If there is one piece of advice I would give someone heading into spinal surgery, or any surgery in fact, it’s always pack for more. My neurosurgeon told me it would be an overnight stay and I’d head out the following day. Thankfully a friend of mine told me to take a bag of extras “just in case”. Boy am I glad I did. That ‘overnight stay’ became 4 nights of hell, and I only left because I begged to get out.

As I put the gown on and pulled up my sexy compression socks I wasn’t that nervous for the surgery at hand; actually strangely calm. In my mind I was having a non-invasive procedure where they would cut out the part of the disc that had decided to squidge out and sew me back together…job done. Wheeling into theatre the nerves kicked in a little more but mainly due to the fact that during these Covid times they knock you out in the theatre itself; next to the bed you’re about to be sliced open on. If I knew now how the recovery would be I would of been a hell of lot more nervous…so I guess its good I didn’t!

Something you’ll learn about me as we go through this blog is that I don’t hide from the truth. If you don’t want an honest open tale I wouldn’t continue, but the things that have happened to me this year are not taboo and shouldn’t be sheltered away. One thing that wasn’t told to me pre-surgery was the fact that post-surgery I wasn’t going to be allowed to move. I figured if I’m leaving next day, then getting up to use the loo wouldn’t be an issue…until I told the nurse that I needed a wee and she brought me back a bed pan. Now, I was absolutely off my rocker on pain medication so I thought she was having a joke. Turns out they don’t tend to joke about that sort of thing and that was going to be mode of urination for the next 4 days. What they hadn’t quite anticipated is that this girl drinks 4 litres of water a day and those bed pans are pretty darn small…oh yes we hit overflow city.

You may be thinking well what about the other end? Coming from someone who can’t even take a shit with someone in the next room, there was absolutely zero chance of that happening whilst sharing a ward with 6 other patients and a bed pan placed underneath me. They would come round with laxatives everyday to try and force it to happen until day three when I’d had enough and through the laxative across the room (I blame the drugs).

The reason why my overnight stay became a 4 day bender was for one reason only…pain. I have a very high pain threshold but there was no concoction of drugs that they could find that would tap into it and allowed me to get up. I was only allowed to leave if I could get out of bed and the pain reduced to a 5, but every time I tried we were hitting the 9’s. IV Morphine, Methadone, Dihydrocodeine, IV Paracetamol, Oxycodone and liquid Morphine squirted into my mouth wouldn’t touch the sides and by day three I couldn’t take it anymore and completely broke down. If listening to the drug addict next to you screaming all night long, the nurses telling the patient to your left to “bow down” whilst clearly the laxatives are working for her, the patient opposite asking for a new pillow every hour, Miss Yoga pants in the corner showing off her flexibility while you’re unable to move and the guy opposite her who clearly never wanted to close his gown wasn’t enough to make me lose my mind, not finding a painkiller was. Eventually we settled with Tramadol and Diazepam, and by day 4 I was able to take my first steps. Being able to feel the floor underneath my foot again (albeit still very numb) and walk forward without the significant limp drag I was absolutely elated. By that point though there was categorically no way I was staying in that ward another night, especially in the 28oC heatwave the UK was having, so I used my first few steps to walk up to the nurses desk and tell them I was leaving.

I don’t remember much of the two weeks post being home, apart from shouting “I LOVE MARMITE” to my Mum as she sat with me trying to do an Ocado order. But what I do remember was for the first time I actually listened to my body. I did and still do to this day do exactly what my physio tells me. I swapped training for walking; I for the first time stopped being a busy body and let everyone else help me and I never pushed myself too soon. Recovery post op went very smooth. It’ll still be a long time until I’m back lifting weights again and my training will always be adapted but I am happy with the progress we have made. Unfortunately, after receiving my new diagnosis and currently undergoing the treatment I am, progress has slowed but I won’t let it stop me and I won’t let it ruin me. And that’s Cancer.