I had a cheese sandwich...yes, I did! That means that for the first time in about 10 months, I had a slice of bread that wasn’t toasted and then dunked in coffee to make it pliable enough to get down me. It was simply a slice of bread, a bit of butter and some cheese and I just ate it without any real problems at all. It makes me wonder if the memory of my achalasia is really nothing more than the heading suggests – just a bad dream!
Of course, the sandwich was different to eat than before I really started to have problems with my swallow. I used to bite, chew, swallow, bite, chew, swallow, bite, chew, swallow until it was all gone but this was more like bite, chew, swallow .............bite ...... chew ................ swallow .................... bite ........... chew ................ swallow until it was gone – so altogether a slower process. Hubby likened it to only allowing one man on the rope bridge at a time...no peristalsis means that you simply have to let gravity get your food down for you and some things are more influenced by gravity than others. I never thought I’d be wondering what to choose off a menu based on how heavy it was but I can definitely state that lettuce is so light that it doesn’t seem to go anywhere at all!
All the same, this seems to me like a return to some kind of normality and I am starting to find it hard to remember struggling to eat in the way that I was. Long may it continue!
Actually, that’s a fib...it’s not my metalwork’s birthday, but in the midst of learning how to eat again and getting over my latest surgery the birthday thing just slid by. All the same, better late than never, so here is my report on what Its like to be 3 years on from having a major scoliosis correction operation.
I really don’t know where to start....except to say the most important thing of all....my spine has got no more crooked over the last 3 years. Now, that may not seem unexpected (or even exciting), but all those times I stop to think about it, I realise what a scary place I would have been in had I not gone under the knife. Breathing and eating, all of those things we take for granted would really be an issue the longer it went on for. At the time of my surgery decision, I was told ‘10 years to major organ failure’ and I didn’t really get it...but now I do, especially since it’s just not on my radar any longer. I am truly a lucky person and one who has been given a fresh lease on life. I will never be able to express that adequately....
Now to the nitty gritty... and the bad bits. I have discovered that scoliosis surgery is no cure for pain and that when you are rigid inside you often wake up in the morning completely rigid on the outside. Turning in bed some mornings is painful and awkward but usually wears off pretty quick once I apply some WD-40 (joking) and once I just get moving! Painkillers work fine and I don’t need to worry too much about it – like all people with pain, I get tired and crotchety from time to time, but actually I think it’s a very small price to pay for all that breathing and stuff.
I came out of surgery with some numbness and nerve pain in my leg. Neither has really gone. I still have to take the gabapentin (but a teeny dose compared to what I was taking) and there are compensations to numb bits...I mean, when Bugalugs tries to climb up my leg, it doesn’t bother me in the least! Having half your tummy numb and half not is kinda fun and an endless source of entertainment in working out where the edges are....and more practically, when I had my recent surgery, my consultant poked me (none too gently) in the stomach – “Does this hurt?” he asked and I was cheerfully able to tell him that it didn’t hurt a bit!
My walking is fine by my standards. I still only have 2 speeds, dead slow and full stop, but I am able to get into Tesco’s and buy milk and suchlike. For all longer distances I have my wheelchair and that gives me an incredible amount of freedom and independence. I can whizz round places, taking unnecessary detours all I like...its brilliant!
So, there you go, I guess it’s not so different from 6 months or even a year ago. Now I am eating from my achalasia surgery and feel so much healthier generally I feel pretty great. I know that I will always have limitations in my life, but so much of that is due to my spina bifida and I was an incredibly lucky spina bifida baby with the way I learned to walk and all. I just think that I am a very lucky person generally – isn’t my body an amazing machine? – and not just because it’s stuffed full of metal either!
No cats were harmed in the production of the last blog entry....
What do you get when your cat knocks your glasses off the bedside table in the middle of the night and your husband steps on them in the morning? This, that's what....
I don't think he could have broken them any more comprehensibly if he'd tried!
The good news is that I have spares and he had shoes on...so at least no one was hurt...!
Whilst I was off enjoying my stay in hospital (joking!) hubby called me up on my mobile:
“Now, I don’t want you to worry about a thing, there’s nothing to panic about”...
...of course, this immediately starts alarm bells ringing and I immediately want to panic...
He goes on to tell me that while he was visiting me in hospital the night before, someone had tried to break into the house and he came home to find the kitchen window wide open (having been forced from the outside) and Clumsy was at that point missing. Now Clumsy and Grace are both house cats, so it has been assumed that the burglars tried to get in and Clumsy went into guard dog(cat) mode and was at them teeth and nails and they ran away. He is getting all the credit for this even though the security light on the landing inside may have also had a part to play. Anyway, the good news is that they didn’t actually get in, nothing was taken and all we are left with is damage. Clumsy came home looking very smug and has said nothing about where he buried the bodies....
They took nothing from the shed apart from two left handed gardening gloves – (presumably to match the two right handed ones that they nicked from down the road??) and I fell to wondering about this area and gloves. What is it? Do all the burglars around here have cold fingers? When my car was broken into they stole some purple fluffy gloves and I have really little hands too. So they now have a pair of tiny purple fluffy gloves and one tiny left handed gardening glove (mine) and one large left handed gents gardening glove (hubby’s)...so I’m starting to wonder if we have a band of kleptomaniac amputees around here...?
I don’t think I mentioned before, that through some quirk of fate, I currently have BUPA cover and so was able to get my operation done privately (and therefore faster). I can now confidently report that in private hospital you get your own room (very nice) and an en suite bathroom (also very nice). The downside is that the loo paper was very cheap and in an effort to look as much like a hotel and as little like a hospital as possible; there were no handrails in the bathroom. Interesting, given that people are having surgery there...
On the subject of the staff, I don’t know what to say. In the NHS, in my experience, you have an incredibly dedicated nursing staff who are, more often than not, rushed off their feet. In amongst all of this, most of them try and make you as comfortable as possible and do the best they can (especially given how many people they usually have to cope with at once). Of course, access to them is often fairly quick too, as you are in a ward with other people, if the nurses don’t answer your buzzer, 3 other people will press theirs too and there’s usually someone fit enough to toddle out of bed and get help in an emergency. Private’s not like that - you’re in your own room and there are more staff. It means they have more time to spend with patients and so they do. This means they’re not out there in the corridor spotting who’s little red light is on and needing help. Friendliness and helpfulness first class...access to them? A bit hit and miss, it seems...
I guess when it all comes down to it, apart from the single room thing, the main difference is the food and I missed out on most of that. Having been checked in at 9.30 and on my way to theatre at 11am (out about 3pm if you’re interested in such things) and then nil by mouth or water only for the next 36 hours I only got one day of the food and then it was the famous ‘sloopy’ stuff. It was beautifully presented though on lovely china and with plate covers to keep it warm and all. Very nice food too...
The question is, given that there are pluses and minuses to the NHS and private, would you pay out all that money, just for good food? I don’t know that I would – the thing to my mind that you pay for is no waiting list and quick treatment at a time convenient to you. At the end of the day, if you are having surgery it’s all the same, they chop you open, you wish for pain relief and then you start to get better and get home as fast as you can!
I have had a fundoplication as well as a heller myotomy and find it hard to believe how many new long words this has made me learn in the past few weeks! Anyway, the idea of this fun-thingie is to stop reflux. Now, as I am sure you are all aware by now, my achalasia has meant that my stomach valve was shut so I guess you want to know why I need reflux preventing surgery – no, you don’t want to know? Tough, I’m gonna tell you anyway!
You see, the heller myotomy splits the outer wall of the oesophagus to open up the valve. The oesophagus is something like a bicycle wheel (but without being circular obviously) – in that it is made of something like an inner tube and outer tyre - and in the myotomy, the outer tyre is split lengthways to allow the inner tube to relax outwards. The only problem with this is that once healed in this relaxed state, the valve never shuts again and so food goes in easily, but acid can come out just as easily. Result – swap achalasia for GERD in one easy session.
In order to prevent this they do the ‘fun’ thing which basically involves taking part of your stomach and wrapping it around the bottom of your oesophagus in a sort of knot and stitching it there. When your stomach contracts to throw acid up your gullet, it contacts the knot and effectively tightens it, (hopefully) preventing acid reflux. Isn’t that clever? Well, I thought so, so that’s why I’m telling you...
Of course, if they stitch the knot too tight, then you may as well continue to have achalasia, too loose and it won’t work, so here’s where I hope that my surgeon is really good and has it just right. So far, I can’t tell for sure, I have had heartburn like pains some nights since I had the surgery (but not all by any means) and of course, I’m not fully healed yet so that’s to be expected. I guess I’ll just report back in a couple of months and let you know just how clever my surgeon really is....
