A little bit in limbo

 

Its crazy how waiting for one date for a one day surgery can mess with your way of doing things so much. I had my pre-op very quickly after my cystoscopy two weeks ago and found out i am still on the fast track protocol (because cancer) so was told my surgery would be happening quite quickly.

I braced myself for cancelling some plans, we have a few busy weekends coming up and I was on tenter hooks ready to find out which ones might have to slide, coupled with not making any new plans becaused they might have to be cancelled too. 

Work is also a fun one to juggle because im self employed. I scaled up my lead times to allow wiggle room of two days in each week in preparation and I was working over time to get all outstanding orders done so that there was no build up and no risk of having to cancell anything last minute. 

But all of that changes when you have a date, and I now have a date! It is for three weeks time. So add that to the two weeks that have already gone and that is officiall a five week wait on the two week cancer fast track...just incase any one wanted an update on how screwed the NHS currently is! 

But there are no complaints here from me. Now I can breath a huge sigh of relief and get my life back on track...even if its only temporary! i can make plans, I can accomodate work and I can breath again. I can also now start to prep because this is the first chance I will have to discuss my options with my consultant going forward and to make a proper appointment to discuss my bladder removal etc. I wont have much time so I will get together a list of very important questions and reherse the most important points that I want to get across. 

These situations are somethign that I have really struggled with, as I feel like it is very important as a young woman that you are taken seriously in these disccusions about your healthy, you have to heavily advocate for yourself and usually with much older male surgeons and you need to be taken seriously. This often feels even harder to do when you are stripped of all your make up and sitting in a hospital gown, dressing gown, no underwear and your fluffy slippers! In recent years I have genuinly purchsed a  'smart' dressing gown and slippers for these specific occasions. I often envy men in these situations as It is already socially acceptable for them to show up 'as they are' and are automatically taken seriously. 

This was a little short and sweet update, I will now go back to living life for the next three weeks and also obsessivly reaserchign bladder removal and life with a urostomy everytime things get a bit quite. 

Thanks for reading, 

Katie :)