Tag Archives: operation

Impatiently Recuperating

So, Phyllis the Hernia is no longer.

Two weeks on, the stitches are healing.

I can see my feet once more. I’m bruised, but happy.

It’s weird though, having this operation is a bit like being diagnosed with MS.

You certainly find out who your friends are.

Not many, but a few of the people I thought would send good wishes, if not come for a visit, haven’t. My other amazing friends, thankfully, have.

I’ve been lucky, I’ve had offers of help, visits, someone to put my bins out on time. Although raddled with Cabin Fever, I’ve had visits every day, bringing me news of the Outside World and a supply of blueberries (my must-have).

Yet being alone for the majority of the time has been interesting. I’ve set up a study schedule. I’ve replied to all my emails. I’ve ordered some covers for my garden furniture. I’ve watched every single episode of ’90 Day Fiance’. If nothing else, I now know how to apply for a visa if an American guy ever took a shining to me.

I’ve tootled around my cottage, counting cobwebs. I’ve snipped dead leaves from plants, sorted through kitchen drawers and, well, been a little bit bored.

I know I need to take it easy, but it’s a bit frustrating.

Perhaps I was a bit hasty in turning down appearing in TLC’s ‘Too Ugly For Love?’

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Operation ‘Phyllis’

At last, Phyllis the Painful Hernia will be no more come an operation on Friday.

As if MS wasn’t enough to contend with, this hernia has been making my life utterly miserable.

I had a consultation at hospital two weeks ago; a kindly doctor made me lie on a couch and pushed the hernia all the way back in, before saying, ‘yup, it’s big’.

It’s a large grapefruit strapped to my stomach, a decent-sized Gwalia melon maybe. I’m tired of explaining I’m not pregnant, just fat with a hernia attached.

Anyway, at the end of the consultation I breathlessly asked when he could operate. His sad face told me everything. He explained that although my hernia was an urgent case, hernia operations were not.

Oh, ok. I’m thinking, oh well, I can wait til November. Maybe December? Not a chance. If I was lucky, maybe a year, probably more.

So, long story short, a kindly relative has paid for me to have the operation privately. I have to go for it, to keep working, as I’m struggling. Daily life is a wretched round of clasping the hernia, trying to do simple tasks and grimacing with endless pain.

I’m getting myself organised. They want to keep me in overnight, perhaps two, due to potential MS complications (fatigue probably, lol).

I’ve got some new pyjamas, two sizes up. I’ve ordered some low-carb snacks (always peckish when I’m lying around doing not very much), and I’m sorting through a stack of books to take with me.

There’s a pre-op assessment on Wednesday and I’m wondering how to ask if the surgeon (lovely man) could do a quick stomach lift at the same time. He might as well?

I’ve got ten days off work to recuperate, and I’ve lots of plans: read a whole bunch of study books, work out a timetable of research, catch up on paperwork. Unfortunately though, I’ve become addicted to ’90 Day Fiancé’ on TLC plus all the spin-offs so no doubt I’ll be watching that instead, but the intention is there.

Out of interest, I googled ‘Phyllis’, and in Greek legend a character of this name dies for love and is then transformed into an almond tree.

Spooky. I love almonds.

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Life, Interrupted, For a Little Bit

It’s not much fun when you’re trying to get around with your insides spilling out, and I don’t mean through blogging.

This hernia is dominating everything at the moment and because of it, life is on hold. For a little bit. Hopefully.

I’m still working (in a wonky, stomach-clutching way), still running the house (just about) and still catching up with paperwork (me and the hernia get up early in the morning, best time of the day).

To most people I must look like the oldest pregnant woman they’ve ever seen, the hernia now taking on the appearance of a six-month bulge and still growing. I turn 45 the week after next and it’s getting plain embarrassing, especially when I’m accompanied by the Man Mountain, aka the very tall and muscle-rippled Teenager.

My summer wardrobe consists of jeans I can now fit, due to my low-carb eating but teamed with  big flowing tops, so that I look like a very fat, very pregnant woman who wobbles when she walks and trips over a lot. And wears tents.

Yup, MS hasn’t moved aside, in fact, it’s intensified. With the hernia situated right in the centre of my body, the neuropathic pain has increased ten-fold. I walk into walls a lot more and basically pinball around my house.

And as for the pain, I’m on the strongest painkillers my Doctor can give me and I look back wistfully at the gas and air I had when I actually was pregnant and about to give birth, never mind the epidural. Now, that would be utter bliss.

So, we muddle along, the hernia and me, the hernia (Phyllis – we’ve known each other so long now, she just has to have a name) always going first. Of course.

And it’s ever so slightly icky. I never knew anything about hernias until Phyllis took up residence and when I read up about it (thank you, Dr. Google), I was horrified. So it’s a delicate subject to bring up, especially when people ask me what it is. Eww.

I’m not seeing a consultant until the last day of August, after two urgent GP letters and a deadly committed MS nurse fighting my case. It’s anyone’s guess when the actual operation will be.

The only way I’m getting through this month before the appointment is to imagine myself without my melon-belly; I’ll be reborn, and I’m half-tempted to ask them to tummy-tuck me at the same time, seeing as they’ve kept me waiting so long, the meanies.

Plus, I’ll need to be off work for a couple of weeks, which will give me ample time to embark upon some University reading. Result.

Or binge-watch Jeremy Kyle and Homes Under the Hammer.

Probable result.

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