It's the steroids
"It's the steroids"
My hospital stay and operation, December 2011
Date: 1/13/2012 11:59:14 AM ( 12 y ) ... viewed 2185 times The occupation of France during WWII gave rise to a saying "c'est la guerre": "it's the war"... people still use it to console one another about those things in life that they can't change.
For me, instead of "c'est la guerre", "it's the steroids"... for instance, some Persil-white patches have appeared on my ageing teeth, and at first I thought they were the white yeast candida albicans which lives in the digestive tract.
But they wouldn't brush off with my electric toothbrush, and so I concluded that they weren't yeast and that my teeth were going to powder. Otherwise known as osteoporosis. A side effect of the steroids.
Fortunately I'm now on a reducing dose, so in a few weeks I won't be taking the steroids any more. But it's has been such fun blaming everything on the steroids that I'll probably continue to do it, just for a joke: "it's the steroids".
The steroids were my gastroenterologist's attempt to cure my colon, which had been inflamed for two years and was causing me up to 21 bowel movements per 24 hours. I needed a high dose direct into my bloodstream 4 times a day, so I was admitted to Ysbyty Gwynedd.
The steroids worked a bit, and my bathroom visits were halved. But it wasn't enough to guarantee that part of my colon wouldn't puff up into a balloon and burst, which might be fatal for me.
So Mr. Abdullah the surgeon came and sat on the foot of my bed and tried to soften me up to allow him to take my colon out.
If I hadn't known Mr. Abdullah was a surgeon, his hands would have given him away. When he felt my abdomen his hands advanced over it with little snipping movements like a pair of shears effortlessly cutting silk.
I don't know why I was so resistant to an operation. I told myself at the outset to have an open mind about it, but in reality my mind only opened a small crack.
I think it was partly a doubt about living without one of my bodily bits and pieces. And partly a pig-headed determination to hold out until 21 December 2012 when, according to the Mayan prophecy, diseased bodies will begin to undergo a mending process.
But that was a whole year away. I wished I could put on seven-league boots and stride over the chasm of time that separated me from that special date. But the chasm seemed very wide, the time very long.
At seven o'clock the following evening, Mr. Abdullah appeared again together with my gastroenterologist, Mr. Gasem. Mr. Gasem explained that I was in an ideal state to operate on because of the good work the steroids had done by partly reducing my colon's inflammation.
What he didn't tell me is that he had the operation, if I accepted it, lined up for the very next day just after midday.
I told him I'd give him my decision after discussing it with my husband, whom I summoned to my bedside that evening on his mobile after he came out of the Spiritualist church service in Dean Street, Bangor.
George's first reaction was to glance over at a nurse who was standing near my bed, and say to me "ask her whether the operation can be fitted in before we leave for our holiday in Tenerife". The holiday was eleven days away.
But I squashed his idea, saying it was impossible because Mr. Abdullah had told me the recovery period in hospital would be two weeks or more.
After much more discussion where I only seemed to be leading George around in circles, I concluded that the decision had been made for me and that it was "no" because the operation clashed with the holiday that had already been booked. George went home.
Although the decision had been "made", the problem itself was still rearing its ugly head. Could I really run away like this from an illness that responded weakly to medications and might suddenly get much more serious?
I had sat through so many Spiritualist church services, and so many times I had heard the medium say while delivering the philosophy, "when you have a problem, don't try to deal with it yourself. Hand it over to your Spirit helpers".
So that is what I did. It was only a matter of deciding which Spirit helpers to entrust the problem to. I could have simply stated the problem and asked for a suitably qualified helper to pick it up. But this was one of those problems whose outcome affects your life for many years to come, so I felt I needed to be more specific than that.
At the same time the problem was very finely balanced. Think of it like a toy sailing boat on a pond on a very still day. Just by blowing gently on the sails the child can send the boat to one side of the pond or the other, meaning in my case saying "yes" or "no" to the operation. So above all, it called for a spirit helper whom I could trust to know what they were doing.
My spirit helpers whom I trust most, because I trust them with my life, are my father-in-law, who has been keeping me company from Spirit for about six years, and my mother-in-law who joined him in Spirit last year. So my choice naturally fell upon them.
I told them I was handing the entire situation over to them. Now it was no longer a problem, but a challenge: a challenge for them to rise to.
As my six-bed bay settled down to sleep for the night, I asked my helpers to meet with me during my sleep so I could talk the situation through with them over a cup of tea in our usual meeting-place, a citrine quartz cave. The cave looks like this:
http://curezone.com/ig/i_edit.asp?i=55576
Although it is deep in the earth, the crystals are self-powered and they all sparkle with light when we go in. There is some simple furniture: a velvet floorcovering, velvet upholstered chairs and a little table with a velvet table cloth to put the cups of tea on.
With all the weight now off my shoulders, I drifted off to sleep as peacefully as a baby.
I awoke at 4 a.m. for no apparent reason. I was wide awake and knew I would not be able to go back to sleep. As I lay there motionless, my rectum felt like a sewer, running non-stop. I had to admit to myself that I was very ill.
Radiant energy was streaming from my abdomen, site of my diseased colon. It was like the "bleep, bleep" of a mobile phone alert when a message has come in. I listened to the message and it was just three words: "Yes. Yes. Yes."
Following the meeting with my helpers, which I didn't remember, they were telling me it was safe for me to have the operation. I accepted without question.
That morning, Mr. Abdullah's co-surgeon brought me the consent form to sign and it was he who delivered my big surprise. The recovery period for my particular operation would be ten days to two weeks.
Now I knew I would be able to go on holiday after all. My spirit helpers must have known this all along. I'm so happy I didn't try to handle my problem myself.
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