Today’s blog is really about what happened to me in hospital. I think my story is relevant in that it supports what I feel about cancer. Each person has a very different adventure from diagnosis. Mine certainly started with a bang!

There is nothing good about waking up in ICU and when I say baby steps I literally mean baby steps. After my operation I literally had to learn to walk again. To be honest with you my memories here are very vague but I remember making it around the bed about day 5 with a walker and feeling very proud of myself. When I made it around the ICU station I remember the ICU nurses clapping and I thought “I’ll be OK”. Never has applause been so sweet!

OK so this next bit is a bit graphic but I figure if I’m going to be honest about my journey then you are going to get all the gory details. So what had happened is that the cancer had caused my bowel to split and had flooded my bloodstream with the contents. Essentially I was septic. Obviously it was an emergency operation and hospital staff told me later I was lucky to be alive. As they had to remove a lot of the bowel I was left with a stoma ( a bag) which is going to get it’s own blog or two much later on, as to me that was really embarrassing and I find difficult to talk about. I remember saying to the doctor at the time

” I can cope with cancer, but I can’t cope with a stoma”!

I was so stressed about telling people about the stoma that I found telling my family about the cancer much easier. Most people I know still have no idea I had a stoma for over 12 months, with most only finding out now if they read this.

So, how do you tell family and friends you have cancer and explain what is going on. I didn’t really know myself. I also was in the position of being single so this made it harder but easier in some ways and all of this happened 7 hours from home during Covid. That added some interesting elements to the situation I can tell you. I just told my family very pragmatically. To be honest for me it was good to be able to finally give them an explanation for what had happened.

In hindsight I can see that I was really sick but at the time I was more worried about my kids and work and letting people down. I genuinely thought I’d be back at work and back to normal life quickly. I messaged most people saying “I’m in hospital but it’s OK “. Three weeks later I was still sending the same message.

At the time I was alone but was actually too sick to be lonely. I was also very blessed to have my sister nearby so that was a godsend to be honest. I’m going to segue here and mention that she was travelling between two hospitals, me in one and my Uncle I mentioned earlier in another. She basically spent two weeks travelling, wearing masks and being constantly covid tested entering hospitals and being a solid support person which was tough on her in hindsight. My Uncle passed away while I was in hospital and I remember being too tired to cry.

I left hospital 3 weeks after I entered with the bonus of a stoma and a diagnosis of diabetes as well as a cancer diagnosis and oncology appointment. It was the day before my Uncle’s funeral.