Emergency surgery after active treatment.

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Hi, everyone. I was wondering if anyone has had major surgery after finishing chemo and rad treatment and if so, how did you cope?

My active treatment finished at the end of May and I expected to feel better fairly quickly, but that didn't happen. I was exhausted, lethargic and  generally felt rotten, but attributed that to having Covid in July and having an IBS flare up. 

Long story short, I ended up in hospital with a haemoglobin of 5.5 due to blood loss from haemorrhoids ( sorry if that's oversharing Smile ) and after multiple transfusions I eventually had surgery as a last resort. I know this type of surgery is extremely painful, but my word, I was not prepared for the after effects! It was worse than going through chemo and I'm nearly 4 weeks post op. 

I'm really just wondering if I'm finding it tough because of the type of surgery I had or if any of you have struggled following surgery after active treatment?

Apologies for the long post. I feel better having written it down, because, honestly, the last 16 months have been hellish. TIA and I hope you're all muddling through Slight smile

  • That type of surgery is notoriously painful and difficult so it will probably be that.

    Having said that, it took me a long time to feel even half way ok after chemo and then probably plateaued at around the year mark as I'm in a medical menopause too. I have worked from home all the way through treatment so I wasn't non-functioning. It just takes a lot longer than you think to recover from all that treatment. I had read that it takes around double the amount of time to recover from treatment. So my main treatment of chemo, lumpectomy and radiotherapy was over 7 months, meaning 14 months to recover. 

  • Thank you, Beatthebreast  (your name made me chuckleSmile). I think it's probably a combo of all those things. My treatment regimen was similar to your's, timewise, so this blip has set me back another couple of months at least. Kudos to you for working through treatment - I could barely summon the energy to dress myself, let alone put in a day's work! I'll just have to be patient a while longer and take things as they come.Thank you so much for your reply, and I pray you feel more like yourself very soon, and that better days are ahead for youHeartpulse

  • Hi Andypandy,

    It probably took me about 6 months following surgery, chemo, radiotherapy then Covid to feel like I was even  starting to getting back to normal.

    For reference I had a patient tell me that her haemorrhoidectomy was tougher than having twins so hang in there! Xx 

  • Thanks, Gilliebean. 

    Misery loves company Smile. I have adult twins and that was a breeze compared to this. I was told it would be "quite uncomfortable". I should have known that was surgeon-speak for "swinging from the light bulbs"Joy. It's over now and I'm sloooowly getting better - covid was the icing on the cake! I hope you are feeling much better now and that thw hirrible stuff is behind you. X