Surgery experience?
Horrific 1/10, would not recommend to a friend.
Only joking, I’m grateful for the opportunity to keep my leg, have the best chance to fight cancer and recover in a fantastic medical system. Having said that, limb salvage surgery is a major operation with a huge recovery time and associated amount of pain. The operation I had is known as a distal femoral resection with endoprosthetic reconstruction, essentially the lower half of my femur and top portion of my tibia (lower leg bone) were chopped out and replaced with titanium.
I severely underestimated the magnitude of this operation, I won’t sugar coat this experience, it was incredibly painful and traumatic. I cried every day, passed out trying to stand or walk every day for 5 days post op, threw up many times and dislocated my fibula (a bone I kept in amongst the metal in my new leg) twice after the operation. I was scared, angry and completely dependent for 8 days in hospital.
I pride myself on having a high pain tolerance but recovering from this surgery was more painful than I thought possible. Now writing this 5 weeks post I’ve had ups and downs but I’m able to walk a short distance without my crutches and can get pretty much anywhere with them. It’s still painful, uncomfortable and will never feel like a ‘normal’ knee again but I’m re-learning to walk and have a pretty cool scar. Recovery from any operation is never linear and we always tell our clients to expect bumps along the road to recovery.
Re-admission for chemotherapy at three and five weeks post op are big unavoidable bumps in the road that I imagine adds an element of complexity to any cancer patient's recovery from operation.
My treatment involves me spending large quantities of time in hospital, as much as I dislike hospital stays, it is nice to have a new rehabilitation focus for the abundance of time I have on my hands.
The most helpful thing throughout this time was beautiful friends (shout out to Sam) who visited me, distracted me and kept me sane through such a physically tough time. Having people break up the long days and make me laugh put things into perspective and reminded me that pain is temporary and I will get better.
As an Exercise Physiologist myself, knowing some of what my rehabilitation journey would entail was a blessing and a curse. Recovering from any operation is scary and enduring this from a patient perspective has really shown me the importance of connecting with your therapist, feeling safe and confident in their clinical judgment.
Even though I know how to teach myself to walk and activate my muscles again, there is no way I could have done any of that without lovely physio’s re-assuring me and holding my hand along the way.