update from the AVL hospital

Yesterday evening I started to bleed from the conisation wound. It started as a slow trickle but when it kept on increasing, I decided to call the hospital. The gyneacologist on duty recomended to wait whether it would slow down and stop. When that did not happen we decided to go to the hospital after all. By that time it was 11pm, but luckily we found my mum prepared to come over and stay at home for the boys. Fred drove me to Amsterdam, which was a strange experience because twice we had to stop because of road works. By the time we arrived at the hospital I was rather faint because of the blood loss.

Interestingly, the gyneacologist on duty had asked a colleague to step in for her and that turned out to be my own onco-gyneacologist. While I was lying there on the treatment bench, undergoing rather painful manipulations to remove the blood clots and stop the bleeding, the man told us that he had good news for us. The cone that was cut out of the cervix two weeks ago, turned out to have totally clean edges. That means that all cancer was removed! So apart from almost bleeding to death, I was actully totally well. I do not have cancer anymore!

Fantastic news! Just a little hard to grasp under the circumstances. When I was brought to a hospital room at 1:30am (they wanted to keep me till Friday), I felt so confused that I asked the nurse on duty for a sleeping pill. The hemoglobin level in my blood was still adequate (probably partly due, still, to living in Addis Ababa at 2400masl for 5 years) so I did not need a blood transfusion, just some saline/glucose solution for infusion. And in the afternoon I feel fit enough to log onto internet and type this in - from my hospital bed!