1st October 2022. Surgery is supposed to start at 9 am sharp. 8:30 am, still dark outside I was sat in a tiny cubical at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. I had a little pouch with my headphones, lip balm, hand cream, face wipes and debit card. Obviously, super important things that I might need during or after a life-changing surgery. But I mean, what was I supposed to bring? No idea. Anywho I was given a hospital gown, green compression socks and disposable pants that looked like more of a swimming cap than underwear. Tiny but very elasticated. I suppose one size must fit all in this situation. “Please get changed and we will come and do your obs, sweet pea” a nurse says as she hands me my goodies. I took some photos and texted a few friends and family to say I’m ready to go in! The lovely nurse comes back and takes my blood pressure, and temperature and takes out a wee sample from my permanent catheter for a routine pregnancy test. I am about to have major surgery, so just in case, I suppose. That day I had my bladder together with the 10cm tumour inside, 47 lymph nodes, uterus and cervix taken out. I think it’s safe to say I lost a few unwanted kilos. 10 min after the nurse left, my surgeon comes in and says “ Hi Veronika, good to see you. Erm just before we get started…your pregnancy test came back positive” Sorry what ?! We both start nervously laughing. He says “ yes, it shows you are pregnant” I keep laughing, but he doesn’t laugh as much anymore. I am about to have a hysterectomy, you see, so I can understand his concern! I point at my lovely permanent catheter with quite a lot of blood coming through it as we speak, attached to a very “flattering” leg bag that keeps it all in. I’ve been living with this thing for over a month. I mean, I love my husband very much and marriage takes constant work to keep things exciting but cmon, seriously?! What on Earth is even happening? I swear this kind of thing can only happen to me.
I explain there is no way how I can be pregnant as I had a TURBT over a month ago ( the day procedure I talked about in my previous blog at the Spire hospital) where Dr Reddy scraped some of the tumour off but had to stop in the end. He needed to insert a permanent catheter as the tumour kept on bleeding and it wasn’t a very pleasant thing to have inside my body while I was waiting for the major surgery to happen. In all honesty, this catheter was probably the most awful thing I had to deal with and I’ve been through a lot over the last few months. Horrid and uncomfortable, luckily it was summer so I could wear long dresses. So I was very much looking forward to it being taken out on the 1st Oct.
8:50 am. My lovely surgeon and consultant Mr Al-Kadhi was clearly baffled by the situation. He explained, I am going to have a blood test which will be sent off to the lab for pregnancy check before we can start with the surgery. Understandable. After all, I have a massive tumour in my bladder so you never know, he explains that sometimes in very rare cases the tumour can create hormones that live in your wee and it can trick a pregnancy test. He goes away and I hear him say to the nurses “she is at a child baring age so we must be 100% sure before we go ahead” Honestly, what are the chances? …I text my husband “they did a pregnancy test before the surgery and it’s positive” he texts me back a lovely swear word I’d rather not publish here and a face slap emoji.
8:55 am Mr Al-Kadhi comes back to take my blood. He is visibly a tiny bit stressed but he is ever so professional and put together that you can’t even notice. He takes my blood and we try to have a small talk about how early my kids got up in the morning and how he had to look after his kids the day before. He goes away and says “don’t worry I’m sure it will be ok” At this point, I’m starting to question myself. Is this even possible? No, it can’t be, surely! Or can it?
Another nurse comes to pick me up, puts my “important” possessions in a plastic bag and takes me to theatre. I enter a very clinical-looking room with my anaesthetist and a couple of nurses inside. I lay on the wheelie table and they attach all kinds of things on me all over my body. And we are all waiting for the blood test to come back to confirm I am not pregnant! I remember looking up at my anaesthetist standing over me, a Northern bloke with not much to say but even he was trying to make small talk whilst the whole team is there waiting for the results. “ So erm.. what do you do?” I am a fashion designer, I say. “Oh, interesting! I know nothing about fashion” Oh well… where is the freaking blood test?! The nurse keeps refreshing the page on the screen. It was sent as urgent. I’m still laying there hooked up to every possible machine and tube under the sun. Another nurse, a Portuguese girl, asks me where I am from so we bond over European food. “It’s negative. We have it!” someone shouts in the background. All of a sudden all the chit chatting stops. My anaesthetist presses a button on one of the tubes going inside my cannula and says count to 5. I will see you on the other side. 1,2,3… and I woke up without a tumour 9 hours later.
After the fake pregnancy drama, that day Dr Al-Kadhi performed a routine surgery for him but In my eyes a very complicated and life depending procedure. It was supposed to last 6 hours using robotic equipment that makes a few small cuts in my abdomen, however, the tumour was so big that he had to step in and finish it off with an open surgery which also took longer. After everything was cleared out he created the reconstruction there and then too. He used a piece of my bowel to create a stoma, which I now happily live with. The stoma itself is connected to my kidneys. Mindblowing. It has taken time to get used to, but it was the right choice. I no longer have infections, I'm no longer bleeding and it’s one less thing to worry about especially as right now I am dealing with a lot more than bladder cancer. I genuinely thought this would be the end of my cancer story and I could get on with my life. That the surgery would be the toughest thing I had to go through, after all it took me almost a month to recover. Nurses coming to see me at home pretty much very day after I stayed in a hospital ward for around a week. More about my stay at the ward in my next blog...
Some of my stories may appear like anecdotes but they are all 100% accurate. These are just some of the absurd things I promised to tell you about. And there is more I promise 🤦🏻♀️
Love, V x