My best friend's got no bumhole
She went home yesterday and the ward is SO quiet. She's a proper loudmouth. She was great though. She's 54 and used to be a nurse, and so when they told her she had cancer of the anus, and the extent of her tumour, she knew exactly what was going to happen. She told me she wished she'd been a plumber instead.
It's called an Abdominoperineal Resection.They removed her anus, rectum and part of her colon, leaving her with a colostomy bag on her tummy and a huge gaping hole in her arse (her words). She can't sit down, she can only lie on her side or stand with a zimmer frame. She has to have the hole packed and dressed every day. As if a bumhole-ectomy wasn't bad enough.
To rectify this and give her an arse she can sit on, they brought her in for skin grafting. They had taken a huge flap of skin from her abdomen and taken it back up between her legs like a massive flesh wedgie, and stitched it to her buttocks. The idea being that she'd have a flat panel across her cheeks to keep her insides in.
And if she still hadn't been through enough, the bastard thing didn't take. Day after day I'd hear the doctors come and examine her, and day after day they'd come up with something new to try to help her heal - bed rest, multivitamins, massage - but it was no good. The problem was that she'd had maximum radiotherapy in that area and her skin was fried. The stitches wouldn't hold; her skin was tearing like paper. She cried and cried that she'd never get out, every morning. By lunchtime her kids would come with her baby grandaughter and she was back to bossing everyone about and pretending to take it all in her stride.
There's no happy ending. They let her go home because they tried everything and nothing would make her frazzled skin heal. She'll have district nurses coming to her every morning to pack and dress her anal cave - for the rest of her life, if her skin never improves. No sitting, no car journeys or sitting down to meals. She can't even get her hair done. Better all that at home, though, ruling the house from her settee, than trapped in here with the daily disappointment of the doctors rounds and the nurses' sympathy.
When they were trying to dress her for home, none of her old clothes would fit and she ended up in a summer dress with what looked like a rubber ring underneath, around her hips, where all the packing and dressing stuck out. She goes "Right tell me straight, does my bum look big in this?"
Maybe you had to be there. I miss that gobby old cow. Good luck, Sue xx
It's called an Abdominoperineal Resection.They removed her anus, rectum and part of her colon, leaving her with a colostomy bag on her tummy and a huge gaping hole in her arse (her words). She can't sit down, she can only lie on her side or stand with a zimmer frame. She has to have the hole packed and dressed every day. As if a bumhole-ectomy wasn't bad enough.
To rectify this and give her an arse she can sit on, they brought her in for skin grafting. They had taken a huge flap of skin from her abdomen and taken it back up between her legs like a massive flesh wedgie, and stitched it to her buttocks. The idea being that she'd have a flat panel across her cheeks to keep her insides in.
And if she still hadn't been through enough, the bastard thing didn't take. Day after day I'd hear the doctors come and examine her, and day after day they'd come up with something new to try to help her heal - bed rest, multivitamins, massage - but it was no good. The problem was that she'd had maximum radiotherapy in that area and her skin was fried. The stitches wouldn't hold; her skin was tearing like paper. She cried and cried that she'd never get out, every morning. By lunchtime her kids would come with her baby grandaughter and she was back to bossing everyone about and pretending to take it all in her stride.
There's no happy ending. They let her go home because they tried everything and nothing would make her frazzled skin heal. She'll have district nurses coming to her every morning to pack and dress her anal cave - for the rest of her life, if her skin never improves. No sitting, no car journeys or sitting down to meals. She can't even get her hair done. Better all that at home, though, ruling the house from her settee, than trapped in here with the daily disappointment of the doctors rounds and the nurses' sympathy.
When they were trying to dress her for home, none of her old clothes would fit and she ended up in a summer dress with what looked like a rubber ring underneath, around her hips, where all the packing and dressing stuck out. She goes "Right tell me straight, does my bum look big in this?"
Maybe you had to be there. I miss that gobby old cow. Good luck, Sue xx