Recovery following my lumpectomy….
My life has always been madly busy so ‘taking it easy’ was always going to be a challenge. I would describe myself as an ‘impatient patient’! It’s even more difficult when you are asymptomatic and, as far as I was aware, in good health so my recovery was all about the post-surgery healing. I heeded the advice to take regular pain relief and physically I managed well. Mentally, definitely a bigger challenge.
I had to endure the biggest test of strength, courage, hope, faith, belief, resilience and vulnerability. If my patience was tested in relation to my physical recovery, it was nothing compared to the agonising wait for results.
I was instructed to wear the surgical stockings for two weeks, only removing them to take a shower.
“Compression stockings are worn during and for a period after surgery to reduce the risk of blood clots forming in the veins of the legs. This risk of clot formation is increased after surgeries that involve cancer, repair of trauma or organs in the pelvis or lower abdomen. The stockings are also used during other types of surgery of an extended length arbitrarily three or four hours.
A normal individual lying in bed (whether awake or sleeping) periodically moves their legs. The action of the muscles in the legs squeezes and relaxes the veins promoting regular blood flow. When the person is less active, as when under the influence of anaesthesia or sedation, then the blood will tend to stagnate or pool. Under the special circumstances noted above, there is an increased risk of clot formation. These situations together with the decreased venous blood flow due to decreased action of the muscles places the patient at a greater risk for forming blood clots.
The formation of a blood clot itself is not as important as a possible subsequent event. In that event, a portion of the blood clot dislodges and passes through the bloodstream into the blood vessels of the lung. This event is known as a pulmonary embolus.”
They are therefore a necessary evil but extremely annoying!
Thankfully it was winter so I wore jogging bottoms most of the time, hiding the unattractive teal green stockings! As I’m sure you can imagine they become very itchy. They also have a hole on the sole of each one and after a while they lose their shape and you end up with your toes poking through and have to keep adjusting them. Apparently the holes are there to check the stockings are not too tight, and going to create a problem. Once the stocking is in place, the hole can be used to find the big toe. I have no idea if that’s true!
I also had to wear a bra 24 hours a day for the same length of time. I had purchased some post-surgery non-wired bras which made it more bearable. However, I did send my husband shopping one evening as I had been advised that it would be okay to wear a ‘sleep bra’ at night. He went to M&S and got me a couple of crop top bras which gave me a bit of relief at night times.
Exactly two weeks after my operation I attended my appointment with a nurse at my GP surgery to have my dressings removed. The dressing was left untouched for the whole of the two weeks. I had been advised that if it started to peel off just to put an additional dressing over the top of the original one.
Now, no matter what your expectations are, it is nerve-wracking for the ‘reveal’, something you would expect to be handled with compassion and sensitivity. Well, as I soon found out, you don’t always get what you expect.
As I wasn’t yet back to driving myself, my friend took me to the doctors surgery. She waited in the car park as she was not allowed to accompany me. My appointment was 11.50 am. I signed in at the reception desk at 11.45 am and waited to be called in. I guessed they were running late as we went past my appointment time. I appreciate that appointments sometimes run over and I don’t have an issue with that so I just waited resignedly. I’m sure I have also been that patient taking up a bit more of my allocated time slot at some point.
Eventually, at around 12.05 pm, my name came up on the digital screen and I found my way to the correct consultation room. The first thing the officious looking nurse very sternly said to me was “Close the door please” followed by “You do know your appointment was at 11.50 am don’t you?” No ‘Good morning’ or ‘How are you?’. I replied very calmly that I had actually checked in five minutes before my scheduled appointment time to which she replied “Oh I don’t know what they are doing out there…” meaning the reception staff. No apology for accusing me of not being on time. At this point I was close to tears as my nerves were already in pieces before going in so I was feeling far too fragile to confront anyone, let alone someone who had ‘barked’ at me the second I entered the room.
If I thought it was going to get better after we’d cleared up that little misunderstanding I was very much mistaken. The nurse asked me to ‘sit’ on the couch and undress my top half. She didn’t ask if I’d be more comfortable lying down (I definitely would have been) or attempt to cover me up at all and I felt very vulnerable sitting upright, naked from the waist up. She then proceeded to remove the dressing without any conversation to put me at ease and the only comment she made was that the hospital advice is to leave the steri-strips in place to come off in their own time. Not once did I see her smile. I just got dressed again and left. I’m sure at any other time this nurse would not have bothered me quite so much but I was full of anxiety and the experience really knocked me sideways.
By the time I left the surgery I was in tears and did not have the confidence to speak to any other members of staff about it. Whilst I totally appreciate the COVID safeguarding, having to leave via the back door would have meant going back in and speaking in front of people in the waiting room which put me off saying anything at the time.
I told a few friends and my family about this and they all said I should make an official complaint. I have been a patient at the surgery for over 32 years and have always been more than happy with the service I have received. I have nothing but good things to say about my GP and the rest of the team have always been helpful and professional. However, this situation was not okay for me or anyone else so I felt a responsibility to raise it and hope that it would avoid another patient receiving such an unprofessional and insensitive attitude.
This is a section of the email I sent to the Practice Manager:
“This was a really unpleasant experience for me. I am understandably anxious about the diagnosis, particularly as I lost my own mum to breast cancer and her diagnosis was at a younger age than myself. I was anxious about whether I would be sore and, just as importantly, what I was going to see once the dressing had been removed. I was absolutely astounded at the lack of patient care or concern. I would expect more compassion from anyone regarding my situation and the trauma of a cancer diagnosis but to be treated so disrespectfully and imperviously from a medical practitioner was quite shocking. I had been very complimentary about the NHS throughout my journey thus far. Everyone was so gentle and kind prior to this incident and I can’t think of a justifiable excuse for this.
I am not someone who would normally complain but I hate to think of other people being treated in this way. In hindsight I did think “what if I was a few minutes late?” (even though I wasn’t). There may have been a very valid reason for this – a late bus, being slower to get ready following surgery, any number of reasons, and this could have prompted a conversation to check that I was coping and that everything was okay. Contrarily, I have had several phone calls from both the Macmillan nurse and the specialist breast nurse at the Conquest following my surgery, checking in with me regularly.”
I finished the email by saying that if I needed to book an appointment in the future, which I’m sure I would do at some point, I would not want to be seen again by that particular nurse.
I was subsequently contacted by the Practice Manager. She commented that it was out of character for that member of staff but she acknowledged that this did not make it acceptable. First of all, my friend who works at the same surgery had already told me that this was not the case and it was actually very much how this particular nurse often is. Secondly, I can honestly say, whatever mood I might be in when I’m working, I like to think I always maintain professionalism and respect for others.
Nevertheless I received an apology from the practice manager and she also made a note on my records for me to not be allocated to that nurse in the future so that I wouldn’t have to explain my reasons to anyone when booking. I imagined this big red flag popping up each time I call – WARNING: Don’t upset this patient!
It may just be my imagination but I genuinely feel that when I ring up for anything these days the receptionists are all super nice on the phone! I’m sure that’s nothing to do with my complaint though. I do believe the world has more nice people in it than not. You can’t tar everyone with the same brush eh?
It’s a shame that I was faced with such a horrible ordeal after being so kindly cared for up to that point.
“Being compassionate is to look beyond your own pain, to see the pain of others” – Yasmin Mogahed
Hoping for a Happy Ever After 