week one

We’ll I’ve never really kept a diary, but things are happening pretty quickly at the moment, and lets face it, right now I’m so bored I’d even watch cricket!

I guess things started properly on Tuesday night.

What are you supposed to do when you are in hospital, as the only anaesthetist and you start bleeding, heavily, and you have a patient on the table. Saying oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck was a pretty good place to start.

It’s awesome that there were so many great people to make it a bit easier. Having a Tech with that many years experience is very reassuring, and nurses to wheel me out of there, and a registrar from another department to come and bail me out – I guess I can say fuck I’m lucky, well maybe not luck given the circumstances, but grateful to have so many awesome people around.

It’s kind of a weird thing to be able to ring another doctor in the hospital, to know who they are, and to have them say, just come in, to feel like the whole world is swimming, and then to feel so reassured that they were going to look after me and help sort this whole mess out. I developed a whole new respect for Deborah. Her bedside manner was amazing. I was pretty sure the news wasn’t going to be good, and could see it in peoples faces. Astrid listened to my story and said it sounded reassuring, but then her face when she examined me! May I say fuck?

I never thought that I would have to have a mcfarlane roll inserted, and even though its only a couple of days later there are already things that I can’t really remember happening. Pretty glad that’s one of them.

My first night in 97 was in a 4 bed room, but with only one other patient. It’s weird sleeping in a strange bed, and even weirder waking up without my rob. I love him so much. In fact the thing about all this that is the hardest is seeing what it is doing to him, and knowing that he is so upset, and that right now I am pretty damn well, especially compared to what I might be like with chemo/radiotherapy! But I’m jumping ahead.

I went to theatre on Wednesday Morning. I was holding it together pretty well until I saw Rhada. Then I pretty much lost it. They gave me some midazolam, and I have no idea what I did or said after that. Which I guess is a blessing. I remember feeling so tired when I woke up, struggling to get out of a deep heavy daze. Sneha was looking after me, and was amazed that I could remember her.

The rest of the day is a bit of a haze to me. I do remember going to have a chest xray and being told I would need an MRI. I guess I already knew the news was going to be a bit shitty by that stage. Ange and Kate and Anna and Sasha all came to visit me. It was beautiful. I’m still waiting for someone to bring me my drama queen crown though. After rob went home Sasha just stayed with me. She didn’t even have to say anything, it was just nice to have her there with me.

Valeria came to see me the next morning. You know it can’t be good when the doctor is crying. Poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix. Despite a normal smear 6 months ago, I now have a 7cm tumor. So another few days wait, another trip to theatre and another consultant telling me the news. It’s too big to operate on so it is going to be chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Ok, so we had a plan. Here I am ready to start the next day, maybe the next Monday. I had no idea we would have to wait 3 weeks after the second trip to theatre to start treatment. 3 weeks! F*&K!