My garden early this morning – the tranquillity is healing

The clips are out! I am on one crutch! I can walk to the shops! I have been to the cinema! I have turned the corner…

Mind you my bum/thigh looks like a Kim Kardashian special. Hope it’s not permanent or I will be lop-sided!

Kim Kardashian or jamon Iberico?

That is not to say that the last two weeks have been easy-peasy. They have not! First the excruciating pain continued for at least 10 days, nothing, not even oxycontin (a secret stash from my sarcoma treatment), helped.

Many hours spent thus

Then the wound oozed continually, necessitating a couple of dressing changes. Enter UCLH wound nurse specialist Lucy who kept me sane and reassured me during this period that I was doing well and all was normal (infection is the danger). No District Nurse or any other support on offer. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be old and unsure of what to do, lacking in mobility – or money – to get to the GP or hospital.

Then suddenly the day before the clips are due out, the pain changes into a dull ache and I feel much more mobile (I have of course been religiously doing all the exercises).

So here I am today 14 days on, feeling more sprightly despite the continuing ache, especially at night (still have to sleep on my back) and  the torture of pressure stockings for another fortnight. Yesterday two and a half hours at the hospital for Lucy to reassuringly remove the clips, before having a session with the physio, so I am armed with a new set of exercises. I have hydrotherapy to look forward to, and I am starting acupuncture again next week.

Supporting me through this I have had a bevy of girlfriends – Cousin Christine, Saint Cindy, Dr Mandy, Catherine P and Lucille all cooking, chatting and staying as required. You certainly need someone with you for the first 10-14 days to help with the stockings, cook and carry. Not forgetting Pickle, the guardian of the wound…In case you ask, Ross has been working away during the week but he puts in the weekend roster.

Christine with her saffron chicken salad

Cindy preparing home-grown beetroot and sweet potato curry

The physio asked me what my health objectives were. ‘To be skiing by January, scuba diving next summer but first of all to get on that plane to Barbados at the end of August for a week of aqua therapy.’ Bring it on!

Pickle, the sentinel

Author: vickyunwin

I am a writer and traveller. Our darling daughter Louise died on 2 March 2011, aged 21 (www.louisecattell.com) and I started writing as therapy. We never know how long we have on this earth, so I live for every day...in November 2013 I was diagnosed and operated on for a malignant soft tissue sarcoma in the calf, followed by 6.5 weeks of radiotherapy, so am embarking on a different kind of journey which you can follow here. I also have another site www.healthylivingwithcancer.co with my blueprint for health and well-being.