Supermassive Black Hole

The trouble with doing something a second time around is that your memories of the first are distorted.  The happier times and more recent memories come back with ease.  You focus on the successes in your recollections. Therefore the challenges and difficulties still come back as a surprise. Making a good start to recovery only increases the impact the obstacles have.  And before you know it they become your only focus and surround you like a thick, dark mist.  And then you feel stranded, for a long time, in the dark, in a black hole, with no sight of a way out.

Touch Of Grey

So I should've been doing my triathlon today. I'm not. I'm sat in my pyjamas wth nowhere to go and nothing to do. My daily routine couldn't be further from the thrill of swimming, cycling, running if I tried.
The days have become long and tedious; the days feel grey. The boredom of being trapped in some tedious Groundhog Day existence is depressing. A trip to the shop offers respite but then drains me and causes nausea resulting in me returning to the prison of bed or the sofa. Sitting on the sofa and watching others leave the house to do things I normally enjoy drags you down further.  Visitors raise the spirits but are followed by a harsh come down after.
And then we come to today. The thing I had been looking forward to most all year, the opportunity to stick two fingers up to cancer, the thrill of achieving something physical. All gone, stolen from me by this hideous disease. Instead I shall wallow at home wondering what might have been.

Nurse

So I'm home. All be it with 39 staples and a lot less liver than when I left. I'm feeling calm, relieved and like the worst of it is over. I ended up having the right side of my liver removed (with four tumours on it) and another tumour on the left side burnt. The surgeon said it was a bigger op than last year and that I lost more blood.

In what feels like a rare chunk of fortune everything seems to have gone smoothly. I've been a lot more calm about the whole process this year as opposed to my first operation. I wasn't as anxious on the morning of surgery despite it being postponed 24 hours. I've been more comfortable post op with no significant pain or hurrendous experiences of being off my head on morphine. Familiarity certainly helped as I knew the surroundings and routines so well. It helped that the epidural didn't fall out this year, giving me significant pain relief and also making me drowsy so I could sleep days away. The only negative being I couldn't stand up so spent five days lying on my bed peeing in bottles.

As each tube was removed one by one (seven in total) I edged closer to coming home. Feeling quite well in myself meant I missed home and the boys more than my previous holidays in hospitals as I wasn't purely focused on my own health and well being. The delay to coming home as I needed a blood transfusion was therefore a big kick in the teeth.

The nurses in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital were nothing short of outstanding. The strain they are put under for twelve hour shifts is horrendous. I don't know what keeps them coming back each day for what from the other side looks like a draining, painful and punishing job.

So home it is now. Nurse duties are handed over to my wonderful wife and hopefully we can finally start to f look forwards. Onwards and upwards.