Remember your training!

Tuesday and Wednesday this week were a little depressing. After having the catheter rovednd having the joy of peeing normally, on Tuesday everything went a bit sideways. I found that I was getting the urge to pee every 15 minutes and that whenever i went to the loo, it was painful. On Wednesday, I woke up feeling as if I'd got a really bad cold: the fuzziest of brains, the feeling I was cold despite having a 'normal' temperature and the persistence of that urge to pee constantly along with the associated pain. This was not the recovery I envisioned!

I ended up laying down at 10pm last night slept through to 5:30, had a pee (pain free) and went back to bed. Being someone who often only gets four and a half to five hours sleep, sleping through to 7:20 in the end was unheard of! While laid in bed at 5:30 and about to drift off, I was reminded of some things in my OU course from all that time ago: healing is not linear and health is not binary (healthy or ill).

Whilst I had barely been inconvenienced by the surgery, any procedure has consequences for how we feel post-operatively.In my mind, having the catheter fitted after to op was a negative, something that meant I was still ill. Of course, it means nothing of the sort when one consiideres what is happening: I was definitely better than when I went into theatre, just not quite the same. Upon removal of the catheter I felt bouyed, but the reaction of my bladder the day after brought me down.

This where I needed to lecture myself: recovery is not described by a straight line graph. Recovery consists of wins, losses and plateaus where one's state doesn't change for a while. It is a very crooked graph. This true also of 'healthiness'. Having had zero symptoms before the tumour was found apart from blood in the pee for a couple of days, I would have considered myself pretty healthy. In fact I wasn't and, after it's removal, I should be healthier than I was! Except of course, I feel a bit crap currently. Overall, I know I am healthy apart from side effects of the treatment, But I can live with them while I carry on healing. I am on a continuum where illness is at one end and health at the other and, while I may not be up there at 100% healthy, I know I can deal with it and things will get better.