Pork Chop

Hello everyone,

So, my first eye has now been choppy chopped up and is healing nicely. It's continued to be an immensely frustrating process but today was the day when I finally felt like I'd actually got somewhere. EYEBALL PARTY. It's a long story. I'll try and tell it but I have no snacks and snacks are the only thing that get me through. SEND ME YOUR MENTAL SNACKS MO FO IN MOFOS. Now I'm just imagining showing a Monster Munch in my ear and if I could get a whole one in before my earhole (not the technical term, I'm sure) filled up. WHAT IS THE GREATER VOLUME ONE SQUASHED CRISP OR MY AVERAGE SIZED EAR I guess we'll never know because I am not wasting a whole crisp on finding out.

Back to the program brain, come on lightning chips. I travelled up to Sheffield on the day before my surgery and spent the day playing mini golf and enjoying my last day of facial glitter for quite some time. And eating like a pig because I wasn't allowed food from midnight onwards. I rolled up to hospital at quarter to nine suitably dehydrated and hungry and waited in the main reception with a very frustrated girl in her pyjamas (her surgery got cancelled, sad face) while enjoying a surprisingly jazzy 80s playlist. Eventually I was brought through and the looooong, drawn out day could begin.

I was weighed and blooded and all that usual shit (plus a bonus pregnancy test because they never believe I'm not a slut) and I was given my sexy surgery outfit and put into a little sideroom. Here's a bonus picture of my notes LOOK AT THE GIRTH ON THOSE PHWOARRRRRR.

(I hope you're prepared for the least flattering photo of me in existence in a minute, just warning you in case you currently fancy me because you will not in a second)

I met various people including my anaesthetist (who told me to great relief that I could still go ahead with my surgery despite my snotty cold) and my surgeon who was a lady (WOOHOO FEMINISM). They made a bit of a hoo har about me travelling so far back to Luton afterwards but eventually they relented. I want to sleep in my own fucking bed. Can't put a price on that shit.

It was then time to mark me up and prepare me (by this point I'd been there for a few hours and was rather tetchy and hungry, I think I was hallucinating bagels). I had a special drop in one eye (see below unflattering photo of crazy pupil) and they marked the choppy choppy eye (despite this being the one time they can operate on the wrong side and it would be completely fine). Also got my special bracelet and my canula to fill me with drugs to knock me out.

(bonus picture of my legs in sexy surgical socks, try to not wank too much)

Eventually they called me into surgery and I walked into the operating theatre. There were a surprisingly large amount of people, I imagined it would be just me and a surgeon and a nurse, but no, I'M AN EXTROVERT I NEED ALL THE ATTENTION. The last thing I remember saying is the surgeon asking me what I was having and me replying EYEBALL CHOPPY CHOPPY and him laughing. Then I was gone. Gone like the wind.

A couple of hours later I woke up and was pleasantly surprised to find out I wasn't dead. I sort of drifted in and out for a little while as I remembered that not only was I alive but soon I could EAT SOME MOTHERFUCKING FOOD. I got moved to a recovery room (with two old men of course) and got my bag back and ate my amazing emergency crisps. Best fucking bag of crisps I've ever eaten. They hit the spot good and bloody proper.

It was soon confirmed that all had gone well and they begun the discharge process. Of course they'd forgotten to book my follow up appointment (had to phone up the next day and argue) but aside from being a slow day it was good and I left feeling good. Here's me with my eye patch (AND NO MAKE UP SHOCK HORROR) on the train home-

At first it wasn't really sore or bruised at all, the main problem was being extremely light sensitive and the massive difference in my reading ability in the eye. The initial one died down but now I must admit I've been very surprised by quite how much worse my reading vision is. It's been a hard couple of weeks and I have cried a good few times, this has easily been the worst part of my illness. I was basically useless at work all week and got very frustrated. I've already lost one career to cancer (you know, that whole doing physics at the best university in the world shit) and it felt like it was all happening again. I know it probably sounds silly that I've been through all these years of grusome medical shit and the thing that's actually got to me is having to wear strong reading glasses but I really do love my job and this impedes it which proper pisses me off (obviously it'll be better when I have both eyes done but it's still all a fucking ball ache).

I guess I also always have this guilt about not being able to be pissed off because I'm not dead. I know it's fucking stupid but I sit there at work and stare at my picture of Naomi and feel immensely stupid that I'm even having on huff about anything that in the great scheme of things really isn't that important. You need stronger glasses? So fucking what. You've had this wonderful extra ten years of life that so many people with the same diagnosis didn't fucking get. It's all fucking stupid. I don't fucking know. I just want to look at stamps and be happy.

My Christmas and New Year break was great and I saw lots of fun people and did lots of fun things (including dressing up as an aging Wild West prostitute which I concerningly didn't need to buy any clothes for) and going to see one of my favourite cancer friends in Hull. This took my mind off things a bit but going back to work was rattling around in my brain like a jar of frozen peas.

In comes yesterday. Back to the office in the morning then off to hospital in the afternoon. It becomes apparent that in my current state can barely read my computer or do my job. I went up to Sheffield for my 4pm appointment but they were running late so by five I still hadn't been seen (I was getting myself in a bit of a mess too, proper teary, so unlike chirpy Constanze). By the time she called me in I was quite the heap of emotions (I was supposed to be seeing a doctor but for some reason got the nurse instead) and somewhat all over the place.

The good news is that my eye has healed beautifully. I didn't actually have a stitch in, they got that wrong. I then explained to her about not being able to do my job (basically usually you don't get new glasses to help you see until you get the other eye done but that could be up to four months and I obviously can't go on like that) but I can't say she seemed that empathetic and basically said I can

1. Put up with it (and stare into space at work?)
2. Maybe wear an eye patch to cover the bad eye (can you make the pirate look professional?)
3. Go to the pound shop, buy some of their cheap reading glasses and push out a lens (fucking stupid because my good eye still needs a prescription and I can't fit two pairs of glasses on my quite average nose)

In the whole history of the universe I've never heard anyone be recommended the pound shop for long term medical equipment. I said can I not just get some cheap glasses made and she said oh but we usually make you wait at least six weeks (I think she was desperately clinging to NHS guidelines and not the reality that 95% of people who get this surgery done are retired and I'm 27 fucking years old) and I don't think the opticians would give you any.

I left the appointment really quite frustrated that there was no proper solution and generally quite amazed that this was how things logically had to be. I went to the pound shop and got a few pairs of the glassses and popped out a lens and trialled them this morning at work. While this helped it was definitely not a solution I could survive for weeks using. I decided I had to get some glasses and went to the opticians for an eye test who said I obviously needed some glasses to tide me over and what they'd said at hospital was completely impractical. So some glasses are on the way and should hopefully be with me tomorrow. VICTORY. I SHALL GO TO THE EYESIGHT BALL.

After that was sorted I started feeling a whole lot better. All of a sudden the stress of the past few weeks lifted off my shoulders and the old Constanze reared her ugly, optimistic head. I have a solution, I can work and I am the best and all is good. Not even the nurse I saw phoning me up later in the day could get me down.

It's just been a frustrating experience, totally geared for all the elderly people but not remotely to anyone young like me who works. But (excuse the wanky cliche) I've come out of the other side and know what to expect and what to do next time (when that eventually appears, the initially said the end of January but it's now up to four months). I guess I'm just not used to it having had such exceptional treatment from the haematology team over the years. THE GOODY TWO SHOES LITTLE CUNTS.

So here's to 2018 and finally getting back to my normal self. It's taken almost nine long years of prodding various organs to get there but we finally found the straw that broke the leukaemia camel's back. BUT THIS CAMEL IS A SPITTY MOTHERFUCKER WHO WILL SPIT YOUR STRAW STRAIGHT BACK MOTHERFUCKING OUT.
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Come at me other eyeball. Show me what you've fucking got.

Constanze