Cervical Cancer

I was very, very surprised. They gave me an epidural for I think about 24 hours and so I didn't have any pain at all and then after that again they were giving me pain killers but I didn't actually feel the need for it. I think I was very surprised at how numb my abdomen had become and I just think a nice blessing seems to be I have a body that seems to numb itself. So it actually wasn't half as painful and half as difficult as I expected the operation to be.

Going back to work again, I wish I'd gone back part time. I did go and see the occupational therapist but I thought I was going to be fine. And I'd had three months and one week off but I was so tired after the first day, the first full day. I also felt a bit guilty that I'd had too long off but the advice I'd give is don't feel like that because you really don't want to rush back as soon as you can sit at your desk. You, it was psychological as well as physical getting better. And so the fact that the last month I was going out on my bike during the day, I needed that to get stronger because like I say after the first day at work which is an office job I had the following day off as annual leave because I was just so tired. I should really have gone back, phased going back, I should have done like four hours a day for a week, that kind of thing, but I didn't I went back full time.
 

I went back to work full time. I started from home because I had a very understanding employer and I started from home sort of part time and then I went back to the office part time but worked full time some from home and then in the October, I had the operation at the end of May, in October I went back to the office full time. But I was in a terrible amount of pain and I don't know why I put myself through it now because I should have realised I'm on sort of maximum doses of pain killers and in agony all the time but determined to get on and do my job and ignore it. 

I went back to the consultant and she recommended some treatment, which was a sort of heat treatment thing called Curapuls. I went to the local Physiotherapy Department for that quite close by. And they warned me that might make it feel worse to start with which it did. It made it feel a lot worse but it didn't start feeling better so in the end I stopped that before the end of the treatment because it was just too much for me. 

But around that time I actually rang up one of my colleagues in the morning and said I couldn't come into work that day and she sort of made me realise that I was going on too much and so I actually had to take another six weeks off sick leave from work. Because the first time, when I had my operation the company were very good and kept me on full pay which was wonderful but on the other hand I felt very much obliged to get back to work as soon as possible so the second time I actually took sick leave which meant the pressure was off a bit. 

Following that I arranged to work, I set up an office from home and I arranged to work from home more or less all the time rather than try and go into the office. I went in two days a week instead of five days a week and that helped because I found, even now driving is one of the things that really brings on the pain and it's a very hard thing to understand unless you're familiar with pain cycles. If you do it one day it's fine you can cope with it, if you have to do something like that three days in a row it builds up and then takes quite a while to subside again so it's a question of managing it really. As I say even now nearly eight years later if I overdo it, I get really bad pain again which is very distressing after all this time because you think you're over it and then it brings it all back again. 

I have used a TENS unit actually for the pain which has been very helpful, do you know what that is?

Tens?

It stands for, what does it stand for, it's something subcutaneous nerve or whatever. Tens TENS that's initials. What is it is little electrodes, a battery, little electrodes which vibrate. Basically even though it's scientifically accepted it actually works sort of like acupuncture principal in a way and it does for some reason it vibrates the nerve endings and manages to relieve the pain. People use it for back pain a lot as well.

Where did you find out about that?

I had read about it, I had, over my sort of search for help I had contact with all sorts of people. There's a Pain Association and they sent me a lot of information which was probably where I heard about that. When I went to pain clinic they went through all these various things further injections which was one of the options which I didn't want to take up and drugs as well. I mean I don't want to keep on taking pain killers all the time obviously. This was one of the things they suggested, I tried it and it actually left me with it to use when I need which is great. 

So I arranged a holiday just with my husband, going to Tuscany, doing a bit of sightseeing and walking as part of a group. And I'd started going back to the gym after the operation, obviously gradually, and I was doing OK, although my left leg was, it stiffened up when I did exercise. And I told the consultant and he said 'Oh well it could be that your channels are finding new ways,' but he said 'It'll get better.' So I didn't worry too much, or find out very much. And I went on this holiday and it involved doing some walking, obviously and no sooner had I set off walking and my leg began to hurt and over the period of the week, well over a few days it really expanded and it was painful and it was very, it was like it weighed twice as much as the other one. And it made walking difficult, and I didn't know what it was, and so yes I was worried that it was cancer. I just didn't know why it had swollen up so much and it was really tight because it had swollen the skin was really tight, my muscles were tight and I was miserable. And I didn't tell the other people on holiday I'd had cervical cancer because I didn't want to be treated differently. And so I came back from that holiday, which wasn't a holiday. I wanted it to increase my confidence so that I felt like I was getting back to my normal life and I was sort of "normal", and it just did the opposite, it took away my confidence. And I had my normal appointment with the consultant a few days after I came back from holiday and he said 'Oh yes it's the lymph fluid that's collecting there, I'll take it out.' And so he inserted a needle, which wasn't painful, gave me a little local anaesthetic and took out about a coffee cup full of fluid which I'd had in me from going on holiday, which had blocked the whole lymphatic drainage system. So no wonder my leg had swelled up. But I didn't know that, no one had explained to me that this was happening.

I also went to my own GP and said 'my leg has got stiff I'm having problems with it.' And he said 'I'll send you to physiotherapy.' Now the local hospital just down the road contacted me within a few days and made an appointment for me. And they said 'Oh yes, its your lymphatic drainage,' because I told them about having the fluid out and 'We need to massage it,' and I was then going twice a week. But by then I was back to work, so it wasn't easy to go twice a week. I went twice a week for about four weeks and they taught me how to do my own massage, but not lymphatic massage, that's a different thing. It was actually just fairly, fairly vigorous massage but with the onus on going upwards and trying to get the fluid here moving around my body and not accumulating and causing a blockage, like plumbing, they did explain that. And it was good to go really, it did make a difference. And then I went down to see them once a week and I don't go anymore now. I was taught how to do that myself. But at the same time I was waiting to see the lymph nurse and it ended up being about two months. I went to see her and she said well I would need some support stockings, well really just one for my left leg, which compresses your leg and helps the drainage.