Hi, Im new to this website/forum and dont normally join things like this, however i dont normally deal with cervical cancer either, so here i am. I had an full abdominal radical hysterectomy in January, and am now waiting for radiotherapy.
I developed sepsis while in hospital and was very poorly and was constantly being pumped with strong antibiotics amongst other meds. I then developed uncontrollable leaking, from what i thought was from lack of pelvic floor but after numerous invasive vaginal and urethra checks, which i found quite traumatising, it turns out during my surgery they had accidently damaged both my ureter tubes (which go from the kidneys to the bladder) so i had to have another operation to put stents into the tubes, so as to let them heal, and so this meant i had to also have a catheter in for 8 wks also. Good news is my stents are out now and my bladder and ureter tubes seem to be healing, however ive found all this extremely traumatising, and although i know im lucky and it could be worse i cant help being extremely anxious now and just waiting for my body to break again. I just feel i may not be able to get back to “me” again and that makes me sad.
My family and friends have been and still are so so supportive and i couldnt have done it without them, however I find it difficult to talk about the mental side effects and what feels like ptsd from all the issues ive had.
Sorry this is quite a long winded post but im not good at getting things down and tend to waffle on.
im not sure why im writing it really, as im not sure what im wanting from this group. Maybe just someone who has been through similar experience maybe?
Hi Bubbsy80 and welcome to our group.
What an awful experience you have been through and I’m so sorry to read what has happened. I haven’t got the same experience to share as I had a different and more extensive surgery which was luckily completed successfully, but I was diagnosed with ptsd about a year later due to my experiences. My mental health, although I was physically recovering well, was really badly affected.
Although you are healing, you still have more treatment to go through, so my advice would be to phone the Macmillan support line(the number is in my signature).
Macmillan have teamed up with BUPA to provide up to 6 free counselling sessions, and I am so glad I was able to take advantage of this as it helped me enormously. I should have prioritised my mental health sooner than I did-hence my recommendation that you call them to see what can be arranged.
It’s lovely to have supportive family and friends, but I found it really helpful to talk to someone who wasn't emotionally involved in my story-he was lovely, patient and calm and it was done over the phone. I was able to say exactly what I wanted, and cry, and that was all ok.
Please keep in touch and let us know how you’re getting on-lots of us have been through radiotherapy, so we can help support you through that with advice on how we got through the treatment and what helped us.
I hope you continue to heal physically and get stronger, but I’m not sure personally if we ever get back to being the same person we were before diagnosis and treatment. For me it forever changed me, but that doesn’t mean to say I don’t enjoy life and try to make the most of it!
Sarah xx
Hi Bubbsy80
It just rocks your world having a cancer diagnosis, that’s for sure! I’m really pleased you will phone the support line-they are unbelievably helpful with all sorts, and give good and very useful advice. I called recently about something unconnected to my own situation and had a lovely lady simply listen, as well as give me the advice I was looking for. I’m sure you will find it of great benefit.
I was diagnosed over 4 and a half years ago, and I’ve done my best to keep as positive an attitude as possible all along. However, I don’t believe that’s it possible to be positive absolutely all of the time-we’re only human and in normal life we have our ups and downs. It’s a part of life! But staying positive really does help.
I was in hospital in February and a doctor told me how much a positive attitude helped patients in treatment and recovery. They saw patients having much better results overall when they kept a positive outlook.
If you’d like to, please feel free to add the details of your story to your profile. You can do this by clicking on your name and updating your information and it helps others to see details of your diagnosis and treatment and means you don’t need to repeat yourself in answers. If you click on my name, my story is there, and some of the other ladies in the group have also completed theirs.
Keep us posted, and we’re here to listen and help where we can. We’ll be rooting for you going through your radiotherapy treatments-just take one day at a time and it will soon pass.
Sarah xx
Hi Daisybella
Not long till your treatment gets going. I hope you’ll let us know how you get on, and please feel free to ask any questions. No question is silly, so don’t feel you can’t ask whatever you’d like to- this is all unknown territory for you and we were in exactly the same place at one time. It’s natural to feel apprehensive, but once things get going and you know what is involved, it does get easier. It’s intense, but many of us have come through it and come out the other side and we can help you with tips which helped us.
Sarah xx
