I am aware that what I am going to recount, doesn't alas apply to a lot of patients. I wish it could!

I had my hysterectomy on Weds 12th April. I had been absolutely terrified, never having ever had a GA in my life until the brief one a few weeks earlier for my hysteroscopy. I was already in a bereavement situation - grieving the loss of my health as in 62 years I have never had any health conditions, never worn a hospital gown, never been further than the doors of A&E for dog bites when I was a kid. I have now actually quite quickly come to terms with this loss of my health - it is what it is and I have come across so many women younger than I am who have had worse health problems than this!

So the day before surgery, I found out that I had evidently misheard what the surgeon had told me at the Results meeting and it wasn't pre-cancer I had but actual cancer! (well, I was probably in shock even though I didn't realise it at the time) - my specialist nurse, Gail, said it's a Grade 2 which isn't too bad luckily and necessitated the whole lot removing but there's a chance in four weeks when everything's been tested, that I may not need radiotherapy. 

I was in first on Weds and apparently went in at 9.40am I was told. I was out at 10.20am!!!! I have four holes, one barely even a hole, the biggest is my tummy button which is now a lovely rainbow of yellow and orange!! and just a bit itchy so I'm slavering E45 cream on it which is helping. Tbh I am having more pain atm in my middle fingers of my right hand where Phoebe tugged the lead out of my hand yesterday and I am hoping I haven't sprained a finger!!

I was sitting on the edge of the bed at midday on Weds shovelling a large hot lunch down my throat as I was starving having fasted for 12 hours! The catering staff had nearly refused to let me order it in the morning! They said it would be a waste. I said, you don't know me when I'm hungry!!

They took the catheter out even before I woke up. I had asked the surgeon to do so if at all possible as I knew that having that in, would make me feel less inclined to be up and walking about, and I intended to be as active as possible as soon as possible.

I was walking to the loo by 2pm. I did have a lot of wind which 'grabbed' me on my right side and gave me a disturbed night when I only got about one hour's sleep but as I said, I didn't have to worry as I wasn't driving or going to work the next day!! I spent much of the Weds in between BPs and meals, walking up and down to the loo (about every hour whilst my bladder recovered itself) and along the corridor to read the notices, visit the garden when the sun was out, and to the nurses' station to inform them I was going to be in the loo for ten mins and they weren't to worry if they found my bed empty. When I had occasion to ring on Friday to ask something, the ward sister said, "oh, are you the lovely lady who was walking up and down in the pink dressing gown?"!!

Thursday, my friend next door had a full-on day and wouldn't be in until 5pm so I had decided to order 5pm hot meal so that I wouldn't have to cook when I got home, and then get a taxi straight after. (They had agreed I could go home alone by taxi as long as someone was in just a stone's throw away when I got home, even though Margaret couldn't spend the night with me as such.)

Since I got home, I have been walking a little way further each day...I tend to do my main dog walk in the morning, round the small block, and then the other wee-walks are just along the flat to the corner, or not even as far. Margaret walked the Girls for me the first morning and I then started taking them one by one the first day, but by yesterday was taking them both together. I am setting myself little goals: tomorrow I am walking to the Office to hand in a survey the managers put in our boxes on Friday, and my proof of insurance as requested by Park Rules. Tuesday I am going to walk five minutes further on from there and go to Fingle Glen for coffee. I actually expect at this rate to be driving short distances (10 mins up to work to visit my colleagues) by early/mid next week, and a couple of weeks later to Bude - an hour away. 

I haven't had any of this fatigue I kept reading about. Almost no pain - it wasn't pain even, but just slight discomfort. I do have a high pain threshhold however, and what might class as pain, I feel as just a bit of tummy ache at worst. I rang the ward on Friday as my tummy button hole under the dressing (which they told me to leave on until Saturday) was going very itchy and red around the edges of the dressing. The dressing is called a transparent island dressing. The ward sister said that it sounded like I am allergic to the dressing (ironically I have no allergy to normal sticking plaster or latex or anything like that) and to take it off. So I took two of the four off, and Margaret gave me a pot of E45 cream which is helping a lot. I read that skin allergies to plasters can be eased by using cetirizine tablets and hydrocortisone cream, both of which I have here. So I started taking a hayfever tablet daily! and never even needed the hydrocortisone in the end. So I looked up the components of this island dressing and it said, "latex-free polyurethane with a hypoallergenic (HUH!) acrylic adhesive". And they plastered those on someone who never uses any chemicals or unnatural products to clean the house, for one thing! I shall know next time to ask for good old-fashioned plain simple plasters! 

I am now on Day Four post-surgery, and still no fatigue. The only time I am getting any discomfort (not even pain) since I arrived home is getting out of bed. I never did master rolling into bed so I climb in as I always have done. But going from prone to sitting upright is something I always find hard anyway as my back gets a bit stiff, so my grabber stick has become my best friend! as when I have got into bed and realise my book is somewhere down by my feet, I don't want to try to bend forward in the middle to reach it. I don't know what damage I might do if I twist and bend when it feels stiff to do so, so I'm just being very careful. I had to ditch the idea of sitting on the sofa on the first night I got home, and instead I sit on a padded folding chair to watch TV. I couldn't get off the sofa without bending too much in the midriff. 

I am going for a lie down on the bed and a short doze each day at some point, when my eyes feel sleepy. Not as much as I expected to, as the getting out of bed is putting me off getting onto it too many times! 

I knew I was fit and healthy, as although I have a BMI of 32 I walk miles with my dogs, I eat very healthily including well more than 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, and I drink my eight glasses of water daily plus other drinks. Have been doing all this for several years. My job is very active and I could outstrip the energy levels of the youngsters a third my age, before this tummy ache set in back in November. However, I hadn't expected to be feeling quite this good so soon! I actually feel more refreshed than I have done for months and years! - perhaps because I have a high pain threshhold, the low-key tummy ache I have had since November was disturbing my sleep and I didn't consciously realise it was. I feel lighter and healthier than even before! 

I have another surgery coming down the tracks later this year, whenever they feel I am healed enough to perform the robotic laparoscopic partial-nephrectomy on my Bosniak 4 lesion...I would rather postpone until November if the renal surgeon agrees it can wait, as they say we should really assume six months for complete full healing from a hysterectomy. That surgery will be a bit longer and has a slightly different recovery route, so I am not anticipating sailing through that one quite as unscathed as I have this one! 

If anyone is facing a major surgery for the first time and is fit and healthy and very scared...please take heart that nobody could have been more terrified than I was and yet I feel I have sailed through this and keep wondering if it's too good to be true - but I don't think I am going to suddenly relapse now, unless I do something really stupid too soon!