30 March - Surgey

Monday 30 March. We arrive at the hospital. In my bag I have the most horrible selection of bras I have ever owned. They were all I could find in the local M&S and quite frankly you could grow potatoes in them. Still needs must. I will throw them away as soon as I can. First stop is the X- ray department for the Breast Wire Localisation. Check in OK and we find a seat…but not in the right place. There are never enough seats in the waiting areas and despite the early time the place is full. Some shuffling around eventually gets us to the right place and my partner, my overnight bag and I camp out for the requisite half hour wait until I am called. A nurse takes me into a darkened treatment room. Mr P is looking at x-rays on light panels and discussing them with another doctor. The nurse apologises for the delay and gets me set up on a couch propped up with pillows. I listen to the conversation between Mr P and the other doctor. It isn’t about me but some other poor soul who seems to be in a somewhat worse situation than me. Mr P doesn’t even notice I am there. Eventually, he leaves and Dr H comes over and gets started. She uses ultrasound to locate the cancer, then attempts – several times - to get a local anaesthetic to take. Not much success there so I feel the scalpel nick and the wire insertion a bit more than I should. Parting words from her were. I see you have an invasive lobular cancer. The type shouldn’t make any difference to achieving a cure but you need to be aware that the chance of this cancer recurring in the other breast is about 20% as opposed to 7 % for other types. How reassuring. Back to the waiting room sans bra to wait for a confirming mammogram to be taken. That done it is off to the admissions ward at the other end of the hospital – carefully clutching my x-rays. Apparently they trust the patients more than the staff and filing system to make sure things get where they are supposed to be. More long unkempt, grotty corridors filled with too many people who look too ill. It is so sad and depressing. The admissions office area is chaos. I check in and they sort of realise I am expected but again we end up waiting while harried nursing staff try to cope. Eventually someone gets my file and moves us to another seat. I can see that this is going to be painfully slow and suggest to my partner that he should go home. He accepts the suggestion with a marked degree of gratitude and takes off with a promise to return later in the day once I know what is happening. Finally I have my blood pressure, temperature and pulse taken and am measured up for anti-embolism stockings – a most bizarre pair of tight long white socks – you could probably get a fortune for them selling them to Japanese school girls on e-bay. I am a bit concerned about the number of people wandering around in dressing gowns and slippers. I have no intention of spending the rest of the day in night attire and hope this isn’t compulsory. More waiting and then someone arrives to take me to the actual ward. Now call me a bit over optimistic but I did think that as the ward I was being admitted to was referred to as an elective surgery ward and was originally part of the private part of the hospital I might get a room of my own. No such luck. I am shown to a four-bed room where the beds can be screened by curtains. Four beds, four quite comfy chairs beside them, the usual bedside cabinets and medical paraphernalia on the wall behind. No bathroom, no television. I have my Sudoku and books. Lots of them. Thank goodness.

I am the first there so go off to explore to find a bathroom. It’s down the corridor past other wards – male and female. At least I get to put my bra back on.

Back on the ward, other women start arriving. We barely make eye contact at first but then some of them start to chat to each other. I am not feeling very sociable. They are nice ladies but not really my type. I will make conversation but not just yet. I bury my head in a book. One of the women is wearing her nightie, dressing gown and slippers. I ask if she is having her operation today but she says no. Like the rest of us it is tomorrow, the admissions people got it wrong and asked her to get changed. She even has her anti-embolism stockings on. Poor lady sits there all day like that.

I am finding the inane chatter in the background a bit trying so I put on my coat and go to the nurses’ station to say I am going for a walk. That’s fine. Lunch is being served in an hour but I can disappear until then. I get outside and make some calls while I watch some patients in wheelchairs sitting outside smoking. This whole place is depressing and it really brings it home to me how stretched the NHS is. They are trying to do a good job and in my case – indeed in the case of anyone with cancer – they pull out all the stops but they can only do what their resources allow them.

The less said about lunch or any of the food the better.



The rest of day passes – my partner comes and visits. Nurses come and ask interminable questions, - What am I allergic to? – Nickel, tetracycline and now steri -strips I reply. They fill out endless forms and fix labels to my wrist. They demand a urine sample – just in case I am pregnant? I don’t think so. Every time they come to speak to one of us you can hear the whole conversation. No privacy….but I don’t suppose any of us really care. Every 3 hours or so they repeat the observations – Blood Pressure, Pulse and Temperature. I make several more trips outside.

The night was a horror. From 11.00 pm we were not allowed any food or drink. I stayed awake as long as I could with a view to being so tired I would have to sleep. But the gods of repose were not in our area that night. The breast wire was uncomfortable and although I knew it couldn’t move there was always a horrible suspicion that somehow it would. Then there were the emergencies on the ward during the night. People falling down in the toilets, bells being rung, staff running up and down the corridor, lights on and to crown it all the lady in the next bed to me was a diabetic and a nurse took it into her head that her insulin levels were not right so she was put on a infusion pump. Fine except that it was faulty and the alarm kept going off every ten minutes. By four in the morning I had had it and sat up in bed with a demand to turn the F****** thing off. They did. Unfortunately at 5.30 it was time for the next set of observations. At six it was time to get up and wash and change into hospital gowns and put the elegant stockings on. Then we waited until we were visited by nurses, anaesthetists, registrars, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. Every one of whom asked the same questions over and over again. I wonder if they just want to catch you out. Name, Date of birth, alleges, past medical history etc. Every time they write it down and you wonder where all of these different forms go. Why don’t they just take one set of data and all access it? Too efficient I expect.



Eventually the nurse came along with ‘The List’ - the order in which we were to go to surgery. I was third so I had a bit of time on my hands. The registrar was the last to visit, he came with a black felt tip marker and asked me which side we were doing. Left I said. Good. He drew a large black arrow on my chest pointing to my left boob. I made a mental note to ask the surgeon if he had trouble with maps.

I was so tired I was looking forward to the anaesthetic and having a good sleep so when they wheeled me into the little room before the theatre I was happy to drift off and get the whole thing over with.


Waking up isn’t hard to do – just a bit painful. I am conscious of the oxygen mask and the fact I have a pressure garment strapped around my chest. The nurse asks if I have pain and when I say a bit she injects something into the IV line and the pain goes. I drift a bit but slowly start to become more awake. The oxygen mask goes. I can hear sawing and banging noises. Apparently it is the orthopaedic surgeon in the next theatre doing a hip replacement. They take me back to the ward and bliss – I get some water and a cup of coffee. My partner arrives, as does the chicken sandwich I ordered the previous day. Horrible but needed. I am hungry. It is about 1.00 pm and I have some time to just rest and recover. The registrar and anaesthetist will decide if I can go home this evening or if I have to spend another night on the ward. I will walk on coals to get out of here so plan on being the most recovered person you have ever seen. I am allowed up to go to the loo with escort. This I manage and they take down the IV line. More rest. Observations are good and the anaesthetist gives the OK for me to go home this evening. I get dressed in the bathroom – good thing too as I throw up. I knew that chicken sandwich was horrible. There is no way I am telling anyone about this so brace myself to walk back into the ward looking 100%. Nurses arrive with advice, discharge forms and medication and dressings. I am to change the dressings myself and get back in touch if anything looks dodgy. There are lists of symptoms to look out for. My partner arrives and I make my careful way down to the car. I am feeling like shit.

In the car I ask him to drive very carefully around corners and over bumpy bits.
The journey home seems to take ages. As soon as I am in the house it is back into the loo for another throw up. Then I stagger into bed with barely a word and sleep for twelve hours.

Next day I feel surprisingly better. I lie around in bed for most of the morning. The thing around my chest is comforting but not comfortable so I bite the bullet and remove it. There are pads and dressings and I get down to the main one, which is showing a lot of discharge and blue dye. I think it needs changing so use one of the dressings supplied. The wound looks OK. About three and a half inches long. A bit leaky at the bottom end but not bad. The under arm one from the sentinel lymph node removal is fine.

I put on one of the horrible bras and get dressed. Time to get back to normal.
This was the day the flowers started arriving. Soon the house looked like a florists shop and I ran out of vases. One of my colleagues had the foresight to know I would have too many flowers and sent me a welcome bottle of red wine instead.