Tuesday, January 07, 2014

More surgery

Hi
Long time no post.  Life has been pretty  "normal" so I don't feel the need to blog when I am just getting on with things ( as best I can despite my left-overs from the treatment regime)  .. it is generally all good, but really not that interesting to keep a diary of!

But right now I am sitting at my desk, totally housebound by more abdominal surgery.  This time it was to repair an incisional hernia where my previous surgery had opened up inside my abdomen.

I sort of thought it would be quite routine, but it turned out to be an 8 inch cut with over an hour in surgery and  then I got rather a nasty post-op complication with lots of internal bleeding and swelling.

I am not over that yet, still sore, still swollen and still very tired, possibly aneamic? Anyrate I am seeing my surgeon again tonight, to see if she needs to aspirate my abdomen again.  She took 300 ml of fluid from just under the surface last week.  I feel better now but at one point one of the docs at the hospital told me the repair had broken down and I got into a major stress about that.

My surgeon has reassured me that she is confident that the mesh she put in is still in place, so hopefully it will all settle down and be better than pre-op.

This stressing made me think how good I had become during the 6 years of my treatments about not worrying about the future, I literally used to just compartmentalise and not look forward very far at all.
I had developed my own way of way of "living in the now", and avoiding the anxieties that looking forward can generate.  It seems that if you aren't always doing that you can get out of the habit, and I was wallowing in a sea of stressful "what ifs"... over the festive period.

This experience has reminded me to keep on with the mindfulness, to keep a sharper eye on my mental health and not allow my life to get sucked up with too much forward looking and fear again, about anything.

It is not good, ever!

This is my fifth cancer-related operation.  I hope it is my last.  I am mostly doing the internet / TV and tapestry at the moment.  This is my fourth tapestry ...   they are a good occupation for me when I can do little else.  I am forbidden to do any gym until March! ARGHHHH

Happy New Year, to anyone who might be reading ... according to my page views some ppl still are!