It's on

We’re just back from Manchester & Wythenshawe Hospital. The op is on, probably next week even. I don’t think I would have believed I could be so relieved to hear that an op is going to take place. Mr Murphy, the surgeon, doesn’t foresee any problems. There is an outside chance of the loss of some muscle function immediately but physiotherapy should encourage the other muscles to the arm to compensate rapidly. What an improvement on arm amputation!

I just find myself wondering how many people in this area of England have died unnecessarily because they haven’t demanded a second opinion, or had the finances to cope with all these trips down to Manchester, people who have just accepted the local surgeon’s analysis of their situation & accepted that palliative care is the only option for them.

So now I’m trying to get myself into as good a state of health as possible – no mean thing when you consider I arrived at the hospital to be violently sick twice almost certainly due to food poisoning from our previous trip to Manchester – and avoid getting coronavirus or some other bug that might delay the op. I will have to go down again for pre-op assessment – I’m bemused by what they are going to do, here it takes about 20 minutes, there 2 hours.

Above all it’s wonderful to think there may be a successful end to all this worrying about cancer & we can get back to life again.