Audrey’s Blog on living well with disability and breast cancer

Two weeks post op now and I’m hoping I’m reasonably alert enough to write. In the last few days I’ve finally moved from intensive care, then high dependency and eventually to a ward more focussed on rehabilitation. Each stage has brought a different experience. But the ITU was most impactful.  I’ve recovered from surgery before when I’ve felt befuddled, sore, sick, glad it’s over; that very strange and messy mix of pain and relief with a little WTF added in!  This experience was very different. On a ventilator, unable to speak, recognising people but communication impossible and a world of bleeps and alarms starts to create a context of noise, lights, tension but even so does not describe the fear i felt.  The drug cocktail during and post the op stimulated my brain and I was aware of trying to make sense of my environment. But this particular potpourri stimulates a strange interconnection of stories. The most reassuring part of the time there was seeing family who

So,I’ve had my hair done ( just wash and blow dry-nothing major) before my op tomorrow. Does that make me crazy? Maybe don’t answer that. But it makes me feel better and I’m grabbing anything that does just now. My bags are packed, new toothbrush bought, PJs are shiny clean. Everything but the sunscreen. It does feels a bit like preparing for your holidays; trying to fit everything in before the out of office goes on but with the obvious difference. Suddenly airport security seems appealing.  I’ve had so many good wishes and I can see the challenge as people try to find the right words. I’ve developed a "once I’m back on my feet" message that helps me close down an exchange. But each time I feel a shiver of anticipation and fear. A tempting of a fate that is so far out of my control that I feel nauseous when I let myself go there.  It’s with irony I feel grateful to the pain that has worsened since stopping one of the painkillers at the surgeons recommendations. It h

So the countdown to my op begins. Pre ops done, consented, angiogram done, right thoracotomy agreed and then the removal of the bone and the disc. So I taking big deep breaths and diving in. I’m trying to think of things I will need and how much I can prepare them in advance. I’ve even bought a reusable cup and I’m organising earl grey tea bags. Maybe the bit i hadn’t quite imagined was having to stop one of my pain killers. Again I planned in advance and spoke to the GP, we had a plan and a back up. Now on my optimistic days I think, this is nature’s way of reminding why I am right to have the operation. On my bad days I’m less eloquent. In fact Andrew suggests i may want to pre warn the surgeons ( yes there are two!) of the richness of my language when the nerve pain kicks in. So I’ve been trying every diversion technique know; from knitting ( yes really), to audiobooks, to meditation to singing my way upstairs ( especially painful just now). Climb every mountain was the obvious o