Operation - too much information for some

Tuesday, 23 April 2013 – St George’s Day and operation day

Elodie from the Taxi firm arrived at 10.30am prompt and we set off for St Brieuc.   A grey day but not actually raining.   We talked about weight and my gastric bypass etc. for most of the journey.  She weighs 114 kilos and isn’t very tall so is thinking about a bypass.  She was very pleasant and made a welcome change from the boss who, although very nice, talks in a non-stop piercing way.  She waited with me in Admissions at Clinique du Littoral and carried my main holdall to Room

which is to be my home for the next two days.   I carried my laptop case with extra goodies.   I hope it will be her who comes to take me back home on Thursday.  I gave Matthew a quick ring to let him know my room number, but I don’t think he knows the ‘phone number here so it won’t help much.

A nurse came in, confirmed my details and asked for a urine sample.  I’d just finished unpacking when another nurse arrived with a computerised weighing machine.  She checked that I had showered in the Betadine preparation, not eaten or drunk since 07.30hrs, had no false teeth, that I wasn’t sporting any make up or jewellery and told me that I would go down to the operating block at 13.30hrs.  I have to change into my gown, fetching paper hat and knickers and my black support stockings, these latter items from my last visit here in November last year, in time for the porters to take me down.   

I’ve brought in a tarte amandine to have as a treat tomorrow and a bar of Lindt chocolate with salty caramel. 

A bottle of Lucozade is also stashed in my bedside cabinet.  This is what my mother used to give me when I was poorly as a child.   I loved the foil caps they had on the bottles in those days and I’d while away time carefully rubbing out with the tips of my fingers the heavily creased circle of golden foil until it was almost completely smooth.  They make an orange flavoured Lucozade now but I like the original version.

As I woke up early this morning without the aid of the alarm, I did manage to have two scrambled eggs on buttered toast and a cup of coffee before 07.30hrs and I’m glad I did as I am already feeling hungry again.   

I was surprised by the porters arriving at 12.55hrs expecting me to be ready.  I had to change quickly and struggle into the tight black stockings supposed to prevent blood clots.  They wheeled me along the corridors and down in the lifts to the operating block, where I waited for forty-five minutes before being taken into the operating theatre.   They hadn’t received urine results which worried them and I hadn’t thought of using my Ventolin inhaler as my asthma is so good nowadays.  It was cold in the theatre and one of the nurses fetched a light plastic inflatable heated sheet which she draped over me. For a while I worried that I might be put on hold while a urine test was done and while they fetched my Ventolin, but they carried on inserting the drip into my left wrist and giving me the anaesthetic while I breathed into an oxygen mask.  At the interview with the anaesthetist last week he had explained that they didn’t always completely sedate patients.  I left him in no doubt that I wanted to be completely out of it and to remember nothing.  He agreed and obviously did his job as I am oblivious to what went on in that room from 14.15hrs onwards.  What they actually did was to install a TVT - tension free vaginal tape to cure my stress incontinence resulting from three difficult births.

The TVT operation works by supporting the middle of the urethra with a tape. The tape is made of Prolene and has a long needle at either end. A 3cm incision is made in the vagina underneath the urethra and two 1cm incisions are made at the bottom of the abdomen beneath the pubic hair line. The needles are passed upwards from the vagina so that the tape comes to lie underneath the urethra.

A telescope is inserted through the urethra into the bladder to make sure that there is no bladder injury. The tape is then placed in the correct position and the needles are removed. Dissolving stitches are placed in the incisions. If an overnight stay is planned, then a catheter is often put in the bladder.

Diagram showing the tape in position.

Unusually, I can’t remember any time spent in Recovery at all, just being wheeled back to my room again, where a nurse came in and set up my saline and antibiotic drips.  She also set up morphine and an anti emetic as morphine makes me nauseous.   I remember briefly ‘phoning Matthew to let him know I had survived the operation and I contacted Flick too.  Later, during the night, paracetamol replaced the morphine  on the dripstand.   Dr Braguet, my surgeon, came in to see me during the early evening, examined my abdomen and reported that everything had gone well.

Sleeping did not seem to be an option.  It’s a very noisy hospital, no sound absorbing materials, so the slightest noise echoes and becomes magnified.  I thought often of my friend, Sheila, who was also in hospital today have a reconstruction after breast cancer surgery last year.  I used my earplugs which are usually efficient but they didn’t give me the quiet I wanted and I couldn’t do more than doze a few minutes at a time.  It seemed that whenever I did nod off that the night nurse would arrive to take my blood pressure and examine my dressings.   Movement was difficult as each time I moved a muscle I could feel pulling in my lower abdomen which was painful enough to gasp.  It appears that the operation was not able to be done entirely vaginally, but that two incisions were also made externally to aid the insertion of the hammock.  My vagina has been packed with gauze which will be removed today at the same time as my catheter is taken away – not something I am looking forward to.  Apparently I am peeing well and they are happy with the quantity and quality of my urine. 

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

I was put into a semi-seated position in my bed for breakfast - hot chocolate, a 20cm piece of baguette, butter and peach jam.  The nurse reminded me to take my normal medication which I had completely overlooked.   Funny how here they trust you with your own medicines whereas in the hospital, Yves le Foll, you have to hand over responsibility to the nurses.  The drugs must be in the packets in which they came from the Pharmacy, which is always annoying as I decant them into pill taking boxes as soon as I get them home.   During my breakfast a different nurse came in to remove my drip, so I am now less restricted in my movements.

My room must face west as I came back from theatre to blazing sunshine late yesterday afternoon and the staff opened the bottom section of the window as it was so hot in here.  The bed has a pale yellow pillowcase and sheet with a rainbow striped type of duvet/bedspread all in one.

I ‘phoned Libby to tell her I was alive – I guess she was on her way to work as she was walking and sounded breathless. 

While I was watching a DVD on my laptop, My Left Foot, a white cat came across the flat roof I look over and peered in through the window – wherever I am it seems I will always be with cats.  If I can get a nurse to find my camera in my laptop case I’ll take a photo as it’s now another metres above my room in the sun on what I assume is a ventilation system.   

Look how far its back leg is from the front legs - you can just see it in the bottom left of the photo. It’s a really large white/grey cat – really large. 

At 10.20hrs two new nurses came in to remove my vaginal packing and catheter.  It was not a pleasant experience.  The length of the packing seemed to be equivalent to the Bayeux tapestry, or like the endless silk squares a magician pulls out of a closed fist but not as smooth.   While cleaning me up they craftily removed the catheter without prior warning – probably just as well.  That done, one washed my back and the other fetched my own nightie to put on once I had negotiated my way to the bathroom and washed the remaining bits of me.  I emerged to a newly made clean sheeted bed and my next visitors were two cleaners who did a thorough job of cleaning my room and bathroom.  Amazingly they were French and not immigrants.  One of them brought me the camera from my bag and I took several photos of the huge white cat.  Truly I have never seen such a huge cat – it’s as if he – for it must be tomcat – has taken some body altering drug.  The tips of his feet while he is lying down are so far away from his head and his head is enormous.   He has now moved out of view and I have lost my feline entertainment.  I suppose I will now spend a good part of my day scanning the rooftops for him in vain.

It’s a lovely sunny day without the wind of yesterday – doux the cleaner called it – soft or sweet – a good description.  It’s the sort of day when I could be digging, weeding, planting and sowing.  From the discomfort I’m in I can’t imagine doing any of those things for a good few days – so frustrating when the weather is finally improving.  Just a few, very few, small white fluffy clouds against the blue, moving it seems from the south west very slowly in the light breeze.

I finished watching My Left Foot just as I could hear the lunch trolley advancing down the corridor to my room.  It was a good film and I enjoyed it while I ate my almandine tart which I bought in Bourbriac and brought to the Clinique with me.  I enjoyed the tart too – there’s something about the succulence of almonds in a mixture which is mouthwatering.

Lunch arrived just after midday and consisted of a tomato salad with mustardy vinaigrette and a little mozzarella followed by ham (very salty and inedible) in a sauce Madère  with creamy mashed potato.  I ate the sauce and potato. 

There was also a mild cheese with a bright orange rind, St Paulin, a slice of baguette and a pat of butter.  Then to finish off, a banana and a small cup of black coffee.  I ate everything but the ham and some of the potato – I was surprisingly hungry.

I have been reading a very lightweight book by Jack Sheffield, Mister Teacher, his second book after Teacher Teacher, a little along the lines of Gervaise Phinn who wrote about his experiences as an

 inspector of schools but not quite so amusing.   It’s quite suitably undemanding for my current circumstances.

I ‘phoned Paul before lunch to ask about Sheila.  She had her operation quite late in the day in the end and was too drowsy still to go home last night so she spent the night at St Michael’s.  Paul will fetch her home later this afternoon and he said he’d pass my love onto her.

It’s 14.00hrs and feels like 23.00hrs – a very long day.  Blood pressure taken again and it’s fine.  Nurse told me I had to have a pee and drink at least three jugs of water each day.  I said that I did drink a lot at home as the water was fresh, cold and iced, whereas in hospital it was warm.  She shrugged and repeated – three jugs a day and left me a bedpan on the loo seat so that they can monitor my output.

17.30hrs and it’s been such a sunny day that I’m really fed up I’ve had to be here in the Clinique.  I opened the windows fully and sat in the reclining chair with my feet on a stool letting the sun get to me, but it’s no substitute for lying on a sunbed in the garden wearing a sarong or swimmer with an iced drink on the little table beside me.  I can’t believe that the weather’s so beautiful and I’m stuck in here.  I filled the bedpan and the nurse was happy and asked me to continue doing that until tomorrow.  I finished my book and read the first few pages of my next Book Club book, The Seamstress by Maria Duenas, which unbelievably has 612 pages! 

It seems to be a very history based novel and that’s not usually my cup of tea, so we shall see.  I may resort to my Kindle store of novels if I get too fed up with it.

The weather changed towards 18.00hrs and it became grey and misty.  The woman who brought in my supper tray kindly closed the windows for me.  Supper was awful.  Dishwater soup, the menu just said potage so no way of knowing what it was supposed to be.  This was followed by something called Cordon Bleu.  It did have the melted cheese and ham but what they were wrapped in under the soggy breadcrumbs it was impossible to tell.  The slice of baguette and wrapped portion of butter were fine and the rice pudding was edible and tasted strongly of vanilla.

While I was trying to get the soup down, Dr Braguet came in to enquire how I was.  She looked at my external wounds and pressed on my lower abdomen, enquired about my peeing ability and said that if all was well tomorrow I could go home at around 11.00am.  She said that an appointment would be made for me to see her in two months and that I wasn’t to bath for three weeks because of the possibility of prematurely dissolving the stitches – showers are fine.  The soreness will disappear gradually but I am not to do anything strenuous for a few weeks and no heavy lifting or straining  for six weeks or more.   The nurse will be in later to scan my bladder with ultrasound to check that it is emptying satisfactorily.

Matthew ‘phoned me on my mobile – I hadn’t realised I’d left it on – good to hear from him.

No more sightings of the cat and strangely, being at rooftop level, very few birds.  I seem to remember seeing a few flying about in the sunshine but very few and I certainly didn’t hear any singing.

I spoke briefly to Libby and said I’d ‘phone when I got home tomorrow.  Then I tried ‘phoning Flick and Andy to see if there was any baby news yet but didn’t get a reply. 

A new night nurse came in at 21.10hrs and said if I peed now then she’d fetch the machine to do the ultrasound to see if my bladder was emptying completely.  I complied and she did the scan.  Absolutely empty was the verdict – so that’s really good news.  There seems to be no reason why I shouldn’t leave the hospital around 11.00hrs tomorrow.  I passed the time until I decided to turn off the light listening to the first of three disks of Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down.

Thursday, 25 April 2013 

Well it was a better night than last night but still appalling.  I wonder how many times I looked at my watch – far too many that’s for sure.  At 06.00hrs someone checked on my overnight peeing, then another nurse with to take my temperature – 36.5°C as normal – how is my temperature always slightly below the norm when I am always so warm?  Then blood pressure taken but I can’t remember hearing the result.  I reminded them that I am leaving at 11.00am today and need the taxi company to be booked and that their card is stapled to the front of my file. 

Another cat came to visit me this morning, sitting for several minutes outside my window looking in.  It was also large, partly due to being long-haired, but not as big as yesterday’s white one. 

 Hazy outside at the moment, 08.00hrs but the sun is already licking another part of the hospital to the side of my window and I think it will be a hot day - it reminds me of holidays abroad when during breakfast the warmth of the sun makes itself felt and you just know it will be gorgeously sunny all day.

The new day shift nurse popped in to say Bonjour and asked if I was in pain.  I said only a little bit when I moved.  She said she’d get some painkillers and I said that it wasn’t necessary.  She insisted saying that if I didn’t take them the pain would be worse so I gave in.   I forgot to ask for soluble medication – I can’t take the plastic capsules because of poor absorption since my bypass – she had to return with the right ones.   They are vile tasting and don’t dissolve completely, even being stirred so there are unpleasant bits floating in the solution.

I packed a few things into my holdall and brushed the breakfast crumbs from my baguette off my sheets before settling down onto the bed again to listen to the second disk of Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down.  When this disk finished I cleaned my teeth, washed, dressed, brushed my hair and put it up into a slide.  Then I packed almost everything away into my holdall and laptop bag.  The nurse came back in and gave me a follow up appointment for 27 June with Dr Braguet and returned my blood group card and a paper detailing the implant they’ve put in which I have to keep safe.  She didn’t know whether my exterior stitches had to be removed or whether they would dissolve so went off to telephone Dr Braguet. 

At 11.10hrs she came back saying the stitches didn’t have to be removed but that Dr Braguet had asked that she do another bladder scan.  I went to pee again and lay on the bed waiting for her to arrive with the scanner.  The scanning gel wouldn’t squeeze out of the wide container so the nurse removed the top and shook it.  A whole load suddenly plopped out onto my abdomen – we both laughed.  She scanned my bladder and announced “zero” – no urine remained in my bladder – good news.  She packed up her trolley and went off to ‘phone for the taxi.  I settled down to listen to the last three tracks of the third and last disk of A Long Way Down.   The taxi arrived later than hoped as the message hadn’t been listened to when it arrived.  We were still in time though to stop at the Gourmet Wok Chinese restaurant just off the roundabout in St Brieuc to get a takeaway for lunch.

It’s good to be home – there’s no place like it!

Three things I like:

1.       Walking back through my own front door.

2.       Feeling the cats rub against my legs.

3.       Sleeping in my own bed.

A birthday week back in Cornwall birthday

I spent a good week back in Cornwall celebrating my birthday, seeing the dentist, hygienist, chiropodist and optician.  Lots of meals out and in with family and with friends and a lovely afternoon at the Eden Project with Libby, Matthew and Charlie.  Here are Matthew and Charlie dressed up ready for the velcro wall which Matthew had to throw Charlie at to see how high up he could "stick" him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty exhausting for Matthew - taking a well earned sit down for a moment here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a 50 metre high walkway in the tropical dome.  Matthew and Charlie completed the climb to the top - I hate heights so couldn't have considered doing it.

 

I love this this driftwood horse at the entrance to Eden - so clever.

 

 

This was the ferry I took back to Brittany, L'Amorique.  I nearly couldn't go as I had a diesel leak on the Discovery and it was only thanks to a mechanic friend of Matthew's that I was able to get it sorted for my return trip.  It turned out to be a hole in the fuel filter and I was losing a serious amount of fuel from it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the Discovery waiting while Dave fetched a new fuel filter.

 

These were some of my birthday tulips.  I had lunch and dinner out with friends and family.  A lovely day - thanks to all involved - and the sun shone too - what more could I ask.

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   Seeing so many friends and family back in Cornwall.

2.   Shopping in English shops with a different choice of goodies.

3.   Coming back home to my newly decorated house after the fire - thanks Andy.

Septic tanks, stray goat and dreadful weather

Easter Sunday fell last weekend and my daughter bought a mould for Easter eggs and made my grandson's egg herself this year.  Here he is enjoying it.

Yesterday Le Vidangeur Breton arrived to empty my fosse – septic tank.  The huge red vehicle he came in wouldn’t fit to go round the corner into my garden by the conventional route, so he finally agreed to go down the – strangely smaller but easier to negotiate – far drive to the other end of the garden.

He was a little surprised when lifting the lid to find that the aromatic contents were only inches from the top – it had been seven years all but three months since it was installed and this was the first emptying.  He suggested that next time should be in five years and I have noted it in the part of this year’s diary which gets transferred to the following year.  He was lucky that some English neighbours with a holiday home here were in residence and they collared him to have their fosse emptied at the same time, so a profitable morning for him.  He was a charming, young chap and I would recommend him.

The weather continues to be very cold.  Yesterday I awoke to a white world which disappeared fairly quickly once the rain washed the snow away.  This morning it is making a pathetic attempt at snowing but not getting very far with the business of settling as it’s so wet underfoot.

On Tuesday morning when I went to the field to do the animals a goat stuck his head in the feed bucket.  This may not seem unusual but my goats do not like to come near me and this one was very friendly.  I suddenly realised that he was not Basil.  Basil has only one horn after too much head butting with a ram a couple of years ago and this intruder had two large horns.  Photo quality not good I'm afraid.

Within moments he was not only in the barn but in Betsy.  Now, I had Basil neutered, partly to stop the smell of an entire goat which is something that has to be experienced to be believed, but also to stop more kids arriving.  I am not happy that now there is every chance that Betsy is pregnant and would be due to kid at the very end of August.  I called the local farmer who has 7 or 8 goats but it was not one of his.  He told me to call the vet.  I did, but the vet can apparently do nothing if the goat doesn’t have ear tags and this one doesn’t.  The vet told me to call the Mairie – town hall – so I did.  They said they would send someone round.  The someone they sent was the other farmer in my hamlet who couldn’t identify the goat and assumed, as I had, that someone who had a goat they didn’t want drove past, saw mine and thought – ah they like goats I’ll pop mine over the fence.  The perimeter fence is secure and too high for a goat to climb over without human help.  So I am, for the moment, stuck with this goat which is a real pain.  It has also affected the hens who tend to be in the barn in this awful weather.  Hens hate change of any sort and this extra goat has, unfortunately, diminished the egg laying from the hens who use the barn.

I succumbed to some plants for the garden yesterday while in the supermarket - two osteospermum.  They are very small at the moment but will soon take off when they are planted and the good weather arrives.

These plants used to be called dimorpotheca and I sometimes still forget the change of name.  I had a health visitor years ago who used to call them osteomyelitis and when the name change came she referred to them as dihydrostreptomycin - mad eh?  I really like any daisy-shaped flower and have missed having these in my garden here.

I also bought an entrecote steak - I cut it in half and saved half for tomorrow.  I cooked it rare and had it with chips, mushrooms and salad.  I rarely cook chips at home and really enjoyed my lunch today.

My worker has just been round and loaded me up with logs for the woodburner to take me through the weekend.   It looks as if I have almost a whole tree ready here - but at least I definitely won't be cold.

Three things I like:

1.   Being warm in my house when it's such horrible weather outside.
2.   Hearing from an old friend who I hadn't been in touch with for ages.
3.   Sitting down with a box of chocolate cherry liqueurs.     

Fire in the kitchen, poorly cat and clocks going forward

It snowed all Friday but it was so wet on the ground that nothing settled thank goodness.  It's been very cold at night and frost in the morning but during the day quite pleasant.  In fact today, Easter Sunday, has been really sunny and lovely. 

I had trouble with Claude, my white kitten yesterday morning. When I came downstairs first thing in the morning he was very lethargic with tongue protruding, dribbling, not moving etc.  I took him to the vet and on the way he perked up and started clawing madly to get out of the basket and crying loudly. I turned round and came back home and kept an eye on him. He was hot and very quiet again when we got home, wouldn’t be touched and no purring, wouldn’t eat.  By the evening, he was back to normal and ate for the first time. He was playing with red shield bugs on Friday, which had come in on the logs, and I think he may have eaten one or two. My friend, Mandy, says her cat was salivating badly after eating one, so maybe they are slightly poisonous. Anyway, all’s well that ends well.  The photo is of him at 11.00am, not very well at all.

Then, this afternoon I had a fire in the kitchen – my own fault. I put a frying pan with oil on the hob and then heard my neighbour and I needed to speak to her about something. I went out and she wandered down the garden with me, didn’t think a thing about the pan. Came back in to thick black smoke and then the smoke alarm started – a bit late for that – flames licking the cupboards each side of the hob and had melted the extractor fan onto the hob surface and the fluorescent lights above! 

Managed to damp a couple of t-towels and put them over the flames and carry pan out to the garden still alight but no problem. All the cobwebs in the downstairs, up the stairs and on the landing are standing out with carbon black on them. The ceiling will need repainting - it was only done last year - and lots of cleaning up to do and electric stuff to replace - but it could have been a lot worse.  I dread to think what it would have been like if I had been a few minutes longer. Took me a while to stop choking from the smoke and I used up a lot of Ventolin!   Luckily the cats had followed me out into the garden so they weren't in the building.  Today my worker came round and cleaned up as best he could, removed the remains of the melted extractor fan and replaced the fluorescent tubes so I can see when I cook.  We'll have to take out all the grout and replace it which is a pain in the butt - let's hope there are not too many of these senior moments!

Here is Claude today - I had told him to go out as he'd pissed on the floor.  He's thinking that he is hiding really well under the tassles of the throw and that I can't see him.  A bit like when a child covers their eyes with their hands because if they can't see you surely you can't see them.

The clocks went forward to European Summertime at 02.00hrs this morning.  Although you wouldn't have thought we were entering summertime with the ice on the fish barrel on the terrace.  Every clock in the house has been adjusted except for the temporary cooker I have in my kitchen and I'm damned if I can work out how to change it and I can't find the manual.  I shall just have to put up with being an hour slow in the culinary department.

I'm just hoping that the third thing which should happen, whatever that is, doesn't.

Friends turned up unexpectedly this afternoon to check I was surviving after my fire which was kind of them and it's always good to catch up with news etc.  

I had a scintigraphie this week - a radio active isotope scan - on my parathyroid glands.  I had one right one removed with its tumour in June 2011 and apparently I am to be symmetrical again and need to have a left one removed with its tumour sometime.  There's no rush and it's highly unlikely that it is malignant just because they aren't usually, so no real worry.

Let's hope after this week, which is forecast to be cold, it will start to be more like summer so I can get my veggies started.  Roll on wall to wall sunshine.  I want to be able to complain that we aren't having enough rain!

Three things I like:

1.   The little chocolate cakes I made yesterday - first baking I've done for ages.

2.   The Jacquie Lawson Easter cards I've received - I love her cards .

3.   The lighter evenings we are having from today onwards.