Parastomal Hernia Repair

Warning – this post contains graphic medical details and surgical procedures. Those of a squeamish nature are advised to look away now or read with caution!

On Wednesday 28th March I was admitted to hospital to have my parastomal hernia repaired. Finally coming home on Thursday 5th April, it is only today that I feel up to updating my blog. The after-effects of general anaesthetic and morphine always causes problems with my eyes – nothing will focus, and I keep wanting to rub my eyes to clear them, and check my glasses to see if they need cleaning, and even checking to see if I’ve actually got them on! Also, my concentration tends to be poor and my energy levels are extremely low.

A bit of background – in March 2015 I had major surgery to remove my whole colon because of bowel cancer. My whole cancer journey can be seen here. By 2016 everything was hunky-dory and I was managing Kermit, my stoma, like a pro, and I thought that was “it,” and that my life would now move forward unchanged, and I was very grateful for the improvement that Kermit had made, with the total eradication of my ulcerative colitis. He was a very well-behaved little stoma who gave me very little trouble.

However, that autumn I developed a parastomal hernia. This is a very, very common problem for ostomates (people with stomas) because by the very nature of the operation to create a stoma, a weakness is introduced into the abdominal wall. If you are older, overweight, smoke, you are more likely to develop a hernia, and some estimates are as high as 60%, depending on how they calculate the statistics – one also has to consider the general health and fitness of the patient, and how long they have had their stoma, because with time, the risk increases. OK, I was overweight at the time, and over 60, but didn’t smoke, and really did hope that I’d make it a bit longer than 18 months before developing one!

They tend not to interfere with these hernias unless they are causing problems. I was prescribed some support garments, and went my way.

At the end of January 2017 I suddenly developed an obstruction, and had to go straight to A&E as this is a life-threatening condition. After a lot of waiting around and being poked and prodded to try and shift things along, all the while becoming more and more poorly, throwing up and getting very weak, the CT scanner was finally available and they discovered that my small hernia had caused the obstruction and I needed emergency surgery to correct it. Emergency… from Sunday morning I had to wait until Wednesday morning!

I was in hospital for 2 1/2 weeks and the whole experience was most unpleasant – emergency surgery is a lot worse in terms of outcome than elective, especially if you are poorly to begin with. To cut a long story short, I had a general surgeon to perform the operation because my own specialist colorectal surgeon was not available, and this surgeon was not qualified to do more than suture the hernia closed. Statistics show this method of repair to have a 100% failure rate, so it was then a waiting game to see when, not if, it failed.

Last year I created a little book entitled “Second “Wind” which depicts my journey in terms of the passage of a hurricane – the “first wind,” causing great destruction, being my whole cancer year in 2015, followed by the eye of the storm, when everything quietens down and you think the storm is over (2016), only for the “second wind” to arrive, which causes even more destruction than the first. You can see the book here, and the video flip-through here.

Throughout last year things were much less stable than during 2016. My colorectal surgeon saw me several times during the year and I had CT scans which revealed that by May, some fat was beginning to come through, and by September the hernia was back in full force. He was able to reassure me that large hernias are less likely to cause obstructions than small ones, which gave me peace of mind as far as my worries about a repeat performance were concerned. I told him that the whole area was quite unstable and causing the stoma to retract regularly, which caused output to seep under the flange of the bag rather than passing into the bag. This is a problem because with an ileostomy, the output is not a fully-formed stool and still contains digestive enzymes, which one’s normal skin is not designed to withstand, and after short contact, the skin becomes excoriated and extremely irritated and painful. When things are working normally, one only has to change an ileostomy bag every few days because the more liquid output is drainable from the bottom of the specially-designed bags, but by this time I was having to change the bag daily, and sometimes more often when there were leaks, in order to keep on top of the skin problem. After 3 years of experience I know how to deal with the problem so it wasn’t fazing me, but it was becoming a major pain having to do this on a daily basis. My surgeon said the problem definitely needed to be fixed. I saw him again in January and he put me on his urgent list for surgery.

I didn’t get a date for some time, and the end of March from January isn’t brilliant if this was supposed to be urgent but we all know the pressures the NHS is operating under at present. Then the snow came, and I thought I was absolutely guaranteed to be postponed, but determined not to allow myself to get upset about this, having experienced melt-downs in the past over postponements.

However, thanks to everyone’s very kind prayers, everything went ahead as planned, and down I went.

We turned up at the hospital at 7.30 a.m. as arranged, and it was not long before I was ready to be taken down to theatre. I felt a bit weepy and vulnerable before going in (I haven’t felt like that before and the only thing I can think of is that I’d been warned to expect some considerable discomfort afterwards but perhaps one can’t rationalise such things).

My surgeon approached the operation through Kermit, rather than opening me up right down my midline yet again (been done twice). He made a small incision horizontally either side of Kermit to give him more room to manoeuvre, as he told me he was intending to insert a much larger piece of mesh than usual because of my muscle weakness due to my ME. He opted for Permacol biological mesh, derived from pigskin, which gives better results than synthetic, with a lower risk of infection, and it being similar genetically to human tissue. It eventually becomes incorporated into your own muscle layers, strengthening them. It is ironic, and poetic justice I think, that having named my stoma Kermit, I had named the hernia Miss Piggy, and she has been banished (hopefully forever) beneath the surface with pigskin! When I told my surgeon this, saying how Kermit hated Miss Piggy and kept retreating from her, and how there had been this ongoing battle for supremacy of my belly, and that from now on, Kermit and I could resume our hitherto happy relationship together, he was very amused and laughed aloud! He roared with laughter when I first told him my stoma was called Kermit, and wanted to be reassured that he hadn’t turned green!

(Many ostomates give their stomas a name. It helps make friends with the little fellow and to see him not as a red alien that has arrived on your stomach and changed your life forever! While I was in hospital this time, there was a lady with a brand new ileostomy which had come about through an emergency, so she had had absolutely no mental preparation for it in advance, and the poor lady couldn’t even bear to look at it. I tried to encourage her as much as I could, having three years’ experience literally under my belt, and after a couple of days she made a huge stride forward and gave it a name – Prince Harry! All of us in the bay laughed uproariously and asked why on earth? She said because he is brave, and loves his mummy! I thought, well, if she can think of her stoma loving her, perhaps the day will soon come when she can love him back. I said the name was brilliant; Prince Harry is a popular, fun-loving guy who does a lot of good in the world, and even more appropriate because he is a redhead! I gave this lady my phone number and said to her and her husband that any time she wanted any advice or help, or just a shoulder to cry on, she could call me. I am sure she will do fine eventually but for her it’s a huge adjustment, because beforehand she wasn’t even suffering any bowel problems – her colon had pretty much died as a result of an adverse reaction to a drug she was taking for quite another problem.)

After the operation, my hubby joined me in the recovery ward and I was definitely away with the fairies with drugs, and in quite a lot of pain. Before long I was taken up to the ward and ended up back on the same bay I’d been in twice before, each time in a different bed!

Before going in, I had been concerned about the problem I had last year with all my cannulae failing because of vein damage caused by 6 months of chemo. At my pre-assessment, the anaesthetist said that it was possible that my veins might have recovered by now, but they would note my request for the insertion of a PICC line at the outset, while warning me of the risks associated with this. When I came round, I found a regular cannula in my left wrist, and further up my arm, a mid-line (a half-way house to a PICC) for them to use if the cannula failed, but in the event, the cannula was as good as gold throughout, so the mid-line was not necessary. I am reassured by this.

Everything went according to plan. As expected, with Kermit being remade, he is huge – as big as he was when I first had him, at 40 mm, but over the next few weeks he will shrink and probably end up about the same 25 mm he was eventually. I am now using flat bags rather than convex ones, as he protrudes enough not to need the surrounding area to be pushed in, and the team sent me home with enough supplies to keep me going until my next order to my supplier which I put in on Tuesday, and the parcel arrived yesterday.

Being in over Easter as I had been three years ago when I was in for my total colectomy and the creation of Kermit, I fully expected to be kept in until the Tuesday at least, to take account of the two Easter Bank Holidays. However, when Easter Sunday came, four days later, I was told I was fit to go, and they discharged me.

I felt far from ready to go. With my ME I have a lower baseline and it takes me longer to bounce back, but they said I would recover better at home, and surgically speaking there was no reason for keeping me in. So off I went, and on arrival home, went straight to bed.

I stayed there for two days, feeling very weak and unwell, and in quite a lot of pain. I didn’t interfere with Kermit that day, but on Monday I changed his bag. I had noticed his output was quite red (as if I’d eaten beetroot!) and put it down to the general early days recovery etc. but when I took the bag off, there was quite a lot of bleeding from the underside of the stoma itself. I was able to clean it up enough to get another bag on, and my hubby and I agreed I should phone the stoma nurse the next day (that day was a Bank Holiday) and when I did, she said these things usually clear up on their own but if it didn’t, to try cold compresses to constrict the capillaries, and if that failed, I was to come back.

On Wednesday late morning I again changed the bag and was concerned how red the output had been in the meantime; this time the bleeding was profuse, and from other areas as well. It didn’t seem to be coming from the operation wound but from places all over the surface of the stoma, and it was running down my stomach onto my legs, and as fast as I cleaned it up, it was running again. I changed basin after basin of water and was getting through endless dry wipes. If you cannot get the skin clean and dry, the bag simply won’t stick. I was getting so desperate and called my hubby, and together we battled with it for getting on for 45 minutes. Eventually I wrapped the stoma in a dry wipe and got my hubby to hold it while I cleaned and dried the surrounding area, and we quickly zapped on another bag.

I went straight to the phone and called the stoma nurse. As we were speaking, I felt some activity and asked her to hang on, and blood was already seeping under the bag. Asking her to wait, I grabbed some “blueys” – those large blue incontinence pads ubiquitous in hospitals, and stuffed my pants with them! I looked 9 months pregnant! She said to go straight to A&E and they would catch up with me in hospital.

Then began a horrendous time of waiting around. We got through A&E to the medical assessment unit relatively quickly, but we waited for hours, being seen every now and then by people who just wanted to take blood and do endless paperwork. Repeatedly I asked for pain relief, and it was not until I had been a total of eight hours with no pain relief that any was forthcoming. I was also instructed not to eat anything because they were not sure whether I would need further surgery. I was therefore in considerable pain, weak, hungry and pretty agitated and upset (and gave my poor hubby a bad time, but he will fuss so!! – I know it’s only because he worries, but it really doesn’t help anyone!!). Eventually I saw someone, and a stoma nurse and one of her HCAs came down and they had a good look at Kermit. She reassured me we’d done absolutely the right thing coming in, and there was no way we could have dealt with this. She also said that I should not have been sent home before the stoma team had been up to see me and check all was well, but none of them were in until the Tuesday.  They would have spotted the bleeding and kept me in until it was dealt with, and I could have avoided all that stress and hassle, especially as I was feeling so weak and unwell, and less able to deal with it. My hubby said, and she agreed, that I was feeling a lot worse because of the loss of blood.

Before my operation I had been instructed to stop my rivaroxaban. I had been prescribed this anticoagulant in 2016 when one of my CT scans revealed numerous small pulmonary emboli. After the operation they had resumed this, and the nurse said this certainly would not be helping with the problem. For now, I have been taken off it, and have not yet had any instructions as to when, or if, I am to resume it. She said again that the problem usually resolves itself. They had removed my bag and put one of their clear hospital ones on, so that people could look at Kermit without taking the bag off each time. I was told they were keeping me in overnight, and then we had to wait another goodness knows how long until they finally found a bed for me.

They were keeping me in for observation. Having taken blood they wanted to check my haemoglobin levels and see whether I would need a transfusion, or IV fluids, but this turned out to be unnecessary.

I was put on a general medical ward, in a dingy little room on my own which was very depressing. The only adornment on the walls was a series of posters which were just too far away to read, and every single one had been stuck up crooked! I thought if I was in there for any length of time I would just have to get out of bed and straighten them all! I had to wait while the right airflow mattress was found, and when I eventually did get into bed and my hubby was able to leave, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t sleep till gone 4 a.m. As soon as I relaxed in bed I got a violent attack of restless limbs – I often get restless legs in the late evening, probably due to my ME, but never have I had it in my arm before, and while my legs were bad, my right arm was sheer torture. I eventually lay hard on it and eventually it subsided.

They asked me to save all Kermit’s output into a pan so they could measure it, and in the morning, because I had eaten so little, there was very little in there but about 1/4 bag full of blood.

In the middle of the morning I was producing output again and the blood was a lot less. The stoma nurse and her side-kick came in and had another look, and while the bag was off, my surgeon turned up, and was able to have a good look, too. He was satisfied that the problem was nothing to do with his excellent handiwork, and pronounced me fit to go home that day, and to stay off the rivaroxaban, and the stoma nurse said she would phone with a clinic appointment for me in the next fortnight, but I could contact them any time with any worries. As he left, he said, “I am very chuffed with this operation. It all went very well.” I know he had given it a lot of thought over recent months, wondering how best to approach it in view of the fact that the hernia was sited awkwardly – on the outer side of the stoma – and taking my ME into account too. He had told me this would not be a straightforward operation and would probably take some time. He is so charming and friendly, and I am endlessly grateful to him for all he has done for me over the past three years.

After lunch, my hubby was able to take me home, but the usual wait on the pharmacy to send up my drugs meant we didn’t get home till tea time. I went straight to bed and stayed there till yesterday morning.

I left Kermit well alone during this time, but kept a close eye on him through the small window in the bag, and his output, which seemed to have no blood present. I changed his bag again this morning and all was well – he is still bleeding, but not hugely. Stomas often bleed a little when you clean them and the nurses warn you not to panic over this; it is because of the rich blood supply and the delicate nature of the surface of the tissue.

Yesterday and today I have been up, and resting downstairs on the recliner. My hubby is looking after me very well, preparing the meals. I had cooked a lot of low residue meals to freeze before going into hospital and it turned out that I didn’t need to go on this very low fibre diet this time after all, but no matter – we now have lots of good home cooking available as single-portion ready meals and I can eat as much fruit and veg as I want to bulk up the fibre. I now have to rest, build myself up, move about a little in order to build my muscle strength and improve my mobility – I am still very shaky and weak, and not to overdo things.

This morning I showered and washed my hair at last – utter bliss! – but oh so tiring! My hubby and I sorted the vast quantities of laundry together and he stuffed it all in the machine and I pressed the right buttons, and later he hung it for me. Throughout these activities, I kept taking time out to rest for 20 mins or so, and then started again. Together we’ll get through it all.

The stoma nurse phoned yesterday to arrange a home visit next Thursday – I am highly delighted as this saves the drive to hospital and a lot of waiting around while I am still so weak.

Although they have taken me off the rivaroxaban, I still need some sort of anticoagulant treatment for the prevention of DVTs (deep vein thromboses) post-op. When I was in last year, because I was on rivaroxaban, this was deemed unnecessary, but I am now back on the normal post-op schedule of daily fragmin injections, but fortunately for only two weeks instead of the usual four. The district nurse is calling in each afternoon to do this for me and I’m counting the days till the box of little syringes is empty – this stuff really stings – like being stung by a bee! The great thing is not to rub the place afterwards because this makes it a million times worse!! They sent me home with the supply of syringes together with a sharps bin for the nurse to put them in, and she will take this away for proper disposal after her final visit.

So that’s me for now – hopefully on the road to recovery at last, and with time to build up my strength and be fit to enjoy the warmer weather and get back in my studio again!

Second Pre-Assessment Appointment

Yesterday I had my second pre-assessment appointment at the hospital, in advance of my upcoming operation. This time I saw one of the anaesthetists, and I was able to go over a few points with him that I’d covered last week with the nurse.

The main thing I wanted to talk to him about was having a PICC line installed at the outset, to avoid the problems I had last time with all my cannulae failing, and me ending up like a pincushion. He wasn’t over-keen on the idea, and said they like to do the minimum of invasive procedures – in this case there is a small risk of embolism, but when I asked him how small, he said “less than 1 percent” which I said was certainly very small, and I’d be prepared to take that risk, for the sake of an easy life and peace of mind!

He said it was really up to the anaesthetist in charge on the day of the operation, and also my surgeon, and suggested I speak to them on the day. He then said that if I were to have it done, they would need extra time on admission for the procedure, to which I responded that if it was up to me to talk to them beforehand, it would already be too late – he took my point, and said he’d put it in the notes and speak to them about it himself. He said different people had different ideas about risk, so opinions varied.

He said that a year on, my veins may have recovered sufficiently by now for the cannulae to work anyway, and was I prepared to try. Reluctantly I said perhaps I would, but I would still prefer the PICC, to be sure. I told him that my neuropathy and bladder problems had not improved at all in the last year, but he said that not all effects of chemo recover at the same rate, and veins recovered more quickly than nerves, so there was a chance that I’d be fine.

I’ll just have to wait and see what they decide, and if they prefer me to try the regular cannula first, I’ll go along with that – I have at least made my preference clear, and it’s up to them now. If the first cannula does fail, then I shall definitely request a PICC, and I am sure that at that stage, they will agree, but that will be after the operation.

My hubby chipped in that each time a cannula failed, I was not getting the pain relief, sometimes for several hours, and this was most unsatisfactory.

We discussed post-operative pain relief and he said he could see from last week’s appointment that I was happy to have the rectus sheath catheters and PCA (morphine pump) that I’d had before – he said that often the rectus sheath catheters were less satisfactory than an epidural, but I said I wasn’t too keen on this, but added that this was probably because I’d never had one and didn’t know what to expect, and that I had found the rectus sheath catheters helpful. He said as long as I was happy with what I’d had before, they’d go ahead on that basis, although I may not be able to have them if my surgeon thought they would interfere with the mesh he will be inserting during my hernia repair, so again, we shall have to wait and see.

I told him that last time, after my emergency surgery, I was in a lot more pain initially, and he agreed that was to be expected, given that I was already very poorly and not as well as possible like the first time, which was elective surgery. We also agreed that this was why last year’s experience was generally very much worse than before, and why it took me so much longer to recover. He asked how long I’d been in recovery that time, but I couldn’t remember – the first time, I spent the whole night there, and went onto the ward the following morning.

I asked that they would insert the NG tube while I was under the anaesthetic, because last year it was done while I was conscious and it was truly a horrible experience. He said that they are not inserting them as a matter of course now, and it may not be necessary for me to have one at all – it depends how much my bowel will be handled. Again, my surgeon will decide, but in any event, it would be inserted under anaesthetic; the reason for it being done while I was conscious last year was that it is the standard treatment for an obstruction, which I knew, and once it was in, it did make me feel a lot better and prevented any further sickness.

He told me to stop the Rivaroxaban (anti-coagulant) two days before the operation, which is more or less what I thought.

On the subject of the ward staff being aware of the limitations imposed by my ME, I explained the unpleasant experience I had after my first operation, and that obviously my concerns had not been passed on. He said it was in my notes, but because these are extensive, not everybody might see that, and also that nurses tended to be very much procedure- and routine-driven and perhaps not so easy to convince of individual special needs, although the nurse last week said that she hated “blanket rules” and everybody should be treated as an individual! He said I should mention this concern to everybody, to make them all aware, in case they had not been told, or had not seen my notes. My hubby confirmed my low energy levels, and how I can suddenly run out of energy and need to rest. I told the anaesthetist that anyway, at home, I spend much of my time with my legs up on the recliner as this is a lot more comfortable for me and less tiring, and sitting in this position in a hospital bed is really no different. I told him that I do try to keep my feet and legs moving, and that I am normally moving around the house quite a lot, and only use the wheelchair when out and about, but after an operation it is a different matter.

We agreed that major surgery really takes it out of even normal, healthy people, and that allowances should be made when one is starting with an already low base-line. I am hoping that after this discussion, I will be given more leeway and won’t get bossed about – I told him that on that first occasion I was already feeling very vulnerable immediately after major surgery, and didn’t feel up to having to fight my corner, and it upset me that it was necessary for me to do so.

He asked what were the main symptoms of my ME and how they affected my life, and I told him that it was mainly very low energy levels, and rapid muscle fatigability, balance problems, disrupted sleep due to my internal clock being out of sync, and brainfog.

I said that before, as a matter of course, I had been given an airflow mattress and foot pumps, and was keen to have these again, and he agreed with this. Having the foot pumps should certainly help prevent DVTs especially if I am less able to spend time out of bed, particularly initially.

He also raised the subject of the coronary artery spasm I had in 2014 and asked if I suffered any angina attacks, to which I replied that they were extremely rare. He asked what brought them on, and I said in each case it had been stress! I told him that the main cause of the stress had now been removed (Mum, before she went into a care home, and how difficult it had been for me in the run-up to my first operation) and that as far as my heart was concerned, I was really pretty well. They are obviously aware of this, though, and will take it into account, along with the left bundle branch block which they are also aware of. I told him I’d been under considerable stress recently, with my hubby breaking his leg and Mum dying, and so much more being put onto me, but that things were very much better now. Thankfully none of this brought on an angina attack.

That more or less covered our discussion. Everything else had really been covered last week, but I did feel it was beneficial to discuss these matters with an anaesthetist as I had done at the pre-assessment before my first operation. I didn’t have one before the second operation, of course, because that was an emergency.

I told him that I was very impressed with how thorough they were, checking all these things in the days leading up to surgery, and how much things had improved in the twenty-odd years since my hysterectomy, when more or less all they asked was if I’d had any previous operations and did I have any allergies! I said the pain management was so much better as to be almost unrecognisable compared with that time, and he agreed that great progress has been made in these matters.

We are still waiting for a date.

Card Factory 2017

My stash of cards had pretty well run out so I really had to get down to making some more. I’ve decided I don’t really enjoy card making that much, so it’s a bit of a chore but I haven’t quite got to the stage when I’ve given up altogether and resorted to buying them!

Rather than falling into my usual trap of turning each card into a major work of art and taking far too long over it, I kept these ones simple. I shall continue to make special cards when the occasion demands, but the limited time I have available to spend in the studio (dictated by busyness elsewhere, and being too fatigued to do anything) is now dedicated to art projects I actually want to do, such as mixed media, books, experimenting with materials, etc.

Today I made seven cards. Six were more or less identical and were on a production line basis, and the other was a one-off which I made for our neighbour whose birthday is today.

I really struggled with these! Such a simple project, but if anything could go wrong, it did… I was feeling a bit brainfogged which really doesn’t help, and I made quite a few mistakes which were not able to be remedied unless I started again, so I pressed on. As a result, they are not my best effort!

I began by making a circular mask. Rather than setting the cutting machine up (couldn’t be bothered – too tired!!), I cut a 2-inch circle with a punch, which of course had to cut quite near the edge of the paper, so I stuck this with a glue stick to a larger piece, out of which I had cut a rough circle, larger than the punched circle. This is the back of it.

Turning it over, it provided enough margin not to allow anything to stray beyond the edges.

I had a couple of abortive attempts. I sprinkled Infusions (The Sage from set 1) through the mask onto two of the sheets I’d cut for the card toppers. In order to get enough coverage, they came out much too dark to stamp on. The one on the right was slightly lighter, and I thought I’d run over it lightly with a wet brush to make the texture smoother, but this was a disaster. Bin time.

It was hard to know what order to post the photos in, because in order to photograph the process I went through, I had to get ahead of myself a bit – I used the first successful circle as a guide for the rest. Here it is on my light panel, ready to use as a guide.

I lined up the next sheet over it, and you can just see the circle showing through.

I was then able to lay the mask on top. I had to do it this way because the mask was bigger than the small sheet and I had no way of lining it up otherwise.

I’d decided the only way I could get the effect I wanted, with good coverage of colour but with a little of the Infusions texture, was to ink the circle first with distress ink using an Ink Duster (I used Bundled Sage), and then add the absolute minimum of Infusions on top. This worked well.

Here is the distress ink going on, through the mask.

I picked up the whole thing and without disturbing it, carried it back to my main work area and sprinkled on the Infusions through the mask.

I spritzed it lightly with water without moving the mask.

I left it to stand for a minute or two and then blotted it off.

Finally, I removed the mask and dried it with my heat gun.

Here are the finished circles.

The problem was, I should have cut these pieces from card, and not from paper. The paper didn’t stand up too well to getting wet, and it buckled a bit.

I got out a selection of stamps, to choose which designs I wanted to use.

Using my wonderful new stamp platform, I stamped a single image onto each circle, using black archival ink.

This flower head one didn’t have a stem – you could use one of the stem stamps from the set but it meant setting it up on the stamp platform, and I thought it would be simpler just to draw one in with a black marker pen afterwards.

I have always been hopeless at stamping. The stamp platform is a marvellous tool for someone like me, but would you believe it… Only Shoshi could mess up a stamped image using a stamp platform!!! On the one in the next photo, the impression wasn’t quite good enough so I did it again, not realising that because I’d used paper instead of card, on the first impression the stamp stuck slightly and the paper moved fractionally when I lifted the lid of the platform. When I did the second impression, I got a doubled, blurred image! Grrrrrr. The tree branches weren’t too bad and I could get away with that, but the base part looked a mess. I blended it out with my alcohol pen and managed to salvage it!

Here are the other completed stamped images.

Finally, I matted and layered the toppers onto A4 white card folded to A5. Again, I experienced problems because the paper I’d used for the toppers was too thin, and I got a bit of buckling and creasing when I layered them, so the finish isn’t that great…

The final step was to stamp the sentiment on the bottom. I used my green archival ink for that, and again used the stamp platform.

One single finished card, which shows what this stamped image should look like when you don’t go and blur it!

I actually made our neighbour’s card before I did the set, and I should have inked first with distress ink and then added less Infusions, which would have given a better result, but you live and learn!

I began by taking a mask from my stash. Some time ago I made a card with lots of butterflies and frames on it, and had a frame-shaped piece of card with six butterflies cut out of it on the cutting machine. I laid this down on top of the card base and sprinkled Infusions over it (Violet Storms from set 1).

This is the finished card. I didn’t really like it much as the outlines were a bit blurred. I went around the outside of the frame and butterflies with my white marker pen, and then defined the wings of the butterflies with a silver glitter pen and the addition of some stickles.

The final step was to add a silver peel off for the sentiment, and this doesn’t show up very well! Not a great effort.

Why do I find cards so unsatisfying to make?? Perhaps if I enjoyed doing them more, I’d do them better!

 

PS Today is the second anniversary of the day I finished my chemo! Where on earth has the time gone?

Phoebe and Beatrice RIP

 

Beatrice and Phoebe, February 2006

We are feeling very sad at the moment. In the space of three short weeks, we have lost both our beloved kitties.

On 23rd May, Phoebe, the younger of the two, had to be put to sleep.

Phoebe, March 2004, 9 months old

She had been suffering from bowel cancer for a while, and we’d been keeping a close eye on her. She had been doing pretty well, and managing to eat, with occasional episodes of vomiting. For the final few days, however, she was not eating at all, and was very subdued and obviously not herself, and we knew that the time had come. My hubby took her on that Tuesday afternoon and brought her little body back and buried it at the top of the garden. She was a month short of 14.

She had been very well for most of her life, but after we moved here 3 years ago, she developed epilepsy and had numerous severe grand mal seizures until the vet finally managed to stabilise her, and in the past year she had only two, about 4 months apart. She took her medication readily, a few drops on her food twice a day, and she was under regular observation at the vet for liver and kidney function, and was pretty well, until she started to vomit. The vet examined her and found a mass which she determined to be a cancerous growth in her bowel.

Beatrice, our older cat, had not been enjoying good health for a long time. For many years she had suffered from various food intolerances, being sick if she ate regular cat food, so since that time she had been having Hill’s Prescription Diet food which we bought online for her – latterly the variety was changed from the one for delicate gastro-intestinal systems to one designed also to protect her bladder health. She was getting recurrent UTIs, necessitating  repeated doses of antibiotics, until the vet said that in view of her age, it wouldn’t do her any harm to be maintained permanently on a low dose antibiotic, and this certainly did the trick. The vet told us that eventually this would cease to be effective and that damage would occur to her kidneys, but in the end the treatment gave her several more years of happy and full life.

Beatrice on my hot water bottle, November 2003

She was a sensitive little soul and was easily upset by changes to her life and routine. When I first came out of hospital after my cancer surgery, she wouldn’t come near me and was obviously distressed. All we could think was that somehow I smelt different to her, with an ileostomy bag. Gradually she got used to it and was back to normal by the time I started my chemo a couple of months later, at which point she freaked out again and gave me a wide berth. At this time she began losing the fur from her hindquarters, and the vet said since there was no evidence of skin disease or allergy, this was over-grooming due to stress, and asked my hubby if anything had changed at home. He told her that his wife had just started her chemotherapy, and the vet said that this was the cause. We tried Feliway plug-ins (a cat-like synthetic pheromone which calms nervous cats) but to no avail. It was months after I finished my chemo that the fur started to grow back.

In recent weeks, Beatrice’s back legs started to get really wobbly and she would fall over, and be unable to jump up (using my poor hubby’s legs like tree trunks, climbing up onto his lap, with claws!) and the vet said she thought she had a compressed disc in her spine which was causing some nerve problems. There was some associated incontinence with this too. One Sunday morning I was due to sing in church and had left my stuff out overnight in order to have a final practice before setting out, and she had peed in my guitar case! My hubby told me she had led him to it when he first got up, as if to say, “Sorry – I had an accident!”

Both kitties being on different medications, and eating different foods, they had to be fed separately, with Beatrice being shut in the downstairs loo – and sometimes getting forgotten for several hours, poor little thing! – however, she never bore a grudge but was just happy and grateful to be released. Life was complicated as they got older and started eating little and often, and there was no way we could go away and leave them in the care of even the most sympathetic and caring neighbour (they had never been in a cattery) because you can’t expect them to hang around all day!

Just after we moved here we got both of them MOT’d by the vet, who discovered a lump on the back of Beatrice’s neck, which she said should be removed, and it might be cancerous. It was quite a major operation for her, leaving a wound several inches long, and she’d had to cut deep to remove it all, but it proved to be benign, much to our relief. The vet told my hubby to get her a T-shirt to wear, to stop her scratching it, but she was a very small cat and everything was going to be too big. Eventually he went to Mothercare and the assistant told him they often get requests like this, and she produced a babygro for a premature baby girl which fitted perfectly. It also had a little frilly skirt on it, and she looked so cute in it! She was as good as gold and never tried to pull it off. When she was getting better, she looked so funny climbing up the apple tree and onto the roof of the summerhouse, like a little tomboy in a frilly dress.

Beatrice in her frilly dress, February 2014

The two kitties were never that close. They were not related. We got Beatrice and her sister Bella in 2000, and before Bella’s second birthday she was killed on the road outside our house, and I broke my heart over that – she was the sweetest kitty and I loved her to bits. Beatrice went into mourning and sat by the cat flap for two days waiting for her to come in, which broke me up even more. Eventually she became accustomed to her absence, but it was hard. They were very close, and would snuggle up together and Bella used to wash her sister – Beatrice has always been the Alpha Cat in the family!

Beatrice and Bella, September 2000, aged about 8 weeks old – little balls of fluff

Bella and Beatrice, Autumn 2000 – two loving sisters

To keep her company after Bella’s death, we got two new kittens, Phoebe and Chloe, born in 2013. Not a success to begin with – Beatrice hated them!

Phoebe and Chloe, December 2013, about 6 months old

Eventually, after about a year, she accepted them and they all got on fine. A few years down the line, Chloe, who was the most beautiful cat we had ever had, was also killed on the road, so we were left with the two, unrelated, three years apart in age.

Chloe relaxing on the bed, August 2005 – Modesty? What’s that?

My favourite photo of Phoebe and Chloe, July 2004

When Phoebe died, we were surprised at the depth of Beatrice’s grief over her because they were not so close. She sat for days by the back door, looking out, wondering where Phoebe was. There was a place in the corner of the lawn under the little hedge, where Phoebe always liked to sleep, and Beatrice never went there, but after Phoebe’s death, she spent most of her days there, and at night, on the patch on the landing carpet that had also been a favourite sleeping place of Phoebe’s. It was almost as if she was deliberately invading Phoebe’s special places, in the hope that Phoebe would come back to claim them.

During this time Beatrice was very subdued and quite unlike her usual self. She was unsettled, refused cuddles a lot of the time, and started not eating. My hubby took her to the vet and she gave her some liquid medicine that smelt like marmite, to build her up and ease the constipation she was suffering, but she refused it, and then eventually, last weekend, refused food altogether. By Wednesday she was painfully thin and weak, and in a bad way. It was as if she had given up the will to live. My hubby took her to the vet and again brought back a little body to be buried beside Phoebe at the top of the garden. She spent her last day lying on the warm path in the sun, just as Phoebe did on her last day.

Beatrice’s last day, 14th June 2017

Since then the house has felt empty and dead. We are missing them dreadfully. We knew we would probably lose them both this year, given their age and general state of health, but had no idea they would both be gone in the space of three weeks.

My hubby has been particularly affected by the loss of Beatrice as those two were joined at the heart. When we went to collect Beatrice and Bella from the place where they were born, we went through the cottage to the French doors at the back which led to the walled garden where the kittens were outside playing, and as we crossed the room, this little fluffy grey bumble bee waddled across the floor and straight into my hubby’s arms, and into his heart, and neither of them ever looked back. All through her life, if she was sitting on my lap and he came in, she’d be straight off me and onto him! I could have been jealous, but one look at the two of them, and how could I be?

Joined at the heart, May 2010

Phoebe loved him too, and often he would sit with two kitties on him, and I would have none!

Daddy always the favourite, September 2014

Beatrice was the most intelligent cat we have ever had. She was very communicative, and always had to be at the centre of the action. If anyone came, she had to be there, centre of attention, and would engage in attention-seeking behaviour if she thought we were too involved in conversation with each other and not with her! She had the most winsome ways and even non-cat people loved Beatrice. Where we used to live, when a neighbour started feeding them when we went away, she left a note to say “little blue-collar has stolen my heart.” She had this effect on people. The vets all loved her too.

She was always into things, and the most nosey of all the kitties we have had. She was banned from my studio because she always had to rummage through everything, and pull things out, and she could be quite destructive! When she was younger and had her full set of teeth, she was always doing what we called “chewdling” – she chewed cardboard, important correspondence of my hubby’s, cables (discouraged in the strongest possible terms!) and a series of collars – even the so-called “indestructible” ones! She was a great hunter in her youth and her favourite was bunnies. We had a lot of bunnies where we used to live, in the country, and we were treated to a succession of gory half-eaten corpses with the guts hanging out and then, because she couldn’t restrain herself and would attempt to eat her weight in bunny flesh, heaps of sicked up bunny too… and she generally did it when we had visitors. (Sorry, probably TMI!)

She was also the Computer Queen of the family. She was always on one or other of our laptops.

She was very computer-literate and came up with stuff like this:

Attempting to log on, January 2011 – what was her password, I wonder?

Helping me with my Bible study group preparation, February 2011

Running programmes, April 2013

File sharing, January 2011 – she could do this before I learnt how to do it!

Adjusting my settings, May 2011

We never knew what we’d find when we came back and she’d been having a session on the computer. I would find music or videos playing, word documents full of what looked like gobbledegook to me but were probably quite sensible kitty-language stuff… My greatest fear was that she would discover my Paypal password and run up huge bills, buying expensive stuff for herself and Phoebe on Ebay…

Phoebe, by contrast, was a simple little soul and she had no interest in computers, despite Beatrice’s efforts to teach her (she also wanted to start some online computer courses for cats but I drew the line at that). We used to call Phoebe our little Devon Dumpling in her chubby years – there is a pub we go to in Torquay called the Devon Dumpling and we always call it Phoebe’s Pub!

Devon Dumpling, July 2010

Phoebe’s name means “radiant brightness” but unfortunately she didn’t live up to it. She was slow to learn the cat flap and it took her quite a long time to relate to us and build a relationship with us. She was the runt of the litter and lagged behind Chloe in everything, and was extremely timid and never spoke, all the time we had Chloe, but after that she started to blossom. Prior to moving here, if anyone visited, she would disappear upstairs, but after she got used to Mum in the house, she  realised that other people apart from my hubby and me were OK, and she became very friendly and relaxed with everyone. She also found her voice and would communicate with us quite a bit, with a sweet, high-pitched attempt at a miaow. She was adorable with her affectionate little ways, and the fact that she remained like a little child, and for most of her life, she would bury her face under my hubby’s arm, looking for milk, and would suck a finger if you offered it.

Beatrice’s name means “Blessed” and it was often used in the context of “That blessed cat!!” when she had done something particularly naughty!

We have 14 and 17 years of happy memories, respectively, of two beautiful, happy, affectionate and loving kitties who gave us endless entertainment value and joy, and for this we shall be endlessly thankful. Once the sharpness of their loss has passed, this is what we will remember.

We are now busy looking for two new baby sisters to lavish our love on. So far, no joy – we are trawling the Internet and putting out feelers to everyone we know. We are hoping for grey, or silver tabbies; we love these pretty cats who also have lovely temperaments. They will have a good life with us.

The Deportation of Shoshi

I’ve been deported… It’s OK, I’m still living in the UK, safe and sound, but today my port-a-cath was removed under local anaesthetic. Please see my Cancer Diary page for full details.

The whole procedure was a lot easier than I’d expected. The worst part was the injection of the local anaesthetic which really was quite painful. It worked very quickly and the surgeon began the procedure almost immediately. All the staff in the theatre were very friendly and reassuring, and told me exactly what was going on throughout, and asked if I felt any discomfort (which I did not). I could feel a certain amount of pushing and pulling as he freed the port from the stitches holding it in place, and the connective tissue which my body had produced around it. I could not see what was happening because of the position in which I had to lie, but I could hear what was going on.

He opened up the skin along the scar from when the port was inserted so there shouldn’t be any more of a scar than I already had. After its removal, it was just a matter of sewing me up again, with a final touch of some waterproof skin adhesive and no need for any dressing. I can shower when I like, and I do not need to return. I will get a phone call tomorrow to check that everything is OK, and I’ve got a number to ring if I have any concerns.

I was actually feeling rather attached to my port (emotionally as well as physically!) after having had it for 10 months, and I was quite accustomed to the hard little lump on my upper right chest wall, and the catheter which I could feel under the skin, running over my collar bone, and I used to fiddle with it sometimes! I feel quite bereft in a funny sort of way, now it is gone. I asked if I could keep it but they said no – health and safety and all that – they used to let people keep them in the old days but now they are worried about infection – they were sending it to histology to check, but there is very little likelihood of anything. Everything apparently looked absolutely fine.

A cup of tea in the recovery ward, after which I got dressed and sat with my hubby in another room until the nurse came in with the discharge paperwork, and after this we were free to go.

This port-a-cath has been absolutely brilliant. It was more trouble to install, and to remove, than the alternatives, but so much more convenient for me, especially through the summer months when I was having my treatment – being completely buried under the skin, there as nothing to show except a small bump, and I could shower and do everything as normal without having to worry about it.

The removal of the port really does mark the end of my cancer treatment – it’s a real red-letter day. However, in the same way that my emotions were very mixed when I was given my cancer all-clear, so they are today – of course I am glad it is no longer needed and has now been removed, but it’s the passing of an era and I feel rather sad about it in a funny sort of way! I shall feel absolutely fine about it soon, I know – just as I do now about my all-clear verdict. It’s just another milestone along the journey back to health, and I am grateful.

I would recommend a port to anyone about to undergo chemotherapy.

Any old port in a storm.

WOYWW 352

We continue to be very busy, and I haven’t had any time to speak of for art this week. I have done some more baking for the chemo unit, though (scroll down to see my last post for details) and late last night made two batches of biscuits to take in to the Ricky Grant chemo unit when we go in today. (I haven’t got an appointment, but just want to say goodbye to my favourite receptionist who is leaving).

I made cheese and cinnamon biscuits. I was sad last time I went in that a couple of people were not able to enjoy the cakes I took in because they had diabetes, so I thought a savoury choice might be a good idea this time.

I am going back to the hospital next Tuesday (8th March) to have my port removed. It will be strange not to have it any more as it’s been part of me for 10 months. Its removal marks the symbolic end of my chemo and (pending the results of further scans and blood tests over the next 5 years) the end of my cancer.

The only art I managed to do this week was to finish my kitty art journal page.

If you want to see details, please go here.

Also this week I have revived a long-neglected skill. On Sunday after church, our minister asked whether I would sing for them. It has been a very, very long time since I sang in public (or even at all!) and I had not played my guitar since I went downhill with my M.E., and then other things really took over. On Sunday afternoon I dug the guitar out from the recesses of the under-the-stairs cupboard, dusted it off and sat down to have a go. At first it was totally awful but then I expected that – however, what I hadn’t expected was that I remembered all the chords with no problem at all – memory is an amazing thing, isn’t it. I suppose remembering guitar chords is a bit like riding a bicycle, or like touch typing – it’s a sort of muscle memory! At the end of the session my poor fingertips were very painful as all my hard-earned protective callouses had disappeared many moons ago!

Since then, I have been practising for about half an hour each morning. On Monday, putting my sore fingers back on those steel strings took a great deal of courage and it really HURT! However, the only way to build up callouses is to do the thing that made the fingers sore to start with – playing the guitar! Several days on, they are still quite sore, but typing isn’t quite so painful this morning as it has been, and I think I’m on my way. My playing has definitely improved over the succeeding days, and I am sure that I shall be ready to step out in faith and do it in public before too many more weeks are up!

My hubby is thrilled that I am doing it again. There is another member of the family who is also thrilled. Phoebe!

Happy WOYWW everyone, and I wish you a fulfilling and creative week.

Chemo Biscuits

We continue to be quite busy, and yesterday we sat down together with our diaries to plan a few things. My favourite receptionist at the Ricky Grant (chemo) unit is leaving, and I really wanted to go in and see her before she went, and today is the best day for us both. Not wanting to go in empty-handed, and miss the opportunity to give the chemo-ites a bit of a treat, I realised I didn’t have a great deal of time to do any baking, so ended up doing it last night, finishing in the small hours of today!

Last time I was there, a couple of the chemo-ites refused my cakes because they had diabetes, so I decided I should always provide a choice of sweet and savoury, so this time I made two batches of biscuits, one of cheese and the other cinnamon.

Here are the cheese ones being made.

Here they are, straight out of the oven.

Then I made the cinnamon biscuits.

This mixture was a lot softer and more difficult to handle. It was also a lot more sensitive to the oven temperature and length of cooking, and I’m afraid I rather overcooked the first batch!

Here are the completed biscuits ready to go.

I took out the ones that were most overdone or misshapen ones.

I wish Emma well in her new job – when I go in to the Ricky Grant Unit from now on, I shall really miss seeing her.

The House of Marbles

Recently, a problem has arisen between Windows LiveWriter, my preferred blogging software, and Google Blogger, and I have been unable to publish any new blog posts since then. Now, thanks to the valiant efforts of a team of volunteers, Windows LiveWriter (which Microsoft is no longer supporting) has been launched in an open source format as Open LiveWriter. The team has been working hard to iron out the various glitches over the past week or so. This is my first post using the new software, and is also by way of a test to make sure everything is functioning as it should. So far, there is no facility for adding categories, but we are hoping for this to be available soon, after which I shall edit this and subsequent posts to include these.

It has been a long time since I posted to my blog. My creative mojo is still distinctly absent, and my health remains about the same – still feeling pretty fatigued and the peripheral neuropathy and other neurological symptoms from my chemo still around, but I live in hope that all this will soon be diminished.

We have had a busy couple of weeks with several meals out and meeting up with family and friends, in the run-up to Christmas. Hoping for a fresh start in the New Year, getting my life back to some sort of normality!

On Monday, my hubby thought we needed an outing, just the two of us, for a treat, so he took me to the House of Marbles at Bovey Tracey.

I do not feel as if my Christmas is complete unless I go and see their wonderfully tasteful (not!) Singing Christmas Tree:

 

The House of Marbles has a glass-blowing workshop, a shop, gallery, museum and restaurant. Plenty to see, and excellent food.

We began our visit by going to the gallery and museum. The gallery has a beautiful collection of art glass pieces which are all for sale.

I love these organic forms.

In the museum they have glass from many periods. Here is some Lalique glass, which I adore – one day I would love to own a piece of genuine Lalique!

Glass eyes!

Some beautiful lead crystal.

On the outside of the building is a series of murals. I love how the little girl in this one is peeping in at all the customers in the shop, and the other girl is pressing her nose against the glass.

In the restaurant is an animated jungle assembly, and this mural depicts that. I am very intrigued by trompe l’oeil (literally “deceiving the eye”) and have done a bit of this myself on the murals I created in our old house. Particularly intriguing in this picture is the way the edges of the bricks are painted to capture the perspective, with the tops of the lower bricks being visible, and the bottoms of the bricks at the top.

This mural depicting a hole in the wall crammed full of marbles on the left, shows that to get the proper effect of trompe l’oeil, one has to stand in one particular place to view it, because although the picture represents something in three dimensions, the drawing itself is flat. You can see that the edges of the bricks, photographed from this oblique angle, do not work, and it looks all wrong! The mural on the other side of the corner shows a real mastery of perspective with the brickwork receding towards the vanishing point somewhere in the clouds. I love how the artist has incorporated the opening times sign into the picture. Unfortunately the Christmas lights in front of this mural are obscuring it somewhat.

Mural depicting the glass blowing workshop. Great perspective again.

Finally, another fun “hole in the wall” mural showing children playing with marbles. I love the kid on the right, wearing the sweatshirt of a local school, and the pair of feet disappearing over the wall in the background!

On the roof of the building is an animated Santa who moves his arm, waving at the customers below.

We had a great lunch in the restaurant (which is part of the old pottery) and I was very unadventurous and had yet another Christmas dinner – turkey and all the trimmings followed by Christmas pudding! (About my third or fourth this year… I am not cooking a Christmas dinner this year and didn’t want to feel deprived.)

My hubby had booked a table because we knew the place would be very crowded this close to Christmas, and we were seated at a table for four. He said to the waitress that if another couple wanted to join us to avoid waiting in the queue for a free table, we would be more than happy to accommodate them, and a delightful couple came to join us and we chatted together throughout the meal. They ended up by giving us their address and contact details and inviting us around to their house on the evening of Christmas day!

When they left and my hubby went to pay the bill, another family came to occupy our place. They were an older couple with their daughter and her baby. The man was a wheelchair user and we got talking about our disabilities and wheelchairs, and I told him I’d had quite a year of it with bowel cancer, and now had a stoma, and he said, “I’ve got one too!” so we ended up talking about that, too! They were a delightful family.

I am always amazed at how many great people one can end up meeting while out and about. Having flowers and decorated spoke guards on my wheelchair has brought so many people over to me, full of smiles and nice comments, and it’s made my day, and theirs. Without decorations on my wheelchair I am overlooked and feel quite invisible.

On the way home we called in on some friends at their business, where they and all their staff and some other friends had gathered to sing carols and eat mince pies! After this we called on some friends at home where we had another cup of tea and enjoyed their company (and that of their relatively new kitty who I had not met before) before returning home. It was such a lovely day out.

Yesterday we had another outing when my hubby took me to Sainsbury’s! It may not sound very exciting to most people (grocery shopping just before Christmas isn’t most people’s idea of fun!) but I can’t remember the last time I went in a supermarket – I always do my shopping online, and for most of this year my hubby has been going out shopping for me. As usual just before Christmas, all Tesco’s delivery slots had been taken so we had to go out to do the shopping. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as I’d expected, and I really enjoyed the experience. As well as the normal weekly shop, we stocked up on a few party bites and treats to have as our Christmas dinner. The only thing that blighted the outing was the fact that it was pouring with rain…

All being well, from now on I should be a bit more active in Blogland, and hopefully I will soon be back in the studio with all my creative juices flowing again.