What happened last July, I probably think it was middle of the July, and I was beginning to feel more tired. And I noticed that, one day that I am really feeling tired by evening. Then I thought to keep my evening happy and free I better start resting during the day, which I never did before. So I started to rest during the day. And when I was resting I wasn’t getting very comfortable quickly like you normally would when you lie down. I wasn’t getting comfortable, with my stomach comfortable. So what I did, I started to feel the, where I was feeling uncomfortable, I started to feel it. And I felt a lot of thumping going on, pulsation was going on. Then I had to search for it, where it is exactly and how it is doing. And once I felt it, it was a lot of h-, a lot of going on there like, it was like as the clock going tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. This is how it was, and almost I could hear it and feel it as well. So I just ignored it, Probably I’m tired For that moment I ignored it. I thought, I’m feeling tired and I’m not resting properly, or more perhaps my blood pressure gone up or whatever All sorts of reasons I gave myself and I put my mind at rest that, It will go away Two weeks went by. I started to check it regularly when I lie down and it would not budge. It was still the same thing. It took me a long while to get peaceful with my body. And that pulsation coming down. It took me a long long time, like half an hour probably, before I could feel normal with myself. So after two weeks I decided, No, I cannot ignore it. I need to do something One thing I’m getting tired. The other thing is a lot of pulsation going. it’s not in my heart, but under my left rib. So I went to my GP and she had, she says, Get on the couc and she checked my stomach. And she put her hand where I did as well and she, she felt the same as well. She said, You’re quite right. There’s a lot of pulsation going on And then she asked me a couple of questions while I was lying down. She says, How do you feel all this stuff. I told her that I’m getting tired more. And nothing else I felt. I didn’t feel sick or anything otherwise. I carried on doing things normal as did. And she says, I’m afraid I’ll have to send you to hospital

What was it like at home recovering?

It was horrible, horrible coming home. And like the hospital bed was very comfortable and it has controls in it. And I was using, I was thinking, I’m doing all the effor but the bed was doing it for me, which I wasn’t aware of. And I came home and the first thing I faced, I could not get up by myself and I needed help.

Did you manage to get some equipment?

So my daughter, it was like, it was, I don’t know what day it was, but she saw me. She sat down in, in her room in here and phoned the, the
The GP?

Not the GP. The home help and things. And through that home help like she could find out how I can, how to obtain the equipment. And my sister, she was pretty, she, they both, both of them were there, and she ordered, she asked her son to get me bed backrest from Argos. They do a pretty strong one and it’s very helpful as well. It has got five adjustments. You can sit propping up as well or you can adjust it to your needs. So the second day they got me that. That helped me a bit. Still it didn’t help me, help me enough and, because I could not hold on to anything that I can support myself. So they were helping me to get up, even from that height as well.

And did the district nurse come and see you?

She came, the next day she came to see me. And then she says, suggested that like, You’re unable to get up yourself because bed is very low in, at home And in the hospital, bed is pretty, you can adjust it to your needs. So she says, I can help you with the things, like you need more equipment rather than you think you, you didn’t need it So the first thing she did, she got me a grab rail that can be put next to me, one side, whichever is convenient to me. So I needed it on my right side of the bed, next to my, where I could hold, hold to it easily, hold on to it easily. And it was delivered on the same day in the afternoon and put, there, there was straps that was holding it under the mattress. And it was very secure, that the base of it went under my mattress and the straps held it. And it was quite high.

And was that free, from the National Health Service?

It was from the National Health Service and it was free. And it helps me enormously. I have had it for six weeks I think. Then I didn’t need to lean on anybody, or I didn’t need anybody’s support to get me up. I could get up myself. So they were just feeding me and taking me to the, keeping an eye, keeping an eye on me to go to the toilet and bath.

And I was very aware of, like I said many times this, that the body’s healing power is enormous, and the more you use it the more it helps you. And it’s endless, it’s more than, it’s stronger than any strong painkillers. This is how it reacts. You know, like I used, used the massage for myself as well.

Like when I had a back problem back in 1990, since then I started to do a massage on myself.

You can massage yourself?

Yes, on myself, this is when I started to believe in self-healing powers, so much body’s recovery from this. Like rather than going for painkiller, I will sit there peacefully, light a candle in the evening, have a dip in the bath, like sit in the bath for a couple of, 15, 20 minutes with the lavender oil and things, and come out and give yourself a massage as well, or probably before having a sit down in the bathtub. The massage, it helps. I do it all the time, like myself. Like if I got a pain up here, the tense neck, I will massage myself gently and it helps me. So this is my big thing, these two things, that body reacts to when you do help yourself and body tells you immediately. Rather than going for a painkiller, massage helps me for two painkillers like, honestly.

I started to look for information from day one, the day I came out of, from hospital, after having these two scans. I thought, It is serious Once the guy told me that, radiologist told me that it’s my pancreas, I took it seriously. it’s not the pancreas not being touched by something little. So I realised something is more serious with my body, so I did not take it lightly. And I was, the problem was I wasn’t getting much information. I was, I wasn’t going, going to websites though, but I tried to find books and things, which I didn’t. So there wasn’t no books in the library or I couldn’t find any other books. So my sister was pretty good. She gave me a lot of information from the website. And my daughter did as well. So I was pretty equipped with the information and it was telling what I was imagining with the pancreas it can be. And the hospital gave me a lot of information as well.

I can, like what she told me, give you this information, but I do not remember the previous day, on the operation day she came to see me. All I was aware of it later that there was lavender oil sitting on my trolley. Which I, made me realise that, She has been She did tell me that she will come whether I’m aware or not. And she, then she, later on she told me that she did tell me that, Mum, you’re okay. Your operation went wel and she put some lavender oil on to my chest as well, on my hand, and made me smell it. And that normally calms me down. Which I’ve been doing it all along. I, and I did tell her that, It helps me So she held my hand and she carried on talking to me, Mum, you’ve done very well and they say the operation went well as well. And nothing serious, no serious went wrong. And it was normal procedure and it took about three hours to go through the operation. And everything is back to normal This is how much assuring she was for me. And the nurse said the same thing as well, The operation went well and nothing serious went wrong. And you are okay really now, for, for the time being. And see how it goes

So that, my daughter, she did sort of hypnosis on me and NLP [neuro-linguistic programming], assuring me that, that my body is doing well and I’m breathing well and operation went well. These were very assuring, these things, to know it. Like I didn’t feel it. Like I took, you take it for granted that you’re breathing. Which you do never consider that it’s something extra precious.

But you weren’t aware that your daughter was doing this? You were asleep, were you?

No, that was done, like she came after the operation. They allowed her to come in to see me, but I was not conscious.

So you said that she did some hypnosis, but you were asleep at that time.

I was asleep. And that’s what she told me. So I believe it helped me. Because these things do anyway, because it gave me feedback of that everything is okay. It registered in there. And the next morning I came up with it as well, all this stuff that I’m okay, like my own ideas and things. And my philosophy, you can call it, that the body is a mega-network of information and it’s a marvellous machine and it has got enormous healing power itself and that if you direct it, it helps you. So I was aware of it, all this, that it will help me. So I told myself once I woke up first thing that, The healing, you have to do yourself a little bit as well to help myself. And they’re helping me