(AKA A Funny Thing Happened on the way to Milton Keynes)

Last time I wrote it was to give you all the damn fine results of my mastectomy and node clearance histology. After that things were supposed to calm the fuck down and go back to normal after an appropriate amount of time for post op recovery.

HA! – You already know this is so very far from what happened. Well, for a while at least I rested did my arm exercises to stop my left arm from getting tight, swollen and god forbid developing lymphedema. Which is incurable and means wearing a guinea pig beige compression sleeve forever more. More on gerbil related fashion later… I had lots of stabbing pains in my arm and chest wall, while the nerve endings that had been cut or damaged twiddled about. Sometimes it was like bee stings and other times I could be found looking up cures for extreme itching other than using the cheese grater to flay my skin off.

While I was in hospital they had me hooked up to a drain, which takes away any serous fluid or lymph from the body and stops it accumulating in a sloshy pillow under the skin. I produced very little after 3 days so they took my drain away when I checked out of dodge – probably my Britney Spears outfit scarred them all for life, well I blame the DVT socks from hell. One has to make the most of such occasions after all. Or, it could have been the incident with the chap next door who was in for a hip replacement. We conspired to nick the remote control off the deaf man opposite our rooms in the corridor. Snooker at full tilt at 11pm wasn’t funny. We had to take action.

Hit me baby, one more time.

A few days later the seroma fluid came and I had to go back 5 or so times to have this drained as it can stretch the skin. It’s harmless and doesn’t hurt, as my skin is still pretty numb so the odd needle doesn’t warrant any flinching. I’ve  now also got a box of spare false boobs (foobs) and am quite happy wearing whichever one is appropriate for whatever I’m wearing. We’ve had a few laughs about them as well, including me calling to a friend who was visiting, the other morning while they were cleaning their teeth;

Me: Hey have I left my tit in the bathroom?
Friend: *dies laughing…*

After a couple of weeks I was doing well enough to go back to running, albeit a gentle jog and little by little the seroma slowed down and I was feeling okay. I went out for a gorgeous lunch with my lovely friend Ali and I even went into the office which was brilliant. All in all starting to feel like a human being again. I’d even made up my mind about radiotherapy. I went to see the plastic surgeon, a lovely man who grew up on a tea plantation in Kenya, I kid you not. So we got on great and discussed my options for later this year vis a vis the new rack. So far so good.

Now, regular blog readers who’ve been paying attention will recall the small matter of my parathyroid gland and it causing me to be hypercalcaemic. This had probably been going on for a while as I’d had various symptoms including headaches, tiredness, weeing in the night (in the loo, obvs) and general aches and pains. Long term it can be fatal as it can knacker your heart and can leave you with osteoporosis. Anyway, time was up for mine and I was booked in for last week on Thursday to have the offending thing removed. I have three others so one down was no biggie. ALLEGEDLY.

Before and after shot.

Back off to hospital we bounced, this time to the Shelbourne in High Wycombe for one night at BMI’s pleasure. I wasn’t even nervous, small slit in the throat and out it would come. I was even making jokes in the pre-op room while they stuck a line in me, about aubergines, (don’t ask).

Went home the next day, after a PtH (parathyroid hormone) and calcium blood level check. My neck was still a bit numb from the nerve block and a bit of tape covering the glue on my neck. I was done. Or so I  T H O U G H T.

All done? Nope.

On Sunday, I got up and made a banana loaf for my neighbours. They’re a smashing family and his father had just died – knowing how much they like cake I thought this would be a nice thing to do and they were bound to have loads of family in and out over the next few days to share it with. After that I went and sat out in the garden and was eating some peanut butter sandwiches to keep me going until the lamb dinner that evening. I started to feel a bit spacy and not in a star spangly 1960s kind of way either. In fact I felt decidedly unwell and wanted to lie down so I went off upstairs and thought I’ll have a 30 minute disco nap and I’ll be fine; assuming it was just post op tiredness.

My pal who was visiting, heard me breathing oddly upstairs and came up to find me in serious distress, I couldn’t speak and was breathless and anxious and my hands were jerking about. I knew what I was trying to say but garble was coming out. Once she realised something was very amiss she called an ambulance, I kept trying to say the word “ambulance” but not sure what it sounded like.

They came and took me to Milton Keynes A&E, where I was aware of what was going on but in a vaguely remote kind of way like it wasn’t at all real. But oh boy was it, and somewhere around the time I spewed said peanut butter sandwich everywhere and had a wrestle with the doctor who was trying to cannulise me. It was all just bloody hideous. I do have to say though, why the hell do they ask you such damn stupid questions when you’re making long distance peanut flavoured phone calls.

Nurse: Is there any chance you could be pregnant?

Me: No.

Nurse: When was your last period?

Me: About 6 years ago

Nurse: I’ll put down a ‘no’ then…

Me: *stares….. and then pukes*

So this went on for hours, interspersed with me feeling fine and then careering back into def con level 2 status. However an hour later they came back and said all your bloods are fine, they’d given me a shot of calcium earlier just in case, but I could go home.

Story doesn’t end here… oh no, not even slightly.

6am the following morning, I woke up after a restless night, coughing and feeling sore. (you try voming after a neck op), and thought to myself was that a bad dream or did I really….? Went downstairs and noticed some paint missing on the stair wall. *cue memory of ambulance men carting me off on a chair down the stairs. Ah…. I thought, it wasn’t a horrible dream.

As I went into the utility to feed the cats I spotted last nights clothes in the washing machine, mmm…. That would be to wash off the peanut butter splatter and when I pooed my pants. Oh yes, the indignity didn’t stop with puke, it came out of both ends. It was like chemo revenge but with more texture and a whiff of bar snacks. Hells teeth.

I made tea and tip toed back upstairs and tried to sneak back into bed. Half and hour later and we were back in the car heading for MK.

Fortunately this time it wasn’t as bad, and I didn’t honk up my tea and toast. They did keep us there for about 6 sodding hours while the horror of the A&E and majors ward unfolded yet again. They tried to put me back in the bed opposite the large woman with no pants on.

I think I am still traumatised from the previous night.

I’ll never eat another ham baguette.

As my calcium levels were apparently normal, they were at a loss and suspected that it was probably stress induced by having had cancer, losing both my parents in less than two years and all the other shizz I’ve had going on. But… I didn’t quite buy it, not entirely. Sure I’ve had an utterly horrid 10 months, in fact revisiting our friend the Profanity Generator here, I think it’s safe to say it’s been a large BUTT SUCKER. But this wasn’t me at all and I’ve never felt like this ever. Not even close.

I’ve since found out that what happened is very (very) rare, something like 1:10,000 cases after parathryoidectomy have this exact awful thing. Essentially my calcium blood levels on Saturday night weren’t low, they were within the low end of normal. But for me having had elevated levels for a long time, it was a physical crash and sometimes called Hungry Bone Syndrome. My bones having been leached of calcium for some while, all of a sudden a few days post op, went hello lets have the mother of all calcium parties. And off they went and the result was something known as carpopedal spasm. I had all the symptoms, from breathlessness, anxiety, twitching and talking more absolute and utter shite than usual. I can safely say it was one of the scariest experiences of my life. But, thankfully I now know what happened and if I do start off again to stick half a pound of best cheese under my tongue and phone a friend in case I start making overseas calls to someone called a peanut flavoured vom-head.

Our bodies are amazing and while I vaguely recall reading about post op parathyroidectomy issues a few weeks back and noting that something akin to fits are a very rare occurrence, I never imagined I’d be that rare a bird. But there you go, I am.

In other news the space formerly known as left tit now has an infection, so I’m on antibiotics. You’ll be glad to hear so far they’re staying down and I’ve swapped to Topics.

PS If I didn’t like peanuts before, I really, really hate them now.

PPS Re: Gerbil coloured clothing. I threw my so called nude coloured pants away.