Toilet paper manufacturers of Great Britain can relax. I won’t be dispensing with their services just yet. In fact, the way things are right now, I might even consider buying shares. It was two weeks ago today that the knife went in and I’ve been home from hospital a week. The staples are out – if I thought I had a long line of piercings last time, they were even more impressive this time around.
It sounds like they had a good guddle around while they were in there. It turns out that CT scans aren’t hugely reliable – I had been warned about that beforehand – and so, although they found the lump that had showed up on the scan, they also found all sorts of other undesirable stuff. They had gone in, this intrepid duo, with the intention of clearing out 100% of whatever they found, whatever it took. I’d been warned. In the event, they found lots of tiny spots of ovarian “disease” (sounds so much more manageable than cancer, doesn’t it?) all over the peritoneum and what was left of the omentum. This was very typical of ovarian disease, they reassured me. Did I find that reassuring? Take a guess. They took out as much as they could, around 95% they estimated, and figured the chemo would nail the rest. I spent some time trying to identify the good news in all that but without much success.
The one bit to cheer me though was Continue reading
“Stoma” he said. “We have to talk about stoma.” Stoma? Isn’t that a little hole on a leaf for plant respiration? I’m sure I picked that up during a botany class. The only problem is that this was the gynaecologist talking, the one who’s about to cut me open to remove whatever has taken root on my pelvis. Oh dear. I knew, when I was first told that there was a chance the cancer had relapsed, that they had taken out everything disposable four years ago. There’s not a lot left in there that I don’t need. I suppose I could spare a kidney at a push and maybe the appendix could go. Other than that, I’d like to hang on to all my bits, thank you very much.