My adventure with abdominal surgery (a hysterectomy), and why Kate should be allowed a few months to recover.

I genuinely can’t believe the media frenzy around Kate Middleton’s disappearance from the public eye. I appreciate that everyone will have their own take on it, but for me, I’m feeling pretty uncomfortable. Is it really so hard to believe this woman has had abdominal surgery and might need time to recover?

I think I’m feeling this one more because I had abdominal surgery relatively recently, so the experience is still fresh. I had a full hysterectomy a year or so ago, which was unexpected, but which I was very, very grateful to be able to have. This is not a moan about my surgery, it’s about the following months, and why Kate might just need a few months off.

So here goes. After my surgery…

I was sore in ways I had never pictured. I ached internally, I had sharp pains on my back, it was sore to sit, and it was sore to lie down. Whilst the pain lessened with time, I’d say it lasted 6-8 weeks.

I was weak. You’re not supposed to lift a kettle for 6 weeks, thankfully my Mum and Dad did almost everything for me in that time. At the start, my mum came to the bathroom when I showered to help me get in. You’re supposed to walk every day, and I went from being able to jog 18 miles to walking to the top of my Mum and Dad’s road and back. And I was chuffed to be able to do that. With advice from a physio I was walking slowly for 40 mins after 2 months.?

My body changed. Things felt different internally, and it was really strange. My pelvic floor was weakened, I worried organs were slipping, bodily functions were a little different, some of which made leaving the house nerve wracking at first. After a couple of months I was back on track, but it was tricky.

I was emotional. I was upset that I had worried my Mum and Dad. I was panicking that I wasn’t feeling better quicker, for me and my family, and that lasted a wee while. I hated being a burden on my mum and dad. As I healed, I missed work (I was off for 2 months) and felt out of the loop because I wasn’t there. I missed my friends. For my specific surgery, I was now on HRT, so I guess that was in the mix too.

I was so grateful for my operation, for my family, my friends, and the support of my work, so I promise this is not a moan. It’s just my experience of abdominal surgery, as part of the debate around ‘Where’s Kate?’. I know she has a privileged life with help and support, but she also has children, a high pressured job and constant, global scrutiny, and I can imagine those could make recovery harder.

Abdominal surgery is super common and routine, but recovery can be a winding road, and it takes time. If you use that time to work on your photography skills, so be it ;) The last thing I wanted to do was share a photo, I looked awful as I felt, even with fake tan!

I wrote this after reading a blog this morning by Mairi Wilson from Leith so thank you Mairi for the inspiration. I hope it’s been ok to share this experience on here, and that it doesn’t sound attention grabbing or egocentric or dramatic, because I really don’t mean it to be. I just relate to small parts of this one, I guess, and the media and online reaction has been so insane it makes me want to say something.

Anyway, I hope you get well soon Kate, whatever you’ve gone through xxx