After Monday’s bout of self-pity I woke up yesterday deciding to be more positive – resolved to put on a favourite dress, sparkly cardigan, some twinkly make up and a better attitude.

I had the busiest day since my operation. It was bright, sunny and warm, I was meeting my friend Jenny and her little Granddaughter Ruby in Chesham for coffee, so decided that I would walk down and that it would make sense to hang about in town, have lunch and then walk to the doctors for my mid-afternoon appointment.

Jenny and I had coffee, tea and a catch up at ‘The Little Orchard’, one of my new favourite cafés. Ruby had milk, snacks and a scrabble around, she is not quite crawling yet, very sweet little girl she is too! It was lovely to see Jenny, we have known each other for around ten years, when I was Belly Dancing we would travel together to class and to gigs with the student dance troupe ‘Anuket’.

After Jenny left to take Ruby home, I wandered around town, browsing in the shops until lunchtime, I bought a ‘meal deal’ and took it to Lowndes Park for a solitary picnic in the sunshine! As it is half-term there were lots of children and families out enjoying the fine weather. The ducks, geese and gulls are very well fed by the children so they weren’t interested in my sandwich, and I was really glad to sit down. At this point I realised that I had made a bad choice, I felt tired and sore, I should have got the bus home earlier, and tried driving to the Doctors. So I took a very slow walk up to the Surgery, arriving very early for the appointment but relishing the chance for a long sit down, I know I had over done it as I wasn’t even interested in reading, a most unusual occurrence.

My doctor wanted to sign me off work for another four weeks but I hope to be well enough to return sooner that this, so we agreed on two weeks and a prescription for Co-Codamol of my own so I don’t have to continue raiding Josh’s!

So the choice was call a taxi to take me home or walk, I had a long think about this and decided to walk as the surgery is half way home from town, the downside was that the remaining walk is all uphill. I just about managed to get home, make and drink a coffee before falling fast asleep for a couple of hours.

It was just the two of us at home in the evening, Ray didn’t feel like cooking, and I wasn’t up to it, so we decided to go out to eat, we went to The Bellcote, a new pub/restaurant on the road to Ashley Green.

So lesson learned – I am still being impatient with my progress, I need reminding that I have four operation sites and that they need time to heal, there is still significant bruising to my breasts and underarms. There is some remaining blue dye in my left breast, maybe it is taking longer to clear because this had the deeper lesion.

I do feel that Surgeons tend to be over optimistic in their estimations of recovery time. Last year I had surgery for a Detached Retina in my left eye, when I asked about recovery before the operation, the surgeon said I should be healed enough to be back at work after two weeks, but in reality the actual time was four weeks. I have heard varying times for recovery from having ‘Bilateral Wire Guided Wide Local Excision and Sentinel Node Biopsy’ so tried searching Google, but the results do not shed any light on it so I’m really still in the dark about what to expect.

Today has been a ‘Duvet Day’, apart from doing two loads of washing, emptying and re-loading the dishwasher, I have slept and relaxed. To be honest I feel very tired, and from the increasing tenderness and hardening under my right arm, I think I have another Seroma beginning to build up. I have my follow up appointment with the Surgeon tomorrow afternoon so will be able to get it checked out whilst I am there.

I phoned work and spoke to my Manager today, I was describing what had happened on Monday and about the cause and treatment of the Seroma but got a little carried away. I am never sure just how much information to give people, it is harder to judge on the phone if it is too much! Think I made him feel a bit squeamish, whoops! Must be more restrained in my descriptions in future 🙂

So my resolution for tomorrow is to take it easy, a short walk to post off my Sickness Certificate, to not to buy anything from the shops, to put on some happy music and have a go at finishing the Dream-catcher, or maybe just read.