Memories
Nadi
Member Posts: 619 ✭
Yesterday I had major abdominal surgery in the same operating theatre where I had my lumpectomy on 12 November 2015. The experience brought back all sorts of memories of that time. I still find it strange I am tackling a whole new disease now just 3 years later. Breast cancer has been overtaken by Achalasia. Surprisingly, despite surgery, chemo, radiation and targeted therapy Breast Cancer seems to have had less of an impact on my life or maybe I am not remembering all that bad stuff. Still, I am extremely lucky. October mammogram was clear and while I'll never be cured of Achalasia, I have a new stomach and am slowly learning to swallow fluids again. Catching Achalasia early also improves my long term chances of keeping my oesophagus. I caught my breast cancer early too. So that's two for two now. Awareness matters. Eight more weeks of soft food and then hopefully I'll be able to eat solid food again. Hope everyone is well as can be and wishing you all the best for the holiday season.
Nadine
Nadine
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Comments
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OMG! @Nadi - you've been dealt a cruel set of cards! It is good to hear you so upbeat after your surgery tho. My husband had most of his stomach removed to cancer back in 2010 ... I used to work in Special Diets at a major Sydney Hospital. If I am able to help you thru your recovery, it would be my honour to do so, via PM.
All the best on your recovery - take it easy - small 'meals', taken often - every couple of hours, to start off with. Do NOT rush it. Slowly introduce more solid food.
Value add to your meals as it is important not to lose weight/strength during this rebuilding phase. It is totally possible to get back to 'full' meals, if taken slowly.
Take care xxx
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Hello @Nadi wishing you a very speedy recovery. Take is slowly as has been suggested. Hoping you have some good support in place.over the next few weeks. All the best,
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Hello Nadi what a so and so!
Great to hear from you and willing you on for a steady recovery
Take care
Hugs1 -
hi Nadi keep us in the loop please... sending you hugs and energy to get thru this part of the process.
Soldiercrab
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So good to hear from you with an update of how you're going Nadine. And wonderful that it's good news. Take it easy and I hope you go from strength to strength. All the very best, K xox1
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I'm glad surgery went well and soon real food will be part of your life again. X1
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@arpie slow and steady is the key, but it's also the hardest thing to do. Most of my fluids come from the IV. I can only take 5 mls of liquid every 5 minutes at the moment. A cup of black tea with sugar takes me an hour and a half to drink. They are giving me nutricia fortijuice - same stuff for stomach cancer and gastric bypass patients, but I just can't get it down. Last night I had one dessert spoon of jelly and it was like christmas - I was stuffed. The surgery had complications. They ended up stitching my stomach to my diaphragm as the muscles were so weak and they didn't have enough upper stomach to do the fundoplication so they had to take more of the mid section to achieve the wrap. In the end I lost about 25% of my stomach. I guess I'll get used to it going forward. The best part is that I am not hungry. But watching tele while you're in hospital means you're bombarded with cooking shows (seriously - there are stacks of them!) so the psychological desire to eat is hard to deal with.2
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Yes, some of those 'liquid meals' are just so sickly sweet and difficult to 'stomach'. Yes, it will take very little of anything to make you feel full.
You are very much in the early days just now - and they have to make sure that everything 'goes thru to the other end OK' before allowing you to have more solid food, even custard or yoghurt - which will make you feel even MORE full.
I have a photo of hubby having his first taste of 'real food' whilst still in hospital! The look on his face is hilarious.
Yes, Make haste slowly. Hubby lost 3/4 of his stomach. 6 months later, he was eating whatever he wanted!
Take care xxxx0 -
Hi @Nadi, good to hear from you and very best wishes for your recovery. Weird about all those cooking shows - I remember going through chemo and it seemed like every time I sat down to watch something on the tele there'd be another cooking show on, when you least felt like eating or thinking about the smells of cooking! Hope you enjoy that first solid meal when it eventually happens xx1
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Thanks @iserbrown I am doing ok. I was discharged this morning. Yay! Have a month off work to recover. I have five new scars from the surgery, adding to my breast cancer surgery scar and my portacath scar. Hubby says they make me look bad a**.
@arpie I'll send you a PM about another side effect.
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Woo hoo! No place like home to recuperate!
Take care
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