Patience, patient, pleurgh… for the longest time I’ve been a creature of habit. Train, work, train, sleep rinse and repeat. Then one day something seemed different. Actually that’s not true. It wasn’t an immediate thing, I’d noticed that my training was becoming more challenging. I measure everything when it comes to my workouts (more on that later) and over a fair few sessions I was finding that I wasn’t hitting anywhere close to my PBs. Ironically, I’d started to look at my running at around the time. Mixing short faster runs with longer endurance sessions. I even got myself a runners diary. I’d noticed that I was starting to put on some weight, in fact, it seemed no matter how much I trained, ate or drank I just seemed to put on weight. It left me confused.

At the same time my life was blowing up, our wonderful company (Vidya Healthcare) was looking like it was headed for administration and let me get quickly to the point, I don’t really do doctors. I’d not seen a doctor in maybe 20 years (no joke). Then I felt something strange. We had a gasshuku in the south of the UK. I drove down and in one of the sessions I felt fluid moving “in me”, in fact I could hear it. I remember thinking, “yeah I should get that looked at” and well… life just kept going.

Then I just kept getting bigger. After a week I looked like I was 5 months pregnant as time went on, people moved for me on the train. My first attendance A&E… I was told I had a bladder issue but nothing changed and my “bump” continued to get bigger. Thankfully one doctor was thorough and all signs started to point towards a gynaecological issue, my bump was a build up of ascites and 2 litres were removed at one point to give some relief. That was short lived.

Then it became impossible to walk for more than 3 minutes and I was sent to hospital as an emergency case. Unfortunately at that time, Croydon University Hospital was the closest. Long story short I was admitted and so began the “wait for the drain”. Much has been written about CUH that is negative, in fact this hospital was previously known as “Mayday” hospital which was translated to “May Die” because of it’s reputation. I cannot take from that moniker. During my 4 day “wait for the drain” I was given morphine every 4 hours and for entertainment, the odd trip for scans and the like. Worth remembering, this is Croydon and so whilst I was wheeled to various scans I met the underbelly of Croydon civilisation who were also partaking, albeit begrudgingly. My ward for the 9 days was shared with a variety of folk, the standout, Joan. Joan was a guest of CUH following a fall whilst visiting family, a sad end to her visit from Manchester.

Joan was the owner of hearing aids, both of which were seemingly never in her ears at the same time. The Nurses were always patient with her explaining what they were doing and giving to her. Then one night, about 2am, the Nurses circulated with pain medication, asking Joan if she needed anything.

“Joan, do you need any pain medication?”, we all heard this, as the Nurse tried to enunciate.

“What’s that, what are you giving me?” came the response

“Joan, do you want some pain medication, do you want some codeine?”

“What? Why would I want that? Why are you giving me cocaine?”

This instance was only humorously surpassed when Joan managed to get both hearing aids in her ears at the same time and, possibly as a result of a lack of painkillers, queried “why are you all shouting at me?” to the rather nonplussed nursing staff.

On the advice of a gynaecologist who worked for CUH I returned to University College London Hospital for my operation and that’s where things got real. It’s strange how little people like to use the word Cancer. Doctors, Nurses kept asking me if I knew what was going on but shied away from “Cancer” term. I was pretty sure what I was facing and really just wanted to get on with things. Sure I’d been in pain with the ascities, in fact they took 21.75 litres of fluid from me finally in Croydon once they managed to get the drain in, more was to follow. I showed up on the 9th of August for my midline laparotomy, total abdominal hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, supracolic omentectomy, uterovesical peritonectomy, bilateral para-colic gutter peritonectomies, excision of deposits from caecum, small bowel and mesentery, appendicectomy. EBL 1.5L. That’s what the post op report said, sitting in the waiting room I was just scared. Biggest concern… not waking up.

My anesthesiologist told me I would be asleep in 5 seconds, I only managed to make it to 2 before I was away… waking up hours later in recovery. What followed were some of the darkest days I have ever endured and endured is the right term. I had extreme nausea, dizziness and to top it all off my digestive system had decided to stay asleep. The one thing I thought I could depend on. Then, I got a C-diff infection, basically the stuff that we all have in our guts went out of balance, the result, bathroom every 20 mins and my weight just plummeted. Lets not lose sight of the fact that I was struggling to move around in any case because of the incision and wasn’t 100% steady on my feet. But I put my warrior face on and tried to be brave.

Princy.

Princy was a nurse who didn’t talk about “opening bowels” using the term poo-poo instead. She was from the Philippines and we chatted a lot about things to do in London and Ireland where she was planning on visiting. Princy took a look at how often I needed the bathroom and we were on a mission. She was convinced I had an infection and was right. Once we started treatment she assured me I would start to feel better in a few days and she was not wrong.

I’ve had wonderful support through out all of the above. I cannot thank those close to me enough, especially when I was grumpy, annoyed, uncomfortable and lets face it, I’m far from the worlds best patient. At this point people usually talk about how much they have learned about themselves, some sort of deep and meaningful insight. Me, yeah I’ve never been that person, I’m more a get on with it and lets get stuff done.

I fully believe that life is what you make of it, we all know I can’t sit still and so this weekend I’m going on an adventure, not far but just enough to have something to look forward to. A “thank you” to my husband who has literally been incredible and has looked after me so well. Keep an eye out for the pictures.

Next week we hear about chemotherapy and all that comes with the next phase of this battle, but for now, I can’t do much to influence that so worrying is just wasted energy. Instead, I’m very much looking forward to going to the dojo on Saturday, just to sit and watch (I’ve been told I need to sit on my hands as last time I moved around a bit much). Seeing everyone is medicine in itself.