And then of course I got to the ward and was given a bed in this four-bedder by the window, and had to sign consent forms. Which always brings one up with a bit, quite a bit of a start when they start telling you the actual figures, that I didn’t really want to know, how likely I was to die from the anaesthetic or from the operation. And off I went. And five hours later, because apparently the operation took five hours, five or six hours, and I woke up with a terrible nasogastric tube, feeling like hell really, although quite relieved to be alive. And my family were all there and, I mean they were obviously very relieved to see me alive too [laugh].

But the next two weeks were just terrible. And I was in hospital for three and a half weeks, not the fourteen days which I thought I would be, at the, when I first went in. And I really hadn’t entertained the fact that I’d be so ill. And I, there were many times during those two, first two weeks particularly that (a) I wanted to die. I didn’t feel depressed about it, but just felt so ill I didn’t want to be there. I was retching and nauseated and I, certainly not everybody was in the ward because, but there was quite a lot of that going on and people feeling not at all well. And I couldn’t take any, many of the drugs to stop me vomiting and retching and feeling nauseated because I got side effects from them. I mainly had sort of Parkinsonian side effects, where I was shaking and just not feeling terrible; agitated. And so it was very difficult for me not to feel nauseated. And I didn’t eat anything or drink anything really for, for two weeks. I had a drip in. And it’s a very funny sensation to feel you want to die even though you’re not depressed, and something I’ve never experienced before. And, you know, you’d go to sleep for a little bit, because I hardly slept, and think, Well, at least tomorrow I’ll feel a little bit better when I wake up. And then you’d wake up and not feel any better. And it’s very difficult to describe, and I can’t almost remember where those days went to. I’m sure it’s just as well. It’s rather like having a baby, when you, there’s a lot of pain, you actually somehow forget about it. You know, you say, at the time you hear people saying, and I’m sure I said it, I’m never going to do this again. And then, you know, two or three years later you’ll have another baby, and as the pain starts you remember how awful it was the last time. [laugh] And I quite frequently felt, Gosh, I just wish I hadn’t done this operation. I wished I’d… That’s when I really felt I’d rather just have seen what happened. And that wasn’t my rational self speaking, but it was just how I felt really.

As I say, it was a long operation. Ten hours. Once they’ve done the operation, I was taken to High Dependency for 24 hours, well, Intensive Care really. And when, you, you have a lot of tubes and drips and drains attached to you. I had tubes in my neck which they could draw blood off for tests, regularly. I had drips in both hands. I had a catheter in, two drains in my abdomen to get rid of all the excess fluid following the operation, and a big, big dressing on my abdomen.

I mean it, you, it feels like you’ve been hit by a train basically. I found it very, very difficult to move. I couldn’t even pull myself up in bed. You feel very, very drained basically. You, you know, it’s very difficult to, to be alert and know what’s going on around you, you just kind of sleep through it for the first 48 hours. It wasn’t, I didn’t find it particularly painful. They did have me on a morphine pump, which I could press whenever I needed it. But I didn’t use it very often. And I did actually get told off once or twice, because I was told, you know, You must use it, you must use it. You need it And I said, But I, I haven’t got pain So I wasn’t worried about that. It was more the moving that, I didn’t like it. They got me out of bed the next day and that was very, very hard. Standing up was, was very difficult and I couldn’t stay upright for long.

Did you have an epidural as well to control pain?

I didn’t actually. I should have had, but a tablet had been given to me too late the night before. So the anaesthetist decided just to put me on the morphine pump instead. He had me agree to it first, you know, made sure I was okay with it, which I was. Which actually I was quite relieved about because I didn’t like the idea of an epidural in my back. So when he said a morphine pump I was like, Yes, that’s fine. I’m okay with that

Again it was difficult in the intensive care unit, because I was conscious throughout, and strange places, intensive care units. Especially being awake because it’s very, very noisy, so noisy, there were six bays there and you’ve got a nurse, one to one on you. And you’ve got the consultant who’s in, and the anaesthetist.

And you’ve got the tube into your neck, but, more noisy at night when you go to sleep, the noise seems to get tenfold more noisy. But it isn’t, it’s just I think your ears become more attuned to the noise, so I couldn’t, I just couldn’t sleep very well. And when I did sleep I had terrible nightmares.

Did you?

Yes and I think again, it’s probably, that was probably the effect of the anaesthetic. Again I did see the surgeon the day afterwards. The surgery it had gone well, although it was described that I’d had a small bleed, they’d nicked the aorta, which on reflection and looking back now, obviously there’d been a point in surgery where it had been manic, and I think I’d had I don’t know how many units of blood, but it had taken some while to bring that back under control. So again I think the pancreas is wrapped around the aorta.

Yes, intensive care was hard, it really was hard again. The physio team were, I guess were very good. And again I think more modern nursing that, on the first day after surgery I was out of bed, and they got me up on my feet and I wouldn’t say got me walking. I couldn’t walk. It, it was just, I felt like 150 years old, and that walking one step was like walking the first step on the moon. It was just unbelievable; I just, as if somebody had sucked every piece of energy out of you.

And then, what I thought I’d do then is to give Cathy a treat, make her see I was well, I said to them, don’t put me back in bed yet, put me in the chair beside the bed. And then when Cathy comes to see me she’ll see me out of bed and it will give her a boost

What I didn’t realise was she was going to be three hours late. And I stayed in the chair. When she arrived I’d slid down the chair, and I was literally knocked out. But I stayed there until she arrived and then I got back in bed and I think I did go to sleep.

it’s just kinds of things you do.

How long were you in intensive care?

I think five days, I think I was in there a little bit longer because I think I did the, through the surgery date. I think I had the surgery on either the Wednesday or the Thursday. And then they don’t tend to do many operations on a, on a week, well they don’t do operations on a weekend, unless it’s an emergency. So once I was in there the weekend went by, whereas otherwise, I would have come out earlier if it had been five working days so to speak.

What was it like on the ward?

Very quiet. The ward that I was in it was very, very quiet and I think everyone was just much the same boat as myself, just getting over the operations. And there was one lady in particular she wasn’t well at all. And on the, the, on the whole it was quite good, we were all more or less read our magazines and books.

It was quite a quiet ward.

And how long was it before you could start walking around, get to the bathroom on your own?

I would say nearly a week. I was, I was actually on the Zimmer and I had tubes coming from various places and you can be very careful when you’re going to the toilet. But that was within a week I was going to toilet myself.

I’m quite a, an independent person. And I like to do things for myself.

And the nurses were always busy.

Really.

Really, oh yes, always busy. And they didn’t have much time to their self, I felt vexed for them sometimes.

What was the nursing care like?

It was very good.

Oh they were very nice. The nurses were all very good.

And what about communication with the doctors at that stage?

Well most of the doctors came round every morning and your own doctor, they maybe come round with them and spoke to you and checked your wound and said you’re doing fine. And the nurses dressed them every day, dressed the wounds every day and the, the doctors came, as I say, the doctors came round every day and examined you and said, You’re doing fine and you’ll be up on your feet and doing your running around the wards shortl. Well, I used to be a runner anyway so I, that put me at ease.

And did you have physiotherapy in hospital?

Yes, well, the, the physiotherapist came to see me and they tried to get me up out of bed. Apparently I had fluid in my lungs because I was lying so long. And they got, they got me up and standing up. I couldn’t have stood up myself. And then after a couple of days they brought one of the little frames that, to, to support me. But after a day, I didn’t need that. I went for a walk along the ward, just back maybe 20 feet or so. I did that for a couple of days and then I got better and better and I went out to the corridors. And the physiotherapist came a couple of times, and then they said that I was progressing but I, before I got home I would have to go up and down the stair. Which they, they supported me and then I was able to do it myself after that. So these were little things that, that helped in the recuperation period.

So how long were you in hospital altogether?

I believe it was, the, both hospitals?

After the operation?

After the operation was roughly three weeks. Roughly three weeks I was out.

What was it like coming home?

Oh it was lovely to come home, be in your own bed, but I’m a very active person really, I couldn’t believe how weak I was I’d lay on that settee for about 2 weeks. I always got dressed and I never stayed in my pyjamas but I found a shower, still now when I have a shower it comes over me, I think, Oh I could hardlyrdquo;, it just used to wear me out just to have a shower, you don’t, you can’t imagine it can, you don’t know what it’s like. And my neighbour persuaded me after about a fortnight to just walk down the drive, it was a nice sunny day, it would be March I suppose and she just said just come, I think thought I was going to be stuck there forever, you know, I’d got no incentive at all to do anything. My first real trip out was to a, which I thought was rather apt really, was to, there was a mothers day service at my grand-daughter’s school so that was nice and then on the Sunday we went to a mothers day lunch and I managed that alright so. That was my first, first trips out.

Did the district nurse or any nurse call at all?

Yes, I had a lot of attention from the doctor and nurses came to take blood pressure and do dressings and keep an eye on this PEG thing that I’d got in my, they kept that in for quite a while and then when I went to see the surgeon afterwards he took it out.

Yes, the surgery was quite lengthy. It was, it was about five hours. I had, my tumour was sited in the body of my pancreas, so I had 80% per cent of my pancreas removed along with the spleen in, in the one operation. And that’s called a distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy. And that operation went very well. The consultant surgeon got out all the tumour that he could see, and the histology came back that it was an adenocarcinoma in the body of the pancreas and one lymph node, node was affected. So I recovered pretty well actually from the surgery. I think probably because of my age and also I was relatively fit before I went in with all of this. So I was up and about pretty quickly and I was out of hospital within ten days.

Did you have an epidural?

Yes, yes. But I wasn’t in any pain. And they weaned me off the painkillers actually pretty quickly. And remarkably at the end of it I was sent home with paracetamol. So even though I had a wound which pulled and, you know, the discomfort that that caused, the, the, the actual searing pain that I had before was gone. I was like a new woman. So that, that was, that was brilliant.

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.