The yellow sticker

I have the BRCA 2 gene meaning I have a much higher chance of getting some cancers, including the silent killer Ovarian Cancer, that killed Nangie. I had a double Mastectomy in 2017 which has resulted in me having two party tricks.

1) If I place a torch on the side of my boob when it is dark they fully glow up bright pink/red

2) They don’t move. I can jump up and down, wear braless tops, possibly do a handstand. Still exactly where they were.

I knew I had to have some sort of surgery involving Ovaries etc lowering my cancer risk, early forties. So I did.

I was booked in early and honestly had the best time, yes they had given me exceptionally wonderful pain meds, but also I was given a team of just fabulous people. Every single nurse, carer, Dr was simply fantastic.

When getting prepared to go to theatre I had the usual checks, including ‘do you fall over a lot?’. “Nope, no I don’t”.

Shortly after I remember coming out of ‘recovery’ on a wheeled bed surrounded by several staff members and feeling just marvellous. I waved ‘like the Queen’ at every other patient minding their own business recovering peacefully in their room, occasionally informing them loudly with exasperated relief that I was in fact alive and that my Ovaries and Fallopian tubes had been removed.

We arrived at my room and they spun my bed around. I don’t remember this very clearly, but my husband does. A nurse said ‘we are going to go back into your room now’

“BEEP BEEP BEEP THIS BED IS REVERSING BEEP BEEP BEEP THIS BED IS REVERSING”. Yes, I was a robot bed.

I have had a few operations where you have to wear the stockings and have the blood thinning injections regularly, I did not like them. I need not have worried. ‘Would you like to try out these leg massagers? They reduce the risk of blood clots. So NO injections. YES PLEASE. They wrapped them round each leg separately and set them on massage mode - so so nice. They later came in to see if I ‘was bored of them’. Absolutely not. I felt like I had been taken to some exclusive spa where I was the only guest, and they fed you beautiful food and came in with syringes full of Oralmorph and every staff member was super smiley and happy.

I had a lovely time.

Oh, the yellow sticker. As I was leaving I noticed this yellow sticker on my door. I asked my husband why I had a yellow sticker. He told me that after I had said no to falling over he explained to the nurse that I had in fact fallen off my child’s scooter a few months previously and gauged half my knee flesh out, then subsequently fallen/tripped several times after that and made it re-bleed. The yellow sticker was warning them that I was a liability.

BEEP BEEP BEEP