MRI, a surgery date and telling the children

I had an MRI last night.  The hospital has such a backlog in radiology that they are doing imaging in the evenings.  I was hemming and hawing about getting the offered sedation....but they would have had to call the radiology registrar or house surgeon and I decided to just go for it.  I'm a touch claustrophobic, but only if I feel stuck.  You are allowed to take along a disc to play so I went through the paltry options from my iPhone and made an MRI mix.  I decided to make an upbeat, silly mix because maudlin music would be unhelpful.  It never occurred to me that the MRTs would hear it as well.....and I'm quite embarrassed about the first choice, 'Tubthumping' by Chumbawamba.  In my (small) defence I got the melody of this stuck in my head for a couple of days back in my youth, and I thought that it might be nicely distracting.  The MRTs were quite chuffed, they said that Country and Western music was the most common music people brought in to play.

If you have never had and MRI, but have small children I can probably explain the noise to you.  There is an ongoing drill like noise.  It is punctuated by what is best described as a two year old hitting the same electronic keyboard low note rapidly, on full volume, while stuck on 'harpsichord' function. For variety, there is also a noise that sounds like Pacman eating at great speed.

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Today I was called with a surgery date.  I'd hoped that it might be six weeks or so, but when the colo-rectal surgeon says four weeks, I guess it is four weeks.  Weirdly enough my first thought was that I would have to cancel my tickets to Handmade 2013.  Going to Handmade has been like my 'Mum continuing education' the last two years so I am disproportionately angry that I will miss it.

I renewed efforts to get the childcare sorted out.  It is amazing how many people say that they will email you straight away, and do not.  My baseline politeness level is dropping.

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I used to love getting 'blocked' calls on my cellphone.  It is usually my husband calling from one of his workplaces.  Now it is always the hospital with another appointment.  I had a circular conversation about why 8.50 am appointments on a school day are difficult to make, followed by being offered the same slot a week later.  Sigh.

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And for the bit I'm dreading writing.  I sat down with our daughter this evening to let her know what is going on.  We have spent a lot of time thinking what to say and this is what we came up with:

• Mum has a disease in her bowel (bottom).  The disease will get worse if I have no treatment.
• The best treatment is for Mum to have her bowel removed.
• It is a very serious operation.
• Mum will be in hospital for five days (this is when she started crying).
• Dad and Nana will take care of her, and put her to bed. She can call me to say goodnight on the phone.
• We might have a nanny help out a couple of days a week.
• Mum will not be able to lift anything, or drive the car.
• After I get better, I will need another operation.  I will return to the hospital, hopefully for a shorter time.
• I will need to recover again.
• She will continue to go swimming and go to playgroup.
• The operation means Mummy will be sick for a long time, but will be better in the long term.

I did not mention cancer.  As it stands, it is very unlikely that I have cancer as everyone is sure that they got the cancerous lesion.  The CT was clear, and hopefully the MRI is as well.  The surgeon will confirm this during my surgery by sampling lymph nodes. He is 90% sure that there will be no cancer cells there.  As things currently stand, I will not require oncology treatment.  I think it is best not to mention cancer unless it is necessary.  I've discussed this with a few people, and I'm quite comfortable with this decision, there is more likely to be heightened worries and misunderstandings if I tried to explain the current situation more accurately.

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I'm not sure there is much I can do to prepare my youngest.  I'm focussing on telling her that the hospital is a place for sick people and pointing it out whenever we drive past.