My partner is an art student, and we’re working on a project about my surgery and its aftermath. She’s asked me to ask what people’s thoughts were as they lay on the trolley waiting to go into theatre?
I thought that I might not wake up…and felt the most intense sadness at the idea that my breast was going, it looked perfect and wasn’t hurting me and yet I had to lose it. I knew that even if I made it through the op life would never be the same again…didn’t know what I would look like or how I would feel…
Calm, total calm…i went to theatre with stickers on my nipples, asking the surgeon to do a good job…I had my MP3 player in my ears, playing a Marillion song, called ‘Beautiful’ ( to remind me that beauty is NOT just about the outside appearance of us!) and hubby walked down to theatre with me, after whispering ‘I love you’ to me.I was told my surgeon exploded with laughter when he saw the stickers…he told me afterwards that it had put a smile on his face for the rest of the day!. I’m sure that on some level, i was very scared, but really felt i was going in to conquer a beast…time will tell if that’s the case! Good luck with your project
I walked into the operating theatre which felt very strange. I had waited 5 hours for day surgery in a room on my own and I was a mess. This was supposed to be day surgery and should have been easy. But that waiting was the worst - thoughts of death and terminal disease raced around my head. Questions filled my mind and could not be answered.I felt like a piece of meat being prodded and poked every so often by various medical personnel. I was clearly very distressed and no one even asked me how I was feeling. I was ignored and had never felt so alone. Cancer is a disease that you ultimately struggle with alone as no one knows how you feel unless they have been there. Also cancer is different for every individual. I knew that life would never be the same again and it hasn’t !
Rach
This is an easy one!
I was laughing hystericaly!
The pre med worked very well on me. lol
As i was waiting on the trolly i couldnt think in ‘French’ anymore, 2 young porters came up to me and said something, i guessed they wanted to me to take my underwear off but was so relaxed i couldnt be bothered so just said i didnt undertsand. Anyway, he was adament they had to be removed, so he asked me how to say it in English. Silly boy 
" I WANT YOU TO TAKE MY KNICKERS OFF"- bless him, as he walked off i could hear him saying to himself ‘i want you to take my knickers off’. I would love to be a fly on the wall next time a Brit was in there.
I was still laughing hysterically (think they though i was a lunatic) as they stuck the needle in.
I was absolutely starving as I had not had anything since 3pm the day before and my surgery was running late - my surgeon was doing a mastectomy, clearance and reconstruction, followed by another mastectomy and clearance before me. My op was for node clearance as I’d had surgery to remove the lump 5 weeks before; the tests had shown the lump to be a fibroid, but of course their was something sinister hidden underneath hence the second surgery. I saw the surgeon and the anaesthetist at 7pm the night before.
I was taken for my op at about 4pm and there was a struggle to get a vein - it took 3 anaesthetists 10 minutes! I was joking with them and asked if they could give me a nice dream about Johnny Depp, and they said no can do but they could try for Brad Pitt and I said I wasn’t keen on him. I conked out after that. Prior to surgery I spent the day reading and watching people being taken to the operating theatres and brought back (I was in a side room with a window to the corridor). The nurses had told me that the surgeon said they were to give me plenty of TLC on account of how I had found out about the cancer and I remember thinking to myself that I would get through this episode in my life. I never let go of that thought when the came to take me to theatre.
Hi All
I was late to theatre too. Arrived fasting and not drinking at the hospital at about 0645. Was scheduled for surgery originally at 0930, but in the event was “on” at 1430. Played zillions of games of hangman with my sister in law whilst waiting! All I remember thinking was, just get on with it so that I can have a drink of water!!!
How shallow can you get?
Love
Dilys
My thoughts were, “Hurry up and put me under so I’ll soon be waking up and it will be all over”
I was a nervous wreck but had a lovely PS that helped me stay calm as I trusted him.
I was just glad to finally get down there at 3.45 after not eating anything and just one small cup of water first thing. I think they must have given me a pre-med as I remember the nurses teasing the anaesthetist and saying “We thought you were going to do a spot of cleaning for us” and I joined in (how bonkers is this?) and said to the anaesth “Well I thought you were a traffic warden come to give me a parking ticket” Oh how we all laughed…not.
I got 1/2 hour’s notice to get to the ward cos they didn’t have a bed until the last minute.I arrived at 12-35 expecting to go down at 15-30, so when they trundled me away at 14-20 all I could think of was that I hadn’t been to the loo.
Like others, the anaesthetist couldn’t get a canula in, and I thought " Oh for heavens sake get on with it - don’t you do this for a living ?"
Basically though it was rid me of this beast within and let me get back to normal
I was delayed a day and spent the whole day of what should have been my surgery charging up and down the motorway to see the new surgeon.
I was booked in for the first surgery of the day at 8.30am so had to stay in the night before. I was woken up (well not that I slept in the first place) at 5am and told to have a shower and then left until 8am when the porter and my Husband arrived. Unfortunately by then I had had 3 hours sat on my own and had worked myself up into such a palava my heart rate was over 110 and threatening to stop the surgery. Once my hubbie was there though I calmed down and the surgery team came to speak to me and the surgeon spoke the magic words “I think we can save the nipple, I will try my best is that ok” I’m not sure why but it was just the right thing to say to me and I was fine then. They let my husband walk right up to the doors with me and they were so quick with the anesthetic I was out before I knew what had hit me. When I woke up the first thing I asked was *hows Phil" they just laughed and told me he was outside waiting.
My thoughts the morning before surgery were mainly “well nothing is ever going to be the same again” How right I was on that one!!!
Good luck with your partners project. S x
Waited from before 7am in a ward of uncomfortable armchairs, no beds, of men and women. Women breast surgery men protate men surgery. Really cold awful lonely expeience. Walked to OR at around 1.30pm ish. Felt alone isolated and like a lump of meat, as I lay on the bench to be put under I burst into tears, I was out in seconds. As I came round the tears and crying returned at which point I was given a shot of something that sent me back to the land of nod for a few more hours, on waking I felt bleak and alone.
I opted not to have the pre-med injection… felt OK. When I was lying outside the OR waiting, my trolley was next to a guy waiting to go into another OR… one of the nurses walking by apologised to him for laying his folder of notes on his legs (covered by a blanket), to which he replied that he didn’t have any!! Amputated from the knees down… that made me smile Overall, I was amazingly calm - no nasty or scary thoughts - they came afterwards! As I was having a lumpectomy, my main concern was about how much of my breast I would lose - thankfully not too much. I was first in to surgery around 8.30am, so didn’t have the long wait… 'though like someone else, I was woken early and told to have a shower!! Can’t have been that dirty from one night in a hospital!
Ali
I never got onto a trolley. I had to beg for a day bed as there were no beds available in the hospital and they said we all had to go home! Having waited a month for my WLE I wasn’t going anywhere and said I was supposed to be a day case anyway, couldn’t I go on the day ward? Well, possibly, but I’d have to promise to go home by 8.00 p.m! I had the little ‘flag’ put in my breast for the surgeon, still not knowing if the person in ‘my’ bed would be well enought to go home and let me have it! Just as well they never got around to giving me a pre-med as eventually I had to walk into theatre and get on the slab myself! (I did manage to stagger off the day ward at 7.40 p.m.!)I can’t fault the treatment I’ve had since, but don’t think my friend who went ‘private’ for her surgery had this to contend with!
I spent the day walking around Debenhams with my sister waiting on the hospital to ring to say they had a bed.I didnt have a pre med either and lay on the trolley chatting to a lovely nurse as I waited my turn for the op.I just wanted rid of the lump that was turning into a monster in my breast.Everyone told me that it was just like falling asleep and waking up again, but for me the ‘waking up again’ was the worst part of my treatment.I had an adverse reaction to the anaesthic and felt absolutly ghastly for the next 24 hours…maybe thats the real reason Ive never considered reconstruction!!
Thanks very much everyone for your replies…as part of the project i’ve had a plaster cast made of my torso which was interesting…you can just see an impression of the scar but of course you can’t see that the boobs are different! she wants to take a vidoe of my surgeon’s hands next, don’t quite know how we’re going to sell that to him as an idea but we’ll see where it goes!..
I live in Cape Town South Africa and was diagnosed with low grade invasive ductal carcinoma in February. I wondered if I should fly back to England and decided against it. Now reading your posts I am glad I didn’t because so far i think I have had pretty good treatment from this third world country. I do not have medical insurance. I arrived at the hospital, the main general Groote Schuur hospital at 8 am on March 30th 2009 for admission and the same as the other posts was told there was no bed ready until 5 PM. What they did do in that time was send me for extra chest x-rays and injected into the lump with dye to find the Sentinel Lymph Node. Then I had to go back 5 hours later for a special scan when they were able to see the lymph node that the dye had drained to. After all this I went back and sat outside the ward waiting for a bed which was available at 5 pm. The specialist then came and saw me and explained what they were going to do and the anesthetist spent an hour with me. Next morning early I was given a sedative and the next thing I knew was when I woke up after surgery. I had a lumpectomy and removal of the Sentinel Lymph Node which thank goodness turned out not to be carrying malignant cells. I was not allowed out till the next morning. After that came 5 weeks of Radiation treatment and I have to take Tamoxafin for 5 years. The hospital was clean and the staff pleasant. The building is very old as is all the equipment the food was dreadful. I was given 2 check ups before radiation started and during it I saw a Doctor every week during treatment. I go back for a check up in October. Despite having had 2 mammograms I found the lump during a self exam.
I was thinking I can’t live with my body after this; I was thinking “I won’t cry”. The anaesthatist was cracking jokes and I was trying to ignore him - so inappropriate for me. I thought life will never be the same and I wished I’d had the courage to die instead of allowing myself to be mutilated.
When i woke up I wished I had died.
Hi everyone
I had been petrified for weeks leading up to this and nearly passed out with fear when I ‘checked in’ the night before for my DIEP op (although straight away met a lovely ‘ward mate’ who nattered away to me and really put me at ease, well superficially anyway. Didn’t sleep at all and was cutting my toenails at 3am as I suddenly thought I wouldn’t be able to do this after the op!
So, the anaesthetist came to see me at 8.00am - he was drop dead gorgeous … and, unfortunately, I wasn’t that morning! So I uttered the imortal words, ‘Right now, you’re the man I most fear in the whole world’ - ummm, very appealing! He had a very good bedside manner. Yum yum - seriously doubt he even took a 2nd look at me though - a total gibbering wreck in a hospital gown with skin paler than a vampire that morning!
After all the terror and being convinced 100% I was going to die under anaesthetic, once I was wheeled down to the anaesthitic room … calm as a flippin’ cucumber … how bonkers is that?! Last thing remembered was PS (lady) saying, "Now, it is the left one we’re doing, isn’t it?) and, while pulling my tummy skin, “Sorry, need to make sure I can ‘close’ you or I’m going to look a right wally!” She has a wicked sense of humour but totally lovely lady!!
Lots of love. Cathy xx
Hi there
Well i started crying. (something i dont do very often, even now)
The nurse started fussing over me and said she understood but i had to explain to her. Losing my breast was not why i was crying, it was because i hated going under aenesthetic and they had not given me a pre-med. I found the thought of being completely out of it scarier than the op itself.
Linda
I waited for a couple of hours because a bed wasn’t available and as soon as it was, the bcn was giving me the hurry-up because ‘everybody was waiting for me in theatre’. Aren’t we patients such a nuisance? ‘Everybody’ had to wait 2 mins longer because I wasn’t getting on a trolley without a wee first.
I had a nurse with one of those ‘cancer face smiles’ who insisted on holding my hand and giving it big squeezes. The nurse walked alongside the trolley all the way from my room to the theatre, which was via a glass mezzanine (a triumph of style over substance) overlooking the huge foyer. I’d been brought up to be polite and felt simply too depressed about it all to tell her to b****r off. It was my second time and I knew exactly what was in store for me…and having my hand squeezed was very unlikley to help.
I felt as tho’ I was in a goldfish bowl. The mezzanine was draughty and I was afraid the blanket was going to blow off in front of about 100 people.
X
S