The Operation...

It was fair to have called myself a drama queen prior to having had this operation, no one could have been more neurotic than I when it came to stressing over the whole procedure..... I said something about terrific fear and being in it's clutches and being cut by the surgeon's little knife etc, I can barely remember the freakish nightmares I had beforehand now but I do know they were real to me.  So often is the way AFTERWARDS.  O how I can happily mock myself now I am in recovery and it's all been done!

My terrifying journey only ended when the haze of the anaesthetic took over my consciousness.

The morning of the operation I knew I was too calm.  I woke up and had a black tea delivered to me in bed before 6.30am - the cut of time for fluids.  As Henri ran around dealing with the animals, breakfasting pouring my bath and getting my bag ready I simply lay in bed, picked up my iphone and started playing Angry Birds.  What was that all about? Well, I'll tell you.  Denial.  Plain and simple; me pretending that it wasn't going to happen.  Eventually I hauled myself from my pit and got in the bath still with iphone in hand only I had swapped from Angry Birds to Twitter.  Taxi was arriving at 7.30am and at precisely 7.20am my brain kicked in and I frantically washed and got changed - oddly fussing over what style I should put my hair in.  In the taxi I checked Facebook and read a beautiful message from our friends in Hollywood wishing me luck and sending angels to watch over me. Now, you may think what tripe but at the time it was my trigger....tears, big fat tears you usually see on children when they've grazed their knee ran down my face.  My emotions had finally woken up!  Walking into the Day Surgery unit I paled and I must have looked awful as the Sister ran up to me and stroked my arm telling me not to be nervous.  That was it the tears came again and did not stop for a good hour.  I went through all the checks with various nurses and eventually the anaesthetist came to see me.  Now for those of you that have met my father you'll understand this; this guy was my father except with a moustache.  My father is a wonderful man with a huge heart and such a giver but anything serious and the jokes come not to mention his thick Italian accent makes any serious conversation sound like a comedy sketch.  Not only did I ask him to repeat what he was saying about three times but I had a sudden nervous attack of the giggles before telling him my story of fear.  He laughed and quite reassuringly said "you'll be fine. Probably" before walking away.  My giggles got stuck in my throat and the tears came back.  He was followed by Mr Fountain - our gynaecologist and my surgeon.  He explained the 'simple' procedure again and then said that Brenda was making him do my op first.  Thank you Brenda - a thousand thank you's.  So I was first in.  I can't explain the panic but I do remember going numb and still.  Being wheeled down the corridor in a bed feels like being wheeled to the depths of hell, I am surprised my heart got through it, it felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest.  (Yep, the drama goes on...) Without my contacts in or glasses on, this being wheeled to theatre experience was made worse by the fact that I was temporarily blinded! It was all a whooshing blur except when signs like, Operating Theatre, got near my moving bed it was seen through my poor eyesight like big black bold signs an inch from my eyes...all adding to the intense drama playing out in my head.  In we went though the swinging double doors to my penultimate destination before the operating table. There was my father's looky-likey with a needle in his raised hand smiley madly at me and three nurses all staring down at me with odd looking smiles painted onto their faces.  It was like a freak show! Then suddenly the room was alive; two nurses at my head smiling constantly literally pinning down my shoulders, the other nurse asking me the same questions over and over and the anaesthetist bent down rubbing my hand before the searing pain of a needle going into my hand.  The first anti-sickness drug was pumped in followed by anti heart racing drugs and then more anti-sickness.  Suddenly, all was completely still.  All of them still smiling before the anaesthetist saying;"it's time" and my reply?  "O shit, I am going to die".  Then nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Everything stopped.  The smiles, the noises, the pounding, the fear.  It just stopped.

Waking up was nothing like I expected.  I could hear my name being said over and over again but I couldn't wake up.  I couldn't open my eyes or utter "present miss"! Nothing.  I expected to wake up in a warm bed for a start.  No, I was freezing, I was so cold I was shaking all over like I'd been shut in the deep freeze for the past hour and a half!  I remember someone shouting "give her more morphine she shouldn't be shaking like that" and someone else telling my I was given more anti sickness drugs and yet more morphine.  Opening my eyes eventually was literally like prising open an oyster. I saw various nurses and the anaesthetist who I remember thinking looked like Charlie Chaplin as he walked into the room! Other patients were wheeled in woken up and wheeled out again.  A clock on the wall in front of me told me that it was a full 40 minutes before they decided to wheel me back to ward.  Henri was at my side in seconds.  Kissing my face, smiling, squeezing my hand, telling me how proud he was of me and that he loved me to end of the earth.  It was a moment of pure joy with a mixture of his words and my own mind at rest having conquered a fear I'd held all my life.

I felt wired though. Completely out of it.  Pain was present but at bay - strange.  I'd fall asleep mid sentence and wake thinking I'd been asleep for hours but it was only minutes.  Good sleep though, wonderful in fact.

Mr Fountain came to see me.  He explained the 'simple' operation was not so simple.  He found enough endrometritus to sink a ship, removed eight grape sized cysts and unfolded my left fallopian tube that was bent at a 90 degree angle and prized the tip of it away from the uterus wall where it had started growing.  I may need another operation but time will tell - if in three months I am in pain still they need to re-operate.  I need at least 7 days rest and then possibly another few.  At the time I didn't care but I am at Day Four into recovery and I think I do need more time as I am still in enormous pain but the thought of more time off work does not sit easily for me and I have a big event the day I am due back to work.... hmmm.  I believe now I am more important than my job but I am loyal and faithful like a puppy.

So that was that.  Operation over.  If I have to go back now, I've done it once I know I'll be ok.  Seeing is believing, everyone said it would be ok but the fear of the unknown was too much.

The best bit of all is that we've added an extra 1% onto the percentage of us being able to conceive.  I'd do a little dance but I literally can't! xxx