So for all the ‘Living with Gladys groupies’, I am sorry for the delay between posts. I have had quite a few nudges from far and wide, but to be honest my energy has been taken up getting through each day from the time of the last post to Alistair having his operation on Wednesday just gone. And blimey hells bells what a few days its been!
I had hoped to have been putting a very short post up here saying “He Pees” but unfortunately things didn’t go that easily, you know, the best laid plans and all that.
The operation per se was straight forward and the urethral stent went in and was doing its job. The trauma however to the surrounding tissue and Alistair’s poor overly swollen prostate gland conspired against the stent and prevented all but a tiny drop of pee from escaping leaving Alistair in full blown bladder retention for 25 hours. Normal catheterisation was out of the question due to the stent so he had to be moved to another hospital and wait until the surgeons registrar (who by the way was a fantastic guy) found time in his crazily busy schedule to do a flexible cystoscopy to carefully guide an indwelling silicone catheter through the stent and up into the bladder. It worked on the third attempt and thankfully they avoided a Supra Pubic catheter (hole through the stomach and small pouch to collect pee). My poor man.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Laddie and I were stranded outside (obviously I can’t take the dog in to a hospital and obviously if you knew where the hospital was I couldn’t leave the dog outside)! No, before you start thinking Ive not gone all crazy (well more crazy than usual) taking a dog in a bag or something stupid it wasn’t like that. For reasons that don’t need to be explained, that day of ALL days, Gladys was not available for living in so Laddie and I had to pack up and ship out so to speak! So poor Alistair, high on morphine, had to wait a few hours with the nurse that chaperoned him (due to said morphine) whilst Laddie and I waited patiently not knowing what was happening in a far from salubrious part of town, quite surreal!
Anyway, I now have a somewhat traumatised Alistair back home, Gladys is once again offering living accommodation and we can begin the healing process whilst figuring out our next step.
I must admit I needed the waaaaaambulance at a couple of points and Im sure Alistair came close too! I was though as ever supported by my lovely daughters Pippin and Hannah and of course Kirt who always comes up trumps in an emergency. My sister Kate I know was busy sending prayers and love for us both which were much appreciated too. I know that friends far and wide have held us in their thoughts and prayers and I am thankful to everyone that has offered love light and healing energy to both of us. And a special thanks to my friend who lives next to the canal (yes you), who has been through more pain and suffering than I can possibly imagine and yet has been unfaltering in her faith for the path we are walking and love for us both, thank you.
I know I am quite resilient, but, I also know that in reality I am humanly frail without the great strength and energy of the Universe. The Four Sacred Directions, Mother Earth and my Spirit and Animal Guides have without doubt given me strength and courage to cope well enough with lifes rich tapestry and to accept life on lifes terms.
So, Alistair & I will go back to see the consultant on Monday and then the two of us will work out the best way forward for Alistair. He often says “You sometimes have to lose the battle to win the war”. So perhaps we may look at some Hormone therapy in the short term to reduce the cancer in the Prostate whilst ‘upping’ our investment in all things alternative.
The thing is that only Alistair can truly decide what he wants to do and all I can do is support his decision 100% and keep my firm belief that Everything can be healed. There is a brilliant charity called CANCERactive and they publish a free magazine called ICON (Integrative Cancer and Oncology News). If a curve ball is affecting your life or you are interested in the many many positive alternative treatments available look them up and get reading.
Im not sure if I have mentioned in previous posts but we are due to go away to sunnier climes for a month at the beginning of May. It was booked way back and coincided beautifully with the timing of Alistair’s operation, so a chance for some good old fashioned convalescence. So please, fingers crossed that we can still go and then you can read my next blog posted from Turkey.
Thank you to all the followers of these posts and thank you for encouraging me to keep writing.
x
Living With Gladys Full Time 