This Too Shall Pass

After a long day at the hospital for breast cancer surgery, I was eventually allowed home late in the evening. What a day!

I had to rock up at the POCU (Pre-Operative Care Unit) for 7am, before being whisked off to the Nuclear Medicine department to have a radioactive isotope injected to help identify which sentinel lymph nodes needed to be checked during surgery.

After the injection, I had to have a special scan to help identify the sentinel lymph nodes. These are the first lymph nodes that fluid drains to from the area around a tumour, and therefore the ones most likely to be checked to see whether any cancer cells have spread beyond the breast.

I noticed that the machine appeared to be called a Discovery, although the letter ‘v’ seemed to be missing, making it a rather appropriate Disco ery, on account of the beeping and bonging noises it emitted.

As the camera whirled around me through 360 degrees towards the end, I felt as though I was either inside the spin cycle of a washing machine or being examined by the Hadron Collider. I wasn’t entirely sure which, but I was relieved when it finally stopped!

Later that morning, in another department, a wire was inserted into the other side of my affected boob. It was a bit alarming to see about 200mm of loose wire sticking out, and I did briefly wonder whether I was about to be soldered to something. Fortunately, once they’d checked everything was in the right place, a nurse coiled up the excess wire and hid it behind a dressing. Much less alarming!

The operation I was having was an imaging-assisted wide local excision. In plain English, that means removing the tumour along with a margin of surrounding breast tissue, rather than removing the whole breast. The imaging and the wire inserted earlier help guide the surgeon to the right place. The aim is to get the tumour out completely while preserving as much of the breast as possible.

Eventually, around lunchtime, I was taken to the pre-op anaesthetic room, where I was briefed on what would happen next and then a cocktail of drugs was injected into my hand. I remember feeling a little dizzy, but nothing after that until I woke up in the recovery room about three hours later. Annoyingly, all the clocks I could see showed different times, with about 15 minutes between them. Not terribly helpful when you’re trying to work out what day it is, let alone what time!

The first thing I realised was that I was absolutely freezing. The nurse told me my body temperature had dropped below 35°C, so they produced a wonderful machine that blew warm air under my blanket. Very nice and cosy! Fortunately, my temperature came back up quite quickly, and a couple of hours later I was well – and warm – enough to be moved to a day ward.

Once there, I was rewarded with a lovely cup of tea in a proper mug. And I didn’t go hungry either, thanks to a little forward planning: I’d brought my own Marmite sandwich because I simply couldn’t face another hospital sandwich. They are absolutely awful!!

I was finally discharged at around 8pm, by which time I was ready to go home and collapse. Dinner was a bowl of ice cream, as I had a sore throat from being intubated. (How scared was I when they told me that a machine would breathe for me during the operation!) Thankfully, they didn’t start messing about with any of that until I was well and truly out for the count. Probably just as well!

Twelve hours or so later, I’m recovering at home and generally doing OK, although I’m quite sore (which I suppose is hardly surprising, but still frustrating…) and sporting some spectacular bruises. I haven’t been able to see what’s going on underneath the dressing yet, so the full extent of the damage remains a mystery.

I did try to wash off the numerous ‘Sharpie’ arrows and crosses they’d drawn on me before surgery, but without my glasses I failed to realise that some of the marks I was trying to remove were actually bruises. Oops!

It’ll be another two to five weeks before the results are back and we know whether the alien squatter has been completely evicted, with ‘clear margins’ all around. Fingers crossed that the surgeon has managed to get the whole unwelcome lodger out in one go!

In the meantime, my targeted treatment will continue in about ten days’ time. The aim is to seek out any rogue cancer cells that might have decided to set up home elsewhere, even though we can’t see them.

I must also give a huge shout-out to all the amazing NHS staff who looked after me throughout the day. From the medical and nursing teams to the housekeeping staff, every single one was a superstar. Everyone was kind, caring and professional, and I definitely felt that I was in very good hands. Thank you all – you’re absolute stars! ⭐

For now, the squatter has been surgically evicted, I’m back home recovering, and the next stage is to wait for the results. It’s a relief to have got this far, although I’m not quite ready to declare victory just yet.

One step at a time.

This too shall pass.