Dancing Queen

So it has been a week.

Colin and Malcom have officially left the building, though I am now in limbo awaiting the pathology results. Bits of Colin may have been left behind and I may need to go through the process again...

I hope not.

It wasn't hell, as such. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone as a jolly way to spend 24 hours.

OK. The (Elizabeth) Hurley ward and the staff were great. I would happily give them 10 out of 10. Friendly, caring staff and the ward was immaculate. I even got my own television. This was a good thing. I slept no more than a few hours a night and I watched a lot of Dave re-runs of Have I Got News For You and Mock the Week. At 3am.

But you don't want to know about that bit, do you? You want to know what having your tit cut into is like, don't you?

I went to the hospital at 7.30am. I didn't eat after 2.30am and didn't drink after 6.30am, as instructed. Best Friend dropped me at the door, as instructed, and I went up on my own.

Anxiety levels were under control. I decided to knuckle down, grit my teeth and get on with it. Oh, without biting anyone's head off.

I was shown to a bed and told 'people' would be coming to speak to me over the coming hour.

First up was Scouse and his entourage. He looked pleased to see me, seeing as I told him I was likely to be in Mexico. "There is still time to get to Heathrow" I told him.

There were a number of mundane questions I wanted to ask him about after care;

'The breast care nurses should have told you these things' he said.

'But I haven't heard from the breast care nurses' I replied.

He looked quizzed. He looked at the Registrar.

He then marked me up with a pen all over my boob, hesitating slightly at times and letting air out of his mouth through his teeth.

'You look like a plumber sizing up a job and about to tell me it is complicated and costly' I said.

'Just deciding how to do it' he replied.

Shit. I thought he knew what he was doing.

Off he went, after making me sign my consent form.

Next was the anesthetist. I told her about my fear of anesthetic and surgery blah blah. How I wished I was in Mexico and how hard it was for me to not run away.

'Oh we will take good care of you' she said. And then she was gone.

Next was the breast care nurse.

'Now' she said, 'we have been trying to get hold of you'.

'I'm sorry?' I replied.

'For your pre-operative appointment. This is where we discuss what happens, after care and so forth. But we couldn't get hold of you'.

What the fuck? No one has called me. No missed calls, no answer machine messages either on mobile or home telephone.

This is not the first time this has happened. How many times have the breast care nurses 'not got hold of me'???

'Well', I said carefully, 'I think you must be ringing someone else because no one from this hospital has called me in months'.

'Oh well' she said.

Bollocks to 'oh well'. That sums up the breast care nurses of the RBH to me. Useless.

Off she went.

Then I was alone. For 4 hours. I listened to the other women about to be operated on crying behind closed curtains as they said goodbye to their partners and their breasts. I read, read, read. I tried to tune out the sounds of their misery and fear in an attempt to keep myself seated and not calling a cab to Heathrow.

A few times, I felt a tear prick my eye and a welling up of fear and irrationality. Somehow I swallowed it down and kept reading.

Just after noon, I got up. I picked up my bag and took a few steps to leave. I wasn't doing this, not today, no thank you, I am outta here.

I sat back down and texted Best Friend. 'I am coming home now, thank you very much'. It was my way of trying to calm myself down.

Next thing, a woman called Dilys came in and said she was taking me down to theatre.

I swallowed hard. I couldn't breathe. But I steeled myself. I began to float a little. I could feel my rational brain attempting to cut itself off from my body.

A 5 minute walk and we were there. I sat on a bed in a little room with double doors in front of me. I saw the anesthetist and she said again 'we will look after you'.

I then realised I could hear music. Some crap boyband-style pop. And I could hear laughing and people talking about what they were doing that night and at the weekend, where they were going on holiday.

The double doors opened and there, in front of me and not 15 feet away was the woman who had been crying in the bed next to me earlier that morning. She was on a high operating table, her head turned towards me out cold with a tube hanging out her mouth. Around her were 5 or 6 men and women in green scrubs, laughing and talking.

And they were cutting her tit off.

In front of me.

The door closed.

I could not believe I had just seen that. I know I was in a surreal place but surely I didn't just see that.

I would like to tell you that I spent 45 minutes in that small room. 45 minutes. And I had to listen to those healthcare professionals laughing and talking and listening to fucking bloody ABBA. Dancing Queen. That's what I remember. Fucking Dancing Queen. And all that time they were cutting a woman's tit off.

Her name was Jacky. She had a full mastectomy and her lymph glands removed. I know this because I saw her the next day of the ward.

I didn't tell her I saw her operation a dozen times over a 45 minute period. I didn't tell her they were laughing and talking about their weekends and holidays whilst they made the unkindest cut of all. I didn't think she needed to know this.

Thing is, I know they laughed and sang their way through ABBA's Greatest Hits when they cut into me. And that they talked about their weekends. And they laughed.

I know this because an elderly lady called Margaret, full mastectomy and lymph removal, came and found me the next day.

'I saw it all, dear' she said with her hand on mine, 'I had to wait 20 minutes and I saw you'.

I was dumbstruck. I actually wished she hadn't told me. It made me feel like a piece of meat on a table. Unimportant. I am glad I didn't tell Jacky.

'I am going to complain, dear' she said, 'we shouldn't have been made to see or hear that before they operated on us'.

No shit, Sherlock. I am appalled. How unprofessional. What terrible practice.

I know surgical teams listen to music. I have watched Holby City. But no way, no way should any patient be exposed to this and they certainly should not watch another patient being operated on.

So yes, I had a general anesthetic. I wasn't aware of what they did to me at the time they did it. But all my fears of my dignity being taken away, being vulnerable and not being part of what they did to me were proved true. I am appalled. Truly.

So I am going to write a letter to the Chief Executive of the Trust. It will be a good letter, I can assure you.

Anyway, I shall add to this tomorrow. Movement of my right arm and shoulder is somewhat restricted, due to the hole and long red line under it...