The Diary: Cancer Will Not Win. Ch. 4: Surgery

Surgery day. December 18th.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had surgery, but nervous is an understatement.

We woke up at around 5am to get up and moving for the first parts of the day. First, the hook wire appointment. We went to Dr Park’s rooms at 7am to have this done. It was simple, they put the local anaesthetic in, and then placed the hook wire in position under ultrasound guidance.

They told me this was to help find the right spot to cut out when it came to the surgery.

The nurse was kind, and both she and Dr Park’s were gentle as they could be.

I looked over at one stage at the tiny wire sticking out of my body, and almost panicked. It was a bizarre sight, seeing something like that sticking out of me. I do not recommend.

The next stop was the imaging clinic. This was super interesting. The Lymphosintigram was not something I’d ever even heard of before now - so naturally I wanted to know more about it.

The sinograpger(I’m not actually sure if that’s the spelling of the term) was very kind, and explained how it worked. They inject a snall piece of radioactive material in the site around the tumour, and wait to see how it trails back to the closest lymph node. We did the injection, and I was laid on a big ct machine. It tracked the radiation to where it was going.

I was told that this could take a few minutes , or a few hours for some.

Luckily for me, it started moving right away. The reason for this imaging was so that Dr Park’s knew where to cut out the lymph nodes, to test for cancer cells.

Once I was done with the imaging, the hospital called - they had freed up a lot of time and were running ahead of schedule! So I was to come in straight away for the next theatre slot.

We drove straight there, and I was thankful. After all, I hadn’t been able to eat all day, and I’d be happy to get it over with.

We parked, and walked in. They sent me to day surgery, since it wasn’t something that required an overnight stay, I’d be allowed to leave once they had me in recovery for a short time after the surgery was complete.

We went into the room to have my blood pressure and height and weight taken, and questions about allergies and all the bits and pieces they need to know. Turns out, I’m 2cm taller than I thought! What a bonus.

After this was done, I said goodbye to my husband and was taken into the holding wing. I met the nurses who would assist with the surgery, they were all super kind.

Once I was settled on the bed, they rolled me into the anaesthesia room. The nurse asked me what kind of music I’d like to listen to, and asked if I had any questions, then we talked about tattoos and I tried to convince him to see me for an Avatar tattoo, to no avail!

After a short wait, I was wheeled into the theatre. There were lights, people, machines, and it looked similar to a small theatre room you’d see on tv - not one of the huge ones, but compact.

They started the anaesthesia process, and I was knocked out within minutes.

Next: Chapter 5: Aftermath