Big day yesterday! Neil and I drove to Plymouth for my pre-op assessments which all went well. The cycling test did made me smile. When Neil and I are out and about cycling, I’m very used to smiling my way up the hills, pretending to Neil that I’m absolutely fine, whereas in fact, my heart is racing, legs burning, and I cant wait to stop and simply die on the side of the road. Well, there I was on the exercise bike cycling ‘up hill’, all wired up to an echocardiogram, with a mask over my face to monitor my breathing making me feel rather like Miss Piggy. The anaesthetist in charge of the tests was training a nurse, so he gave a running commentary on my progress which was also appearing on graphs on screens. I started well and effortlessly, but as the make-believe hill got steeper, I slowly reached that point when my breathing quickened, my thighs started to burn and I couldn’t wait to stop. Aerobic had turned to anaerobic respiration. But as usual, I continued to pretend I was effortlessly cycling uphill, pride intact. Yet he could see what was happening on the screens and he quietly explained to the nurse that I was faking it! Well, in a kinder way, saying I was probably an experienced cyclist masking my true tiredness!! HA!! Cheek of it!! But he got me ….. busted …. straight away!! Will Neil ever trust my cycling face again? Alas.

Anyway, my lungs and heart performed well so I’m fit for surgery.

So in Plymouth, I had the usual blood tests and met my new nurses who were absolutely lovely, and the best part was meeting my surgeon Mr Grant Sanders. We’d been told a couple of weeks earlier that Mr Richard Berresford was unavailable on 20th October but I forgot to update this. What’s great about our NHS system is that we have certain hospitals designated to become specialist centres for certain types of surgery. Plymouth has become the centre for the Upper GI operations which is why all oesophagectomies are performed there.  I’m sure Exeter, which is much closer, is a specialist hospital for other types of surgery. It’s a great system as if one specialist surgeon is away for any reason, then any one of that team of surgeons is equally qualified to perform that operation.  Neil and I were extremely impressed meeting Grant Sanders and liked him very much.

He explained patiently and in detail about what my surgery would entail. Obviously it will be under general anaesthetic as its a big operation. Basically they’ll create a tube from the top part of my stomach which will replace my oesophagus, then cut out my oesophagus, and join the new tube to my throat.

First they need to free up my stomach, so they’ll either make a 10” cut under my chest for open surgery, or make 5 or 6 smaller cuts in my tummy front for laparoscopic surgery, or, I could become a trial patient in a study called the R.O.M.I.O. study, where I won’t know which method they perform on me, open or laparoscopic. They’ll monitor the recoveries of everyone in the trial to try to find out if one method is better than the other. Currently, both surgeries come with equal risk, but different risks, so Neil and I are discussing what to do.

Once the front part of surgery is done, then they’ll roll me on my side and make a 12” cut on my back running down behind my arm, and enter my body through my ribs to take out my cancerous oesophagus and replace it by pulling up the section cut from of my stomach they’ve made into a tube.

The operation takes between 7 and 8 hours. When I wake up, I’ll have tubes everywhere for a while as none of my digestive system will be working properly. Then as my body learns to pass food successfully through my system, slowly the relevant tubes will be removed until I’m free of them all. I should be in hospital in Plymouth for about 7 days, assuming there are no complications, then I can come home.

They’ve given me loads of literature which I haven’t read properly yet, but it’s good stuff. I love understanding everything, so I have leaflets on the pre-op stage, the operation itself, then the post-op phase. Most patients under estimate the severity of this surgery, so I’m hoping knowledge will be my armour. The specialist nurses assigned to me are very experienced. The lovely one we met yesterday referred to her surgeons as her ‘boys’. Having a brother with the same job, I could see what she means.

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I just admit I was exhausted yesterday in Plymouth during the whole process. But not due to worry, as one might reasonably imagine, but due lack of sleep because of singing! We had such a great choir practice the night before and ended singing Labi Siffre’s ‘Something inside so strong’. It sounds so powerful as part of a whole choir singing it. I used to sing it in the Rock Choir when I lived in Fleet. Maybe the phrase ‘Something inside so strong’ means a lot to me at the moment, I don’t know, as the rest of the lyrics don’t apply these days, but for whatever reason, every time I put my head on the pillow Monday night, determined to empty my brain of everything, I’d realise I was still singing it over and over. I reckon I had an hours sleep if at all!!

Monday was our last choir session before surgery as Neil and I are going to Yorkshire early next week, so next time I go, Deirdre will all be behind me. How amazing it that?

Last night I slept like a baby. Some dear friends joined me in my beacon walk today as Neil was at work. I really do feel back to normal these days as we walked and walked and talked the whole way, ending up back home for coffee and cake. We could all have walked miles further, but time was limited. I know that when I can do this post surgery, I’ll feel recovered (another goal). I’m eating almost everything these days and drinking my usual cups of tea and glasses of water. I seem to be off coffee and alcohol which is interesting. Maybe my body is fed up of drugs of all kinds including caffeine and alcohol. Who knows? And who cares anyway? I feel great. Thank you ladies for joining me today.