Done Deal

He's out now anyway, the little fella. 

I got to see him in glorious technicolour on Wednesday, when I had a sigmoidoscopy without sedation, meaning I had the surreal experience of having a camera wind its way up my bottom and getting to watch its journey through my bowel on the telly. 

Still better than Jeremy Kyle I guess. 

So I could see the little culprit once the surgeon had found it - it was so small he went past it the first time. The size of a small grape I’d say, and not a bit nasty-looking, just smooth and pink and looking a bit lost. He injected a load of india ink into it which turned it into a much more appropriately sinister-looking thing, and then we were done. I made my joke about fulfilling my mid-life crisis need for a tattoo, and he said well it will be gone tomorrow so there won’t be time to regret getting a dolphin instead of some wise Ogham runes or whatever. 

I had also had the pleasure that day of meeting the stoma nurse, who was as whisperingly tactful as any hospice nun, even closing her eyes intermittently and muttering to herself about placement and positioning and contours. She is a woman immersed in her job and not inclined to be too flippant about it, which is really just as well. She drew four purple circles in an x around my belly button, and covered them over meticulously with gauze and tape. I decided not to look at them for the rest of the day. 

I met two anaesthetists, one who came for a social visit which was very welcome in a day full of business, and both helped to reassure me that my bunged-up headcold head probably wouldn’t postpone the surgery. Though quite a big part of me was kind of hoping that it would. My temperature was okay, mostly due to the fact that, in general, people are terrible at taking other people’s temperatures. (The yokey goes into the ear canal, peeps. I would suggest that they get patients to do it themselves.) My white cell count came back normal so that would keep them all happy. 

I trotted home to do the laundry, pack my bag, make the dinner, read the stories and go to bed. 

Woke up with sinuses jam-packed full of, well, greenish jam. Had a sneaky Lemsip (dear god I’ll be in trouble when the doctors find out). Narky and snippy with the children I adore and would miss like hell for the next few days. Remembering, then forgetting, about the car insurance and ballet fees and bus money. 

Back to the same ward, different nurses. Same questions answered over and over. Peed into another bottle. More enemas. (I think I’ll leave the enema stories out of this. The jokes are too easy. Shooting fish in a barrel.) I had snuck in my own thermometer. Their readings were out by about 0.8 degrees all morning. Grand by me. If mine went over 38 degrees I’d say something, otherwise we’d just get this show on the road. 

Lovely anaesthetist who wasn’t too perturbed by my bunged-up head, or my morphine sensitivity. “We’ll give you lots of anti-itch medication, you’ll be fine.”

Into the theatre, the usual controlled and amiable hubbub, ladies counting things in the corner, men slapping my hand to get the veins up. “Just a little something in the vein now to put you to slee….”

AND out. 

Itchy itchy itchy nose. Can’t scratch it because of the oxygen mask. Hands feel like two balloons. With gloves on. Words coming out funny. Hands on tummy. Don’t feel anything that might feel like a colostomy bag would feel. I think. 

Lady next to me in a bed. Then a man. He’s snoring. Or is it me?

Itchy itchy itchy everywhere. Tubes in lots of places.

Words and brain clearing a bit. What time is it? 8:30 pm. It’s busier now than it was at lunchtime. Coming and going, coming and going. 

Bed moving, porter at one end, nurse at the other. Banter. Banging off lift door. 

“Here you are now!”

The lovely familiar face of the man who has been waiting four hours to know if he’s ever getting his wife back. 

Blood pressure, heart rate, temperature (these ladies were good at it). All go all night. You won’t die of sepsis but you might die from lack of sleep. 

Surgeon was in at 10:30pm and shows up again bright as a button at 7am. Now I get it, sleep is for wimps. I need to be blowing harder into my lung exerciser thingy, I need to get out of bed and walk down the corridor, eat this but not too much of it, keep the tubes in until your body can be trusted to work all by itself. 

Dietician comes to tell me to break every rule in her own book and it’s killing her, I can tell. I am to eat no fibre whatsoever for 3 weeks. White bread, white rice, white boiled vegetables. I am nauseated just by the thought of it. It’ll be like living in a really bad nursing home. Including the revolting nutritional drinks that make me want to cry. 

My children will be disgusted - how come I get to eat cornflakes and white bread and no vegetables?? Not fair mummy. 

Slowly but surely the tubes and lines and drips and drains have been removed and I am almost back to myself. My hair is washed and my body has remarkably few new holes in it. I’m tired though. Nodding off. Might be the drugs or just the effort. Snooze before rugby I think. Zzzzzzz.