Making it back to London and thinking about surgery - NOVEMBER 2022

So my break didn’t go quite as planned, I’d planned on staying as far away from hospital as possible but it didn’t pan out that way.

It started well, I made it back to London for the first time since I left for work one morning at the end of March. I got to see so many of my favourite people and it felt amazing to feel like normal could be back again. I went out for dinner, I saw Dear Evan Hanson (epic), I had friends over (no pics, too busy cuddling them and chatting shit) and I cooked dinner in my kitchen. Unfortunately, I also had to spend two days in Chelsea and Westminster hospital as my neutrophils and platelets plummeted. Fortunately, I have some fabulous friends, some of whom happen to be doctors and one of which was able to keep me company.

Once I was home again I knew something wasn’t right, we headed to Nottingham on the Monday for my pre-op assessments and to meet with my surgeons and throughout the day I got more and more uncomfortable. By Wednesday the pain was getting unmanageable, that night I was admitted with an infection. I had emergency surgery on Friday and thankfully felt MUCH better. The problem is, as soon as I feel better I want to be at home and despite my best negotiating my consultant was not willing to let me go until my neutrophils recovered. (Negotiations consisted mainly of crying at him). So I was stuck in hospital for 10 days, the longest I have been since my first stay. I really had my moments this stay, I wasn’t on my usual ward with my usual nurses and even if I had been, this was supposed to be my time at home and of feeling the best I would again until chemo pt2 was complete. I got angry and I cried a lot, enough that my mum and dad managed to convince my nurse to let me out one evening so I could go to Spoons for some edible food.

We made it home though, with just over a week before I will be back for surgery. Now that it comes closer I’m increasingly aware of how big this operation might be. It is hard to prepare when I don’t know exactly what is coming. It’s a balancing act. This surgery, we hope, will be life saving but we also hope, not life altering. Neither myself or my surgeons know exactly what they will need to do and the fear of not knowing this until I wake up is real but the reality is that this is my only option. I feel confident in all the fantastic people I have on my team and I know that they really are the best at what they do. I also know that my family and friends are experts at this point at carrying me through the scariest parts of all this.

As Frank says in the vid “it’s a long road back to recovery from here” but we’re on our way and I have no intention of turning around. So, a little more time at home, hopefully remaining as boring as possible and then into the next part we go.

P.S my brows have finally given up the ghost (fuming)