Yesterday was my first day without painkillers since my hysterectomy twelve days before. Whoop. Not my first day without pain, note, but my first day without pain that had to be killed.
Moreover, the previous day saw my wound dressings removed, with no replacement needed, and permission given by the practice nurse to have a bath! I have celebrated by having several baths every day since. (That might be an exaggeration.)
The flatulence has now returned to its, ahem, normal level. Rather like Ophelia, it has been recategorised from hurricane to mere storm. My partner – who had been bearing the brunt of the adverse weather conditions – sussed out that I may have been taking too much of the laxative syrup the hospital gave me (well, it did taste of honey), and lo and behold, when I stopped taking it, my guts stopped bubbling like a witches’ cauldron.
I have been pondering on my bruised, stretched, punctured, cut, scarred, reshaped body. It has so many stories to tell, so much resilience and so much beautiful disfigurement. I may write a poem about this. However, since the op, my creative poetic brain has been preoccupied with rhyming on the subjects of World Mental Health Day, the NFL players’ protest against racism and Harvey Weinstein’s supposed sex addiction, so my body will just have to wait.
Enforced idleness has enabled me to finish revising my trade union’s course on Cancer in the Workplace, and I am very happy with the result. Thankfully, so is the Education Officer, and I am looking forward to delivering the first of the new-look courses in the new year. I feel like I’m turning adversity in to opportunity but using my experience to help arm union reps to fight against working conditions that cause cancer and/or make life difficult for people with cancer (or caring for someone with cancer).
But that deserves a blog post all of it’s own.
