The evening of 21 December, I had long chats with relatives and decided to stuff everything and book Christmas. I could alter things if suddenly I were to have surgery but it would be very unlikely given the length of time things were taking so far and the complete lack of action so far.
I booked flights, airport parking, New Year visits to friends and a big party, and the shopping. I arranged to fly from London to avoid Bloody Barbara, the storm due to hit Scotland at the time I was intending to take off for Christmas.
The following morning the phone goes. It's the specialist nurse. They'd got my email from the night before. She was sitting with my consultant surgeon as she spoke. I was to have two nodes biopsied under general anaesthetic on 28 December. Was that okay? (Bursts into tears) Well, not really but it would have to be. I could change the flight home, cancel New Year and of course be available, at quite a lot of expense but it was more important I get the nodes biopsied.
The nurse explained I would need to be at the hospital for 7.30am, having starved from midnight, ready to have contrast dye injected that would turn me grey and make me pee green. Then I would go up for the biospy after a chat with the surgeon and anaesthetist. I would need someone at home with me that night, could not drive and would be out of action for a couple of days. Could I get someone lined up and did I have problems with anaesthetic? No and yes. There was no way I was putting anyone I knew through me coming round from a general, after the horrors of last time when I became so weepy, deeply depressive and disorientated for a day that my mum had been really worried for me and I had been terrified. In the absense of my mum, I would not trust anyone else except the medical profession to deal with that.
We ran through the entire pre-surgical assessment checklist on the phone and then discussed the other news: the specialist cancer nurse at the third hospital outside Edinburgh had emailed my specialist cancer nurse in the Borders with surgery dates of 30 January and pre-surgery assessment on 18 January. No indication who the surgeons would be, although I had to point out it would not be the 'am I bovverd?' plastic surgeon because he would be on holiday. I said I needed to know so my relative who is a clinical consultant could do some looking up. The specialist nurse promised she would find out and ring me back. She didn't manage to.
At about 11am, the phone goes again and it's a nurse in pre-surgery assessments in the Borders. Could I go to be assessed tomorrow for surgery on 28 Dec? No, say I, bursting promptly into tears again. I will be flying away for Christmas. Okay, could I see them today at 2pm. Yes.
But not before speaking to my psychology therapisy by Skype and going through all the permutations of the anger, frustration, loss, upset, deep sorry, self blame, others blame, no blame, not knowing, blah blah blah that I was experiencing and making sense of the emotional winds of whirling, thus bringing my brain back down to earth and calming everything down. Astonishingly expensive and worth every blinking penny.
Over at the pre-surgery assessment that afternoon, I did what I could to make sure the nurse could give the anaesthetist a head start on my abject terror on the morning of 28 Dec before having a general, and then my usual not-bothering-to-breathe thing on coming round, being frozen stiff and then having a complete mental breakdown as the drugs work their way out the system for about 24 hours. I managed to burst into tears about something but I've already forgotten what. The nurse said the consultant anaesthetist did not need to see me, even though he was in the room next to where we were sitting and available to be seen, and said it would probably not be that anaesthetist doing my op anyway. I was told to stay on Tamoxifen but come off the aspirin, despite the long travelling periods prior to the biopsies op. One thing she did agree was that I could stay in overnight as on a 'social' basis, meaning that I did not have anyone suitable to stay with me overnight in the middle of Christmas week and I was not allowed to be on my own.
So still with little faith anyone was cottoning on to how badly I react to generals now and this is a main reason to limit how many I have, off I went last minute Christmas shopping, to make sure I bloomin had prosecco at home for New Year even if I might not be able to drink it.
