Happily home on 30 December my home-helpy cleaner came and took over my life. After much tutting at my heaps of things I hadn't quite sorted out since spending more time in the Borders, he whipped through the house cleansing at ferocious speed and agreed to come back at the first lot of visitors to clear up after them.
On 31 Dec, friends came for a couple of days very kindly to keep me company and I realised I was incapable of having visitors without wanting to look after them and help them negotiate living in my home. I didn't pay much attention to not lifting things, taking to heart that I had to use my arm as much as I could without straining the wound area and keep mobile so I didn't get DVTs. Munching my way through household painkillers, Tamoxifen and Vitamin D3, I continued to feel pretty chipper. New Year's eve was spent splendidly, New Year's day began at 2am with me trying to make bread slightly drunk, and continued with very animated coffee with neighbours who we arranged to First Foot me. A couple of days followed of gentle pootling about, very short walks outside and heaps of talking and I managed to find a way to feed two vegetarians without killing them. They left on the afternoon of 02 Jan and I set about clearing up, with the cleaners coming back on 03 Jan to do a bigger clean as promised. I did all the linen and towels washing to save the cleaners time.
To my surprise, that afternoon I hit the wall, sitting down and barely moving whilst feeling really grungy and realising the wound on the side of my left breast under my arm was very swollen and the scar and skin was straining over the bulge, pretty painfully. I had left off eating painkillers so I rapidly turned them back up to 11 again and hoped their anti-inflammatory properties would help the wound drain. Which they didn't, so on 04 Jan I got a taxi to the local surgery and a nurse took a look. She was not made of stern enough stuff to drain the area herself and thought I might need to go onto antibiotics (although I did not show signs of infection). She said she would discuss things with the GP and get back to me. Off I went home in the same taxi after nipping to the local Coop in sub-zero windchill, and arranged that a friend would very kindly pick up the anticipated antibiotics later that afternoon and have supper at mine. So I cracked on cooking and having a super evening with a kind friend. Before he had time to arrive, the Waiting List guru at the second hospital outside Edinburgh phoned to say that, at last, they had finalised when my main surgery would be: 24 January, being admitted the day before for final tests. I managed to get out of him exactly who my three main surgeons would be, and which part of the operations they would be doing. I set about informing my key contacts merrily that I had dates, names, a trajectory, progress.
Next day, I was more comfortable and the area of swelling around the wound was calming down, but the wound patch itself was way too large and uncomfortable, so I thought I would give it 24 hours more and then start moaning to my surgeon. By 6pm, I had decided I needed intervention because the swelling was not going down. I emailed my surgeon and the specialist nurse and left it completely open what they might suggest I should do.
The morning after that, on twelfth night, I got an email and a phone call from my specialist cancer nurse telling me to get myself into the hospital's Macmillan Centre that afternoon and she'd drain the wound off. She also told me the best news ever - that the biopsy results had proven negative and there was no sign of any spread of the cancer. Proper, clinical evidence from a good amount of tissue, not just scans and supposition, and backing up the brilliant gun biopsies. In fact, one of the nodes removed was the benign node the lovely consultant radiologist had gunned back in early November. I felt a bit disgruntled that the gun biopsy had not been enough, but the truth is my underarm shooting pains have stopped since having the nodes taken out, so it's all good.
So in a celebratory mood I arranged a round-trip taxi (an hour each way) with a taxi driver who had fairly traumatic cancer stories of his own and described his wife and best friend's deaths in shocking states in intimate detail, without hesitation, deviation or repetition. I was extremely relieved to pop into the hospital, jubllantly nattering with the specialist nurse because we had so much to be pleased about - the negative results, the surgery date and so on - to have a needle with a very long plastic tube leading to a large syringe stuck into me. At first the gunk refused to drain but the nurse shifted the needle's angle and, bingo, a hearty quantity of post-operative liquid was siphoned off. The area became instantly a whole heap more comfortable and we agreed I could pop back if I needed to drain the thing again. The nurse also took the last of the dressings off the wound, admired the scar, pointed out it would be bruised inside and still be sore, and then whacked a different dressing right across the scar temporarily to cover where the needle had gone in. You can't win them all.
Home again, the fantastic local handiman and his daughter popped in and took over making up the beds for my friends arriving the next day, and off I went to have a drink with the lovely couple up the track who had at last finished their sitting room redec and demanded I christen it in gin with them. The better half of the couple is a nurse and although I warned her I was on antibiotics, the fact I was celebrating negative biopsies meant we rowdily poured huge gin and prosecco cocktails and partied more loudly than their huge pack of hounds could bark.
Two close friends arrived from London on 07 Jan, the seventh anniversary of the day the three of us had managed to deliver humanitarian aid to a violently oppressed population in the Middle East as part of a sizeable aid convoy. I was still celebrating, so we talked a lot about making the most of life in the face of adversity, remembering in detail all the dozens of families we had personally met during the aid trip and their extraordinary tenancity and love of life in horrendous circumstances.
Change over day was on 10 Jan and my friend with whom I shared an office when I was a student welfare officer in 1992 appeared in his four-wheel driver for four days of gourmet cooking and scenic escapades. He's an amazing chef, and the evening of oysters and fresh fish with all the right wines was memorable.
Whilst all this was going on, the Absconding Lodger suddenly paid up back rent, but demanded deposit money in response. What a complete and utter twat. There are very few people I detest - I see that kind of extreme sentiment about someone as a waste of effort. But I detest him. Tosser.
Also, I had managed to do my tax return. It was a moment of pure elation, sending that in.
And on 12 January, I was allowed to drive again, so the first thing I did was go to the GP surgery to have my pre CT scan blood tests, ready for my pre-admission CT scan showing my abdomen vascular set up, to inform the surgeons what kind of blood vessels I have in the tummy tuck area to play with when building the new tit. The blood tests were to indicate if I would have renal problems with the contrast they would inject during the CT scan. I also made them check my cholesterol and vitamin D whilst I had a needle stuck in me.
On Friday 13th, with the weather doing odd things, my friend headed off in his 4x4 and another friend came for coffee and lunch, and help carry heavy things for me. Although my wound was very nice and healed together, the scar was calm and the swelling had shrunk appreciably, I was still in a bit of discomfort. Ignoring that, I had done my official two week recovery and was ostensibly able to live life normally again. Except I found I couldn't. Now, and only now, I found I was really tired and drained and assuming I could just blast around as before suddenly appeared not possible. Awkward because now I had to ramp up and get organised for The Main Event on 24 Jan.
