4^th June

Managed to get 7 ½ hours sleep last night, although I woke briefly two or three times around four to five. I had some water as I was very dry. I am much more wide awake today than I was yesterday. Just as well, as I’m going to have to be much more active. I had a painkiller both last night before I went to sleep and on awaking at 6.30 a.m. As I will be walking to the bathroom, I need to be comfortable.

Typically, the weather has changed from cold last weekend (heating on, on 31^st May) to blazing hot. My feet with support stockings on, are very warm.

Procedure 1 today, my catheter has been clamped. This stays clamped for four hours and is then released if no water has been passed. Today, I got involved in a bit of work politics, when the nurse told me to keep trying and the orderly told me (correctly) that the clamp should be released. She, the latter told me that because she is an orderly, they think she knows nothing. The Physio has also visited and showed me the exercises I should be doing. I’ve had several phone calls – from the ProdD last night and the Son&H this morning. Because he is in Cornwall with the family, I spoke to the girls too. My phone ran out of money, but I have a landline too.

I sat up till about 1.00 am in the chair – for a while I felt quite frisky. Then suddenly, I felt tired and achey. I had some painkillers and went back to bed. Now I’m going to have a little sleep.

* * * * * *

Having dosed for about an hour, I felt much better when Irene arrived visit and we had a good chat for a couple of hours. I’ve just had the second injection in my stomach. Yesterday’s one has left a bruise the size of an old penny. The surgeon has also visited today and was please with me.

The OM came to have a meal with me at the hospital and has just gone home. I switched on the TV and have found a performance of Aida. The staging is horrible – it’s all modern dress – presumably done specially for Chanel 4. I have to remember to ask Irene if she knows about it. I know she has strong feelings about avant guarde productions.

Hysterectomy Diary - the day after

3^rd June 2010

I finally had my op at about 5.00. It felt like a long wait. But the anaesthetic was very quick and I was out in seconds. The anaesthetist told me he would give me a spinal painkilling injection, but that happened when I was unaware of it. At the back of my mind, I remembered thinking that I was very much against the idea of spinal injections in childbirth. There were some horror stories around for a while. But as I lay on the table, I was quite philosophical about whatever was to take place.

Some time around 6.30 p.m., I was back in my room – to be honest it’s vague, because I slept on and off then for the next 24 hours. I had painkillers at about six and ten o’clock, but after that, not till the morning, and I was a bit uncomfortable during the night. Not a dramatic pain, but a dull ache like a period, or the early stage of labour. Added to that was the fact that I was checked half hourly for blood pressure. So in the morning, I was as tired as if I hadn’t slept – and carried on sleeping in between bed bath, breakfast, lunch and a three hour visit from the OH. I managed to listen to The Archers at 7.05, then slept till 8.30 and woke up for the first time, no longer feeling tired. In fact, now at 10.45 p.m. I’m wide awake.

I’m drinking lots of water and my saline drip was removed, mid-morning, though I still have the attachment, stuck into the back of my hand. In a few days, I will have the catheter, presently stuck through a hole in my stomach, removed, after some test runs to see if I can manage on my own. Not much bleeding either, I’m glad to say.

I haven’t any appetite, and because I had an upset stomach a few days before the op, I’m not forcing anything down. My throat was sore too, and it was difficult swallowing, so I asked for soluble pain killers. One nurse couldn’t find any, but broke my tablet into four, which made it easier.

I have long socks on – the ones to prevent clots – and these are a bit warm, as, wouldn’t you know it, the weather has changed from cold to sunny and warm. I also had an injection into my tum tonight, for the same reason – to prevent clots forming.

Talking of which, the OM took our old Dyson to our local recycling centre, today. He put his old bike on board, so that he could park somewhere free and cycle to the hospital. (He arrived panting, having pushed the bike up the steep hill to the entrance.) At the junk yard, he unloaded it in order to get to the bits of Dyson. Before he knew it, the cycle was being removed and he had to rush after the man who’d taken it for trash, and retrieve it. He just managed to save it from being recycled.

Now 11.00 p.m. and I think it’s time for lights out. The curtains are very light, but fortunately, I have my flight mask.

The unkindest cut?

Now that I'm back home, gradually recovering, I thought I would give details of my operation. Please don't read any further if this is of no interest to you.

My Hysterectomy Diary

2^nd June 2010

Arrived at the hospital at midday. Once I am shown into the room, no-one comes back. So Michael goes home, leaving me to await instructions. We only put 70p in the parking meter (half an hour), so Michael has to go. Whilst I don’t really want him to hover around, I would like a nurse to appear and tell me what I am supposed to be doing. For the first time this year it is warm and I am not dressed for it. Yesterday, we had the heating on at home and today my short sleeved jumper is too warm.

I am in a private room at a private hospital, but I don’t know which cupboards are for my use and which for the nurses. I am despondent to find I cannot get ITV3 on the TV, so no Morse to watch.

My overriding feeling is that I am entering hospital relatively fit and I shall be transformed into someone who is weak and unfit.

I’m in a bit of a limbo – waiting for something to happen.

2.30 p.m. I have seen the surgeon, the anaesthetist and the nurse in charge of me. I am hungry now (having fasted since 7.30 a.m.) and the operation won’t take place for another hour. I am going to have an injection in the spine for pain relief. After that I shall be pretty woozy. They will check blood pressure every half hour, including through the night.

The Old Man's disasters - now and then

I’ve taken photos of our magnificent rhododendrons today, but they’re still in the camera. I may add them later. As some are now fading, even though others have unopened buds, I think they’re as good as they’re going to get. Of course, this being spring, it has been cold and wet today. Forecast is better for later in the week. I wonder if there's a garden at the hospital.

The week has been full. Tuesday, of course, was Guildford Writers. I had an idea to start a children's book with with some of the OM's exploits narrated. I will not necessarily include the time he lost the top of his finger at Boy Scouts' camp, or the day he got impaled on the railings at the railway in Wellington.

We had lunch out in Clandon, with friends on Wednesday last, and a trip to three garden centres the next day. We were going to get hanging baskets, but ended up buying a vacuum cleaner and a toaster. As one does. The old Dyson started making horrible noises, and in addition I cracked one of the plastic parts, which was too expensive to replace – bearing in mind it had reached the end of its natural life. We also got about a dozen New Guinea Busy Lizzies which replace the bulbs in our front bed.

During the weekend, we had the ProdigalD and OH here with GD2 and our new baby, GD4. She is getting to know us a little, now.

We went out for a long walk on Sunday afternoon, through our woods, then as I got weary and wanted to go home, we split up with the others, the OM, leading me and GD4 home - ostensibly – while the ProdigalD and spouse, and baby attached by harness, went off on the longer route. Something went wrong with OM’s mental compass, and we ended up with a three bar fence on one side, surrounded by stinging nettles, a barbed wire on the other, and a bog in the middle. We girls were convinced he had gone the wrong way, and eventually, we walked back through the stinging nettles and around the bog, and found the right way home – not long before the others returned.

Last night, with the family gone, I prepared a double sized meal – one for the freezer and one for tonight. I am hoping that M & I will cope somehow without too much help, but both the ProdigalD and the DIL have volunteered to come for a couple of days if needed. We will have extra help with cleaning and my cleaning lady is prepared to do extra hours on ironing and preparing veg, etc. I hope to report back, as soon as I can get back on the computer.

Last night, we watched the Dr Robert Winston personality test on BBC1, and M was undoubtedly shown to be an extrovert with minimal conscientiousness – a sure-fire recipe for accidents (e.g. his hand, recently and the other events, not so recently.) I on the other hand, am probably over-conscientious, and therefore much slower than he is, neurotic and introvert. As I prepare for my last catch up day at home, M will be buzzing off to the hospital to be discharged. Then, his fate will be to replace me as chief cook and bottle washer for the next six weeks.

Thanks to all my friends for good wishes and messages of support. I hope I will be able to back with you soon.

Naughty but nice

A week tomorrow I’ll be going in, and in the meantime, I had a busy weekend preparing for a visit from my sister-in-law, spouse and some others. I realise that some people take cooking in their stride, but for me, it’s a day’s effort. For those of you who like to know about food, we had a befores of smoked salmon and a little salad – the sort you buy washed from the supermarket. Well it was only there as a decoration. Followed by chicken cooked with mushrooms, peppers and mushrooms together with roast potatoes and other veg. My signature dessert – apple crumble, made with the apples from our tree, vintage 2008 (Last year was a bad year.) made its regular appearance. Incidentally, we don’t know how this year’s crop will turn out. The tree, a week or so back, was covered in blossom, but it was so cold, would any bees have ventured out? And of course, we all know that bees are vulnerable and many have been wiped out.

A very popular additional dessert was Pear Mechante Helene – I should patent this name. This the traditional pears in chocolate sauce recipe but with the added naughtiness of meringues underneath the pears. This went down very well. Alas, I have put on 2lb through eating up the leftovers since then.

We had tree surgeons in on Friday, reducing the size of our oak tree and cutting down some other neighbouring trees, so we now have much more light. This should benefit our rhododendrons, which lost a number of buds to the cold winter. Nevertheless, they are looking spectacular at the moment, smothered in vulgarly bright red and purple blossoms.

Over the hills and far away

It’s now countdown to my operation – about 16 days to go now - when I’ll be disappearing from here for a while – or until I’m comfortable typing. In the meantime, I saw the orthoptist just over a week ago, and she’s very satisfied with the result of the other operation – as I am too. If I’m fit enough, I will report back on how I’m feeling. It may be of use to other people who are having a hysterectomy.

This weekend we went to Cambridge to see the Son&H and his womenfolk; the two little ones are getting bigger and bigger and GD1 is now a very trendy (or perhaps I should say ‘cool’) 11 year old and looks down on me; she’s 5ft 4 – sorry I can’t translate that into metric.

We Goldenford girls went to Brighton on Wednesday last and did another presentation of our Sense and Sensitivity Workshop at the Brighton Fringe Festival. About a dozen people attended and we had lots of fun – and walked down to the sea front too, before we started. The journey was interesting to say the least, as I had to balance a tray of jelly on my lap, and tried to control it over the hills of the North and South Downs. Tomorrow I am giving a talk at the Guildford Writers’ Workshop, and of course, this will be my last presentation for a couple of months at least. However, you can still buy my books from Amazon, even if not from me in the flesh.

Talking of books, the reading circle met up last week, and we discussed Margaret Forster’s ‘Keeping the World Away’; some people described it as a gentle read; for me it had insufficient drama. At about the halfway point, I was finding it difficult to work up enthusiasm to continue, although I have to say that some of the heroines and some of the stories were more interesting than others. The book is not a straight novel. It uses the device of the painting by Gwen John to introduce new characters and move on to new stories. There are six heroines, and the link from chapter to chapter is tenuous. I had a similar device in my novella, A Bottle of Plonk, but I never regarded it as a true novel. Nevertheless, tt seems that more and more authors are using this sort of device now – that is – taking what are essentially short stories and weaving them together into a long book. This may be because we know that short stories sell less well than novels.

In the case of Notes from an Exhibition, the mother was the link between the chapters, which were frequently unrelated, though it was all sewn up fairly neatly at the end.

In Margaret Forster’s novel, to be fair, the heroines have quite substantial stories, so I can’t really label them as short stories. But at the end of one, there is nothing to propel you into a new narrative. I hope I did better with A Bottle of Plonk, simply by letting the previous heroine, or in a couple of cases, hero, to take you on into the next story.

There was also so much narrative, compared with the amount of dialogue, in ‘Keeping the World Away’, that mostly, I felt the story never came alive at all. In Creative Writing classes, etc, one is always being told, ‘Show, not tell.’ I tend to feel that one should listen to these rules, then break them. Nevertheless, in my opinion, a novel – or story – should have a mix of narrative and dialogue, with enough white space on the page to tempt you along. And on the whole, this to me didn’t have it.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Today, we’ve been on a walk around Wisley Gardens, Surrey, with a group of people, including Irene, and with Jennifer as our guide. At some time, you will no doubt be able to see photos which Irene has taken, on her site. But I, in the end, didn’t take my camera. It was a bitterly cold day for May, with a north east wind; fortunately I was dressed for February or March with coat, scarves, and gloves and after a while we took refuge in the huge greenhouse, with its range of cacti, succulents and tropical plants.

Yesterday was a similarly inclement May day. The OM and I having done nothing but sit and talk on Saturday, went for a walk in the afternoon, after a morning of more or less non-stop rain. I put on my coat, which had already been put to one side post winter, and didn’t find it too warm at all. M & I took a new route and found a footpath that we had not known about. It was rather narrow and prickly, but we made it to the end. Arriving back on the main road, though, we had no idea where we were. There was no sun to guide us, so we guessed, fortunately correctly. Unusually for us, we walked for over an hour. Near the end of the journey, I took a couple of photos of local young lambs, which I’d been meaning to do for several days.

Having walked on two days running, I hope to have lost a pound or so, to compensate for over-indulgence on Saturday, when we were at a 100^th birthday lunch – the mother of a local friend. Having abstained from naughty things for a week, I had a couple of profiteroles and a slice of cheesecake at the party – as well, of course, as a main course. We saw the Queen’s telegram to the party girl – who seemed in fine form, and who blew out the candles on her birthday cake, with the assistance of two great grandchildren.

As a complete non-sequitur, I loved this piece which appeared in the local church newsletter, although I can’t say I remember the relevance:

This is the transcript of a genuine radio conversation between a US naval ship and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in 1995:

Americans: Please divert your course 15 deg. north to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert your course 15 deg. south to avoid a collision.

A: This is the captain of the US navy ship. I say again, divert your course.

C: No, I say again divert your course.

A: This is the US carrier Lincoln, the 2nd largest ship in the US Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers, and numerous support vessels. I demand you change your course 15 deg. north or measures will be taken to ensure the safety of the ship.

C: We’re a lighthouse. Your call …