Around this time last year my much much much loved uncle died suddenly of cancer. I was incredibly glad that MissK,manchild and i had traveled over to Masterton a week earlier and had some time with him and my Auntie and cousin.
The funeral was beautiful ,very much a family,extended family and people-who-weren't-really-family-but-might-as-well-have-been affair filled with warmth.
When i got home i was filled with a massive rage at his death and the cancer that had eaten away at him until he wasnt the person that i remembered and,of course,finally, a white hot anger at my own diagnosis.
I picked a huge fight with manchild and fueled with the need to destroy - kicked a hole through our lounge door. Once all that energy was spent i embarrassingly had to correct everyone who visited that,no it wasnt manchild who did that,it was me. I think it was the suddeness of it all that set me off.How quickly my Uncle was taken from us and how quickly my life had changed into something i barely recognised.

I was also preparing for my next lot of surgery- to correct the prolapsed stoma and also to remove some of the scar tissue from the entrance of  my vagina (although they had managed to reconstruct the passage there was too much scaring to make any sort of penetration possible).
I had thought that this op would be dead easy compared to the other one - and i guess it was but there was no morphine to ease the recovery pains and my bodys energy was still depleted (i had only finished chemo 4-5 months earlier) from the previous treatments. No more food for 24 hrs beforehand again *sigh* and back into hospital.
My experience after this op was crazy- i didnt know it at the time but the hospital must've been full because i stayed the night in the recovery section of the hospital (i think thats what its called). Not an actual ward but where patients usually wait after surgery until they get assigned a room. It was the worst night because people were coming and going all over the place. i had the added complication of having to catherterise (not easy when you cant bend over from the pain of abdominal surgery!)
In the morning they tried to discharge me but (much to their annoyance i imagine) i refused to leave. I told the dr that last time i was in i was really ill after about a week and that there was NO way that i was going home until my new stoma had done its thing (besides i was still in a lot of pain and going home to try and recover with MissK would've been utterly impossible).
So after some hours of waiting a room came available. It was a lovely light room with its own bathroom (i really lucked out!) and after about a week the stoma produced and i was shunted out (by this time the nurses were itching for the bed.) Infact from memory they had me out before i had even got anyone to collect me,they just wheelchaired me downstairs to the waiting area and left me there with my bags. Moving was still a problem (it feels a bit like someone has bashed your insides with a meat tenderiser) but on the whole i was ok.

  
Me and Muttley number 2 Sept 2010



2 weeks later my stoma prolapsed again.
more surgery was organised for October and we started all over again. i hate waking up after surgery and this time was one of the worst yet. i think that the two surgeries being only 2 months apart was much harder on my system.i was so ill and groggy when i woke,i remember saying to Manchild 'i never ever want to have surgery again'- however i seem to remember saying that to him after the last lot aswell,yet here we are...!
Contrary to the last surgery (when the nurses gave me food as soon as i woke ,even though I was telling THEM that i didnt think i should be eating) i was back on a liquid diet and was very carefully looked after,which was great.
I spiked a fever after a few days during this stay and my bloods went whack.i think i was just run down,its very hard to recover when your body has taken the hits that mine had. I was on liquids for about a week and then they slowly introduced foods,it all went fine. I was in a shared ward and slept most of the time.
My bloodwork was still not right but,once again,they needed my bed so i spent half a day in one of the conference rooms waiting for bloodwork results (bec they said they wouldnt send me home till my bloods came right). What do you know,my bloodwork wasnt right but they sent me home anyway (what else could they do?My bed had been given to someone else!!) with the instructions to come back in two days time for more bloodwork.
At home,i was utterly exhausted.i felt like the last two years had caught up with me and then run me over repeatedly with a steamroller.i spent a lot of my time inside,mostly just feeling like that was easier than trying to cope with a life of having to catheterise and change stoma bags at public facilities. I was getting frequent migraines (having not yet sorted out my HRT) and everything was just too HARD Dammit!!

Luckily for me i had a 2 year old who needed looking after and i had already promised myself and her,that my illness was going to impact her life as little as possible. So,after reminding myself who i was doing it for (several times) i started making small trips on my own (with MissK) out of the house.
Its hard to explain how fearful i felt at this time.I had no confidence left in myself or my body. I was second guessing how i parented and my ability to (physically) look after MissK.I was weak and when i got tired i would just suddenly hit a wall of exhaustion accompanied by headaches and nausea where all i could do was sleep. I was so scared that this would happen while i was out with MissK that it just seemed easier to stay at home all the time- and i have to admit,some days i did (and some days i still do).

                          One of my goodnight videos from MissK during one of my hospital stays

*if the video doesnt load try refreshing the page - mine seems to show the vid sometimes and sometimes not!!