April 2009

I had a CT scan on 1st April 2009, and received a letter soon after with an appointment to see the 'Head and Neck Surgeon'.
This put more worries in my mind - i'd never had an operation before!
Off I went to the appointment, which was pretty uneventful.......just 3 doctors feeling my lumps!
I then received a letter with 2 appointments......23rd April for a 'Pre'Op Check', and 27th April for the 'Op'.

At the 'Pre-Op' I decided I was going to ask lots of questions, as I was quiter nervous about having an operation!
At the appointment hey took blood, weighed me, did an ECG, and an MRSA test.
The nurse couldnt answer any of my questions, cos she didn't know the answers! - This didn't put much faith in me!
She didn't know how long I would be in, so told me to take an overnight bag 'just in case'.

I arrived at the hospital in Manchester at 7:30am, after being starved from 9pm the night before....I was told they wouldn't be operating until late afternoon! I wasn't very pleased, and begged them to bring the op forward, as it also wasn't fair on my Mum having to wait around, not knowing when I would be going down, and it was a long drive back home - she didn't want to go home, and have to drive back up to pick me up!

The actual surgery didn't take long - about 20 mins. I cried just before they put me under!
I remember waking up in the 'recovery room', and crying, then apologising to the nurses for crying! I then fell back to sleep for a while, before being taken back to my room.
As soon as I saw my Mum, I started crying again! I was told the anasthetic can have this effect (or I'm just soft!)

The cut was only a few inches long, and glued - which meant I wouldn't have to have any stitches removed! And luckily they let me home that night, with painkillers!

The first night, I was in absolute agony, even with pain killers! I could hardly move my head.

On 12th May, I had another appointment with the surgeon, to check the wound. He told me that they hadn't actually removed any lymph nodes - just taken biopsies. I was also told that they had found low-grade lymphoma, but still needed to do more tests before telling me my treatment plan.