appeared, pale and concerned clutching flowers and a card.  She leaned into me and kissed my face while I tried to look and sound less tired and broken than I felt.  By the time David appeared, cold from a day working in sleet and snow I was exhausted from lack of sleep.  He stayed for a short while then headed off in search of food leaving me in search of rest. I'd been warned the second night was often difficult and to expect a challenge but I was so tired that shortly after 9 I fell heavily asleep waking briefly only at 2am for the night shift to frown at my blood pressure before I sank back asleep until 6.

And so, gradually, over the next couple of days I moved more, showered more, made my way to the bathroom more easily and started to heal, by the end of the week I was deeply bored with my incarceration.  ‘You ready to get out of here?’ my surgeon asked on Friday morning.  I was.  I told him I couldn’t take the coffee cold turkey any longer, ‘I’m gagging for a double expresso and an avocado’ I laughed, ‘the challenges of the middle class cancer survivor’.  I’ve binned the term “cancer victim”.  I’m no longer a victim.  So my back drain was removed, I got another visit from Karen to advise on what to expect over the next few days and book a time to see me the following week and I was free to go, almost.  The world had tilted while I’d been in hospital.  ‘Can you get your hands on paracetamol and ibuprofen?’ asked the nurse who was to discharge me, ‘Tesco have been cleared out, you might have more luck at the small chemists but you can’t go unless you’ve got some and if we have to wait on a prescription from the hospital it could be hours’.   Covid 19 had hit.  I immediately got on to David and together we did a pincer movement on a close friend who owns a pharmacy. He came through for us, pain relief sorted I was free to leave.