As I said before, I don’t remember much about being in Intensive Care, but I do remember the vivid dreams I had: Goblins running around the ward, peeking behind the curtains at me: a bus crash near where I live and intensive care readying itself for the patients (this was so vivid that I asked a nurse if it had happened!). I vaguely remember Phil visiting, when right in the middle of a sentence I would drift off to sleep and he would wait patiently until I woke up again to carry on the conversation.

After Intensive Care I was transferred to the High Dependency Unit. Here, there was one nurse between two patients, there was also several care assistants who helped with things like giving bed baths, moving you from side to side so you didn’t get bed sores, cleaning your teeth and making your bed.

I had developed a hacking cough after surgery and one particular time I coughed so hard it dislodged the feeding tube that was down my throat. I immediately knew it wasn’t good as I was choking, I couldn’t breathe. One of the nurses noticed I was in distress and came over but she thought I was just struggling to cough. I was pointing at my throat and by this time I was gagging as well. Two more nurses came over and one shone a torch down my throat and immediately saw what the problem was and they whipped the feeding tube out of my throat, I can’t tell what a relief that was, I literally thought I was going to die. Afterwards it reminded me of a scene from Airplane…

After spending a day in this ward the nurses told me I was going to get up and walk, I panicked a little bit, not feeling ready to do this, but later on that day I managed a walk around the ward and sat back in the chair. Phil was very surprised to see me sat in the chair when he came to visit a little later.

I began to drink soup, have some ice cream and plenty of Fortisips, which are a protein milkshake. I started to take longer walks, with my trusty IV drip following me and sitting for longer periods in the chair. They took out a tube which was in my neck, removed the catheter and took out the cannulas, as they had put a PICC line in when I was in ICU. So, I was beginning to feel a little more human again.

I spent three days in MDU and suddenly one morning I was told I was moving to a general ward. I was pleased as this meant I was getting better, but also a little worried as I thought I wouldn’t get the care and attention I had been given over the last six days as the nurses there are sometimes very stretched.

There were six beds on my ward, I was lucky enough to have a bed by the window where I could see the entrance to the hospital and I needn’t have worried, the nurses were amazing, they looked after us all so well.

The doctors did their rounds each day and gave you an update on where you were at, mostly based on the blood tests you did each day. I was told I was doing well, that was until I did a re-enactment of The Exorcist and threw up everywhere.

I’d been sick in the past six days, but nothing like this. I felt queasy and asked for something to be sick in, well once I started, I couldn’t stop and it was going everywhere and it was fluorescent green! The Sister on the ward told me it was because I had a lot of liquid settling on my stomach and the only way to get rid of it was to insert the feeding tube back down my throat. Well, I wasn’t best pleased about that, but if it was the only way to stop it then I would have to do it.

Three nurses turned up and I was told to sip water through a straw whilst they put the tube up my nose. We managed it after a false start but I could feel it at the back of my throat and so I started gagging and being sick once again. They decided to take the tube out and because I had regurgitated so much liquid most of it had gone from my stomach, so they were happy to not try again, much to my relief. I was sick again, in the middle of the night, but I was in the toilet and didn’t tell anyone and I wasn’t sick again!

Another problem I had (like Phil said, there were inevitably going to be some setbacks) was going to the toilet. I felt like I needed to go all the time and when I did it was just a trickle. So the doctors decided that the stents I had fitted in my kidneys needed to come out. I was a bit worried about how they were going to do that and I was wheelchaired to Urology.

I was taken to a room where there were two doctors and a nurse and had to lay down with my legs apart, very dignified and one of the doctors inserted a long clamp watching via a monitor and the other one operated the clippers to take hold of the stent. They did this in a matter of seconds and then the other one just as quick. The stent was a long plastic tube and I have to say, I immediately felt so much better. I was taken back to the ward where everyone, including the nurses, were amazed at how quick it was.

Talking of the other patients: we all had various stomach problems, there were three other ladies who were there when I arrived, one left a week later, one left the same day as me and one remained there. We all got on very well and it made the days seem a bit more bearable. They are long days in hospital, only having blood tests, scans and meals to look forward to and of course, visiting hours.

I was very lucky in that I had lots of visitors, so a HUGE thank you to everyone who visited me, you don’t realise how much it meant to me. Phil, of course, came every day, I think there was only a couple of days he missed, bringing me my spare pyjamas, snacks and just conversation, even if it was just talking about his work, it was nice to talk about something different than my operation!

Apart from a couple of hiccups, my recovery was speedy and I was very pleased when I was told that I could go home. The lady in the bed opposite me was also being released the same day and she was especially happy because it meant she could go to her son’s wedding a couple of days later. I was lucky in that my son’s wedding wasn’t until October, so that gave me plenty of time to get fitter.

Before my operation I did a lot of walking, I was doing around 10,000 steps every day and was quite fit and the doctors said that because of this my recovery was a lot quicker, so that’s my main piece of advice, get fit before you have any kind of operation!

On my release date (it sounds like I was in prison!) the lady opposite put her phone on loudspeaker and she played a couple of tunes to celebrate us leaving. Of course, I requested Dancing Queen and the nurses were dancing and singing along as they made our beds, it was so nice to see them having fun.

I came home three weeks after my operation, with the intention of not returning to hospital, but unfortunately I contracted an infection in my stoma. I was told later by the doctor that the HIPIC surgery had caused this and so was in hospital for another week, in isolation, which I didn’t mind and so far, three months later, I haven’t returned.

We went to see the Oncology doctor about a month after the operation where I was told that the cancer had gone! There was no sign of it at all, even when they examined the ovaries after taking them out, there was no cancer on them.

I had an MRI scan yesterday and I am due to see the consultant in a couple of weeks time, so hopefully I will receive the same news from him and also news on when my stoma can be reversed. But until then, I’m taking one day at a time because you never know what’s around the corner.

I hope you have found these blog posts informative and helpful and I would like to say that when you receive the bowel screening test through the post from the NHS, please, please do it, it only takes five minutes and it could save your life – it saved mine!