[WillowTheWhisp]

Thank you to all who sent their good wishes.

This has been a bit of a scary time. It hasn't helped with being given different advice opinions and information too, some of which contradicted each other.

It's something dating back 12 years when I had a growth removed but not having recurred after so long really was a mystery but it had to be looked into. It could have been something lurking undetected which had decided to spring back into action.

I'm not one of those who like "bothering" the docs just about twinges and bits of things and even when I started bleeding I was more hoping it would just go away on its own rather than have to do something but my GP wanted to refer me due to the previous problems.

Unfortunately they couldn't get enough tissue from a biopsy but the camera investgation at that time showed inflamation and an unnatural thickening of tissue - this meant they needed to do an op under general anaesthetic to get a proper look at what was going on, but with having asthma I couldn't get far enough on the treadmill test without gettng out of breath so had to wait for an angiogram and reports from the cardiology department to say I was fit for the op.

So last week I had the angiogram and that verified that I do indeed have a heart, and last Friday I went for the pre-op which should have been an hour to an hour and a half but they all went for their dinner and I waited an extra hour before the last person spoke to me for about 5 mins and then sent me home. Busman had been waiting in the car park in his dinner break but had to go back to work and leave me there so I made my own way home. Good job I had some money with me and hadn't taken the hour and a half too seriously as it was closer to 2 and half hours in the end.

So I finally went in at 9am yesterday as instructed and answered yet more sets of the same questions - name, address, age, date of birth, next of kin, height, weight, GP - any allergies etc etc. All already down in my notes numerous times but I don't think anybody reads them. Maybe they don't have time. I had to tell them several times why I'd had the angiogram and even what the wound and bruising on my wrist were all about.

The anaesthetist came to see me and said I should not have been phoned the previous morning and been told not to come in until yesterday! Apparently I was down on the list as first to go down to theatre. Good thing I had personally chosen not to eat since the previous evening as I was supposed to fast from 7am if I'd been last on the list like the person on the phone told me I was.

He then added to my confusion by saying that due to my asthma they did not want to do a general anaesthetic but a spinal instead. He said it was in my notes that in 1990 when I'd had a laperoscopy there had been difficulties coming round from the anaesthetic. That was back in 1990 but I hadn't even been diagnosed with asthma by then! I had no inhalers. In 1991 when my first daughter was born they'd tried to give me an epidural but found it impossible to get the needle between my vertibrae. In the end they'd had to give up but it left my back bleeding so badly that I stuck to my nightgown. I ponted that out to him and said I didn't relish the prospect of going through something like that again. I also pointed out that I'd had 2 operations since 1990 both under general anaesthetic. However, he insisted that with my asthma the spinal was the best option, and left me feeling very apprehensive of the coming ordeal which worried me more than the op itself.

A couple of hours later he came back to tell me that a senior anaesthetist had said that a spinal wasn't apprpropriate for my op as it would leave my legs wobbly for a good 12 hours afterwards and they would prefer me to be able to move about to prevent DVT so I would be having a general anaesthetic as originally planned for and of course that was why I'd had to wait until after the angiogram to ensure my heart was OK for the general. In other words all the worry about a spinal need never have been brought up because they'd already decided I needed a general which was why I'd had to have the angiogram first.

By the time the surgeon came to ak me if I had any questions I had no confidence at all in believing that any answer I received would be valid for longer than five minutes. There had been so much contradictory information already that all I wanted by then was for them to get on with doing whatever they wanted to do and get me back home as soon as possible.

There was one nurse on the ward who was very kind and caring and I have nothing but praise for her but I do think that there is so much contradictory nformation going backwards and forwards that a lot of the time the people involved don't know if they are coming or gong and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Perhpas if they didn't hve so many nurmerous copies of the same collection of information then it would be possible to find the really relevant things in there.

Anyway once I'd got the thing stuck in the back of my hand I don't remember anything else until coming round and being told that all the inflamed tissue which had perviosly been seen by camera was no longer there and may well have been why they couldn't get much of a sample for the biopsy. It had probably all come away then and in the subsequent bleeding. They still don't know the cause of it but unless something else occurs then that's the end of it for now. So by 7pm when I could toddle around the bed to the seat they decided I could come home.

I do appreciate all the prayers from friends and the blessing I got at church on Sunday and the Bishop fasting on my behalf this week and my name being on two temple prayer rolls not to mention all the good wishes form the kinder more caring AccyWebbers. Gosh what a lot of fuss for little old me.