The Return of Miss Piggy

I had a letter from the hospital today, from Mr. Pullan, my surgeon, with the result of my recent CT scan. As I’d thought, and had not worried about at all, was the absence of any malignancy, but the parastomal hernia is “substantial.” The last CT scan showed that some fat had come through, and Mr. Pullan has been keeping an eye on me. Now it has returned, he says that if I experience further symptoms, it will need to be repaired, and he is going to see me later in the year, and we need to keep in touch.

I do not really want things to get worse before it is repaired. If I have to wait for another blockage to occur, this will mean another emergency operation like I had back in February, when the only surgeon available was a general surgeon who was not qualified to insert the reinforcing mesh around Kermit, my stoma. (What else would I call the hernia but Miss Piggy?) A repeat performance would be disastrous because there’s a limit to how many times you can do this, and I could end up with Kermit being moved to the other side, with even further risk of herniation. What I want is to have elective surgery, performed by Mr. Pullan, who is a specialist colorectal surgeon, who will do a more permanent repair with the mesh. I knew that sutured repairs, like the one I had at the beginning of the year, have an eventual 100% failure rate, but I didn’t expect it quite so soon – this has failed in less than a year.

The last thing I want is emergency surgery for which I am unprepared, and already weakened and very poorly as a result of a blockage. What I went through at the beginning of the year was quite horrendous and I think Mr. Pullan is as anxious as I am to avoid that, but he is not prepared to operate unless it’s absolutely necessary because of the associated risks with major surgery.

Anyway, we shall just have to wait and see. It’s all rather unsatisfactory to say the least! At least I know that another operation is pending, but it’s just a question of when.

At least today I am feeling a lot better with my M.E. and hoping it will last this time. I’ve had far too many days recently with extreme fatigue and brainfog and the resulting inability to do anything. It’s so hard to pace yourself because there’s always a lot of catching up to do after off days, and if you do too much, you end up with more post-exertional malaise and the need to rest again. Boom and bust… I was much better at pacing in the old days before I got cancer. When I was recovering after the end of my chemo I felt so well and wanted to do everything, and seemed to have lost the art of pacing, with predictable results!

To more cheerful things! Here are some photos of the kittens taken this afternoon, sitting on the scratching post which I’d brought into the kitchen for their daily clicker training. They are now 19 weeks old and getting so big! My hubby says they are growing, but not growing up – they are still utter babies!!

On high alert – my hubby was outside the kitchen window messing about in the patio and they were very interested in all the sounds coming from the open window! They look like two little meerkats on a train!

They are always together. When I separate them to do the clicker training, the one shut out cries – especially Ruby!

After our worry over Ruby earlier in the week when she was off her food, she is now fine again and is eating well. She was obviously feeling under the weather but the vet couldn’t find anything wrong, and she was obviously not sickening for anything, which is a relief.

I had a very busy morning and was cooking something that took rather a long time, and I had no end of trouble from two naughty kittens who kept rushing into rooms I’d shut them out of every time I opened the door! Lily was the worst offender and wouldn’t come out – they are like greased lightning when they don’t want to be caught, and even the sight of the clicker and the little box of treats took longer than usual to attract her more than what she was interested in. When they are focused on the training, they are pretty good and will come when called etc. but as soon as there’s another attraction, it’s a different story! This wasted a lot of precious time this morning, and we sat down to a very late lunch indeed!