Elvis and Me (My experience with colon cancer surgery when complications occur)

It is worth noting that when I was first diagnosed with cancer following a colonoscopy which had been booked to discover what was causing me to bleed out of my rectum, within about five minutes I determined I was going to laugh in the face of death. I reasoned that when someone hands you news like that, you either laugh or you cry so I chose to laugh. The tumour quickly got the name ‘Elvis’ because since the death of the once and future king, there have been reputedly been sightings of him in all sorts of bizarre places, and what place is more bizarre than up my bum ? It enabled all sorts of toilet humour (every time I fart, he goes “Thank you very much, you’ve been a wonderful audience you really have.”). It is also worth noting that I’m in fairly good shape for a fifty-three year old. I walk, cycle and work out with weights and bottom-end HIIT workouts.

It turned out that the cancer was operable with no signs of it spreading. The procedure would be simple. Remove the cancer via keyhole surgery. Put cancer in the lab and check if it had spread to anywhere else.

I was ready for this. It was straightforward and I knew what was going to happen. After a few days I would be sitting at home with a lot of recuperation time on my hands.

I was admitted into hospital at 7:30 a.m.,Monday 5^th December 2022 for surgery. Everything proceeded as planned, the cancer was removed and I was out of theatre by 2p.m. So far so good. I was even trying to get off the table in recovery until I found I had a catheter attached. I ate dinner that evening. I was up and going for a short walk that night. Sleep was difficult in hospital there were too many lights, too much talking and too many beeping instruments. However it looked like I was on for a fast recovery.

In the colorectal world, the three Ps are everything. The three Ps are Parps, Pee and Poop. When you are doing all of those you have pretty much written your own discharge letter. Being a colorectal patient will come as a bit of a culture shock to most people who have never been one. If you pee, it is in a bottle; if you poop, it is in a bucket, regardless of whether you are bedridden or not. They want to know quantities and composition. Nowhere else will you see so much interest in what, in normal circumstances you want to get rid of and forget about as soon as possible. I never managed to quite get over the shame I felt of doing my business and then having to inform the nurse that there was something to collect. These were lovely people I didn’t want to inflict that on them.

Things seemed to be going well on Tuesday. I was eating and drinking. I was also doing the parping and peeing thing. Not long now I thought. Just one little anomaly. Hiccups. I rarely get them. On Tuesday, they manifested around eight times in one day. Each time it happened it seemed to become more difficult to get rid of them than the last time. The slightest thing seemed to trigger them off. Originally I tried to correlate what I was doing at the time when a bout of hiccups struck. It seemed that if I went from a more sedentary state to a more active one, say from lying down to sitting or standing it would trigger a bout. However that evening hiccups kicked in while I was lying still. I eventually did manage to head them off by using a improvised technique of forcing some coughs when I found myself inhaling unexpectedly or out of rhythm. Nevertheless, it turned out that the hiccups were probably a first indicator that I was one of those forty percent of people who go through this type of surgical procedure and experience complications.

I achieved the exalted 3P state on the Wednesday, two days after my operation. Unfortunately my stomach was starting to hurt badly. I was bloating and no longer wanting to eat. An NG tube was inserted via my nose into my stomach. Eating was now no longer an option. Instead I now had a little bag that slowly filled with emerald-green slime. In the event, the tube would stay in place for five days. Things were beginning to look decidedly iffy.

After deteriorating blood test results, on Thursday I was given a CT scan which indicated there was no leak in where they’d stitched my bowel back together. However things continued to get worse. I spent Thursday night in extreme pain, pumped with a lot of morphine. On Friday afternoon surgeons decided they had no option but to go for a second operation to see what was going on. I was operated on again that evening. What they found was that the surgery was intact but some fluid, source unknown had got in and was infected. Everything was washed out and put back. Friday night time was terrible. Despite the fentanyl patch they’d put on me, the pain was excruciating. My ebullience and bravado had gone. The pain would not stop and I felt desperate. I cried and whimpered and wanted to die. I was a frightened little rabbit who’d somehow wandered into a badger’s den.

Saturday was painful. My stomach felt like it was in imminent danger of exploding. Looking at it in the mirror, it appeared like I was wearing a Michelin radial. During the day I tried to read a graphic novel on my kindle. It was a case of read a chapter, walk around for a bit, go toilet in the hope it would relieve the bloat and then repeat. Saturday night wasn’t much better than Friday night. I remember actually crying out multiple times. There was one small point of optimism. No green sludge in the little bag.

On Sunday things began to improve. I was still bloated but it was less uncomfortable. I finished my graphic novel. I did plenty of walking. The night was marginally better than the previous two. Crucially, still no slime in the bag. However I’d become a little twitchy at this point. A bit sore ? Going backwards again. Some reddening ? Got infected.

Further improvements came on Monday. The tube and bag were removed and I was put on soft food. I started a book on my kindle. The cannulas came out. My medications were now being administered orally. Was it my imagination or was the bloat around my stomach coming down ? However later on another cannula was put in. They wanted to keep me another day just to improve my infection markers.

On Tuesday I felt was pretty much ready to leave from when I woke up from the sort-of-sleep that I was having in hospital. The silly sense of humour had returned (“I’m going to remember some of the conversations I’ve had in here. If I ever have the misfortune to be invited to a dinner party, reciting one or two will ensure I never get invited again.”). Mostly I wanted to go home and get some real sleep. However blood tests had to be done and checks had to be made. The day dragged a bit. The main protagonist in my book was unexpectedly murdered. I ate dinner and went to sleep.

Next day I was definitely ready to go home. To the point of being able to go down to the ground floor and engage in wheeler-dealering with the internal coffee bar to acquire some almond milk because the ward had run out of soya milk so I had nothing to put on my breakfast. The tyre around my middle had retreated somewhat and was now this strange pointed thing. I finished my book. It had a really downbeat ending (Ben Elton’s Gridlock for reference). I waited around. I ate lunch. They assembled my take-home medication and repacked and stitched my surgery wound.

And off I went. The date was 14^th December 2022. I had been in hospital for nine days.