When the going gets tough, the tough get cranky

Well, a week is a long time, and two weeks is even longer! (Profound thought for the week.)

Surgery was successful. More than successful, it was the best possible outcome we could have had (short of going in and finding absolutely nothing). Dr B took out the ovary and the uterus. It was stuck down to the bowel, but she peeled it off and there was no need to operate on the bowel or anything like that.

I also let myself be talked into an epidural for pain relief. I was dead against it in the week leading up to surgery when the idea was first floated, but Dr B and the anaesthetist talked me into it. The anaesthetist told me that if I was older, he would just tell me that an epidural was part of the surgery, and the only reason I was getting the choice between an epidural and a morphine drip is because I am young and healthy. I just had a real aversion to sticking anything into my spinal chord, and it seemed to be tempting fate to do something different, with a new set of risks.

Very glad I let myself be talked into it though, because it was totally brilliant.

Numb from ribs down, so no pain, but not all foggy and stupid on pain-killers. It meant that I was up and more mobile a lot sooner but I wasn't really groggy and sluggish.

I was a bit distressed when I came out of surgery, but only because I had a huge amount of pressure on my bladder, so I felt like I was absolutely busting for the toilet even though I had a catheter in. I was very aggressive and demanding (it was actually quite painful) and they managed to increase my painkillers through the epidural, sit me up more so gravity could work and it eventually went away.

I had a good couple of days recovering, and then the epidural had to come out. So they gave me some painkillers, took the epidural out, and then I got nauseous. And sick. And nauseous. And sick. The painkillers spaced me out, made my vision blurry, and then I got really seasick and spent most of the day throwing up and just feeling generally crap. This was the day that most people had arranged to come and visit and so I cancelled all visits and just shut my eyes and pretended I was somewhere else. Yuck.

It improved overnight though and I went home on the Friday (surgery was on the Monday).

Now, everything surgery-wise has been improving brilliantly since coming home. The wound is really neat, the pain is minimal and everything is healing really fast. I'm recovering really well.

Unfortuantely, things are not so great elsewhere. Before I went into the hospital I had been having a bit of neck pain, which I put down to stress and tension (it's not the first time my neck has gone during stressful times). Unfortunately, while in hospital it got steadily worse, and when I came home it became truly unbearable.

Saturday night found us running around looking for a late night medical centre to get some valium to try to relax the muscles, it had become so bad. The valium did help all the surrouding tight muscles, but the really sore spot (on the right side of the base of my skull) was still really painful. This slowly brought us to the realisation that this probably wasn't just a tight muscle due to stress, but pain due to the metasteses in my bones. Very depressing realisation.

So we have been seeing the rounds of doctors to try to work out what the next steps are. I had an x-ray yesterday and I'll have another bone scan today, and then we are seeing both my surgeon and my oncologist Friday afternoon to discuss treatment. If it is still confined to the three bone spots that we know about (base of skull, clavicle and right femur), then we can just do a couple of blasts of radiation ('spot welding'). If it has spread even more throughout my bones, it might be time to start chemo straight away. Obviously chemo right now is definitely NOT what I want, so I am praying that it is still confined.

In the meantime, learning to live with chronic pain is a lot more difficult than I expected. I really can't think of anything except the pain. This is NOT how I want to live my life. So I am really praying that the pain will become more bearable soon. It is difficult for me and for those around me - Mama and Rich I think are very frustrated to see me suffer and to not be able to do anything to fix it.

This weekend Mama and I are off for a weekend retreat with Lifeforce. It should be a nice peaceful weekend, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's actually the reason that Mama came down in the first place - the whole surgery thing came after she booked flights down for it!

Well, that's about it for me for now... Will talk more later.

Please keep me and my wonderfully supportive Mama and Rich in your prayers.

Much love,

Jess xoxoxo