I had to be very supported of course on the left breast with the arm, I wasn’t allowed to move the arm or do anything. And that was quite, really quite difficult to remember. And the nurses were forever saying, “Jane, don’t move that, don’t do that. Don’t pick up anything with it, just keep it there still.” And that was really difficult to remember to do.
The other thing they kept telling me was not to cross my legs in the bed, which is another thing that’s really difficult to remember not to do. But they were absolutely terrific. Everybody says it but it’s a truism, but they were, they were really lovely. And nothing was too much trouble. And I wanted to go to the toilet fairly on and they, they were so good about, even though I was pretty frail, and they were so good about sort of tipping me into a commode type chair and pushing me along to the loo, even though I could barely comfortably sit up straight. I wanted to go the loo, I wanted to try to go to the loo, so they took me and I thought that was very impressive.
After that I think it was fairly textbook like after that. They took the drains out one day. They took more drains out the next day. They took a catheter out on schedule. People came and visited me. I sat in a chair for about three hours on about day three I think and I felt quite woozy. I was very glad to get back to bed after three hours in a chair. But I was glad I got, and I had some visitors then too.
I was not eating very much. I wasn’t very keen on food. I was, didn’t, I felt, I felt OK, the breast felt all right. The breast didn’t feel strange. It felt stranger much later on actually. At that point I was barely conscious of it. What else happened?
By, I suppose by, I had a little weepy spell about four days after the op. After lunch one day slightly weepy for no good reason whatsoever. Again that might have been the anaesthetic, I don’t know, wearing off. But I did feel, but once I’d sort of sat there and moped for about a couple of hours and thought, “Oh I feel weepy,” then it kind of slowly dissipated and I never felt like that again. So that was fine. And I just went up and up after that. I felt quite jolly.
I had a lady next to me, they put two of us together who’d had the op on the same day, so there’s a certain amount of competition about who could do what first. And I got my hair washed before she got her hair washed so that [laughs] that’s sparked us on. That was another really nice nurse thing that she came and took me away and washed my hair even though probably it was not the best thing to do. But I wanted it washed so she washed it and that was fine.
I got out a day earlier than they thought I would get out. I got out, they said I would be a week and in fact it was the sixth day when, the evening before they thought I needed more blood because some sort of count had dipped down but in fact I suspect I didn’t. But anyway I had these two pints of blood and after that I just, there was no stopping me. I felt absolutely full of beans and the next morning the physiotherapist came round and said, “Oh, well I’ve got to see if you can walk up the stairs.” And I did walk up the stairs, no problem. And so then they said, “Oh well, OK, ring your husband, you can go home.” And that was a really nice surprise because I wasn’t expecting to do it for another 24 hours.
