And the date is ...

15 June 2011.

For some of you out there, you will know that I've been waiting to get a date to have an operation, and now it has been confirmed as 15 June, 2 days before my 16 years wedding anniversary, and less than 4 weeks time.

The operation in question is an hysterectomy. I've been having some 'women's problems' - as my DH was saying to by DS the other day - for a while and was coping quite well until earlier this year. But if truth be told I think for the past 18 months, or more like 2-3 years, I've not been my true self, I know I still laugh, join in with things, doing all my crafty things, but there has been days and even weeks where I've been so down that I could just curl up on the settee and sleep all day, well for most of the time this is what I did, or even cry for no apparent reason.

I've been having injections over the past 4 months, with one more before my operation, which has helped the problem, but has sent my body into a menopausal state and has been giving me 'hot flushes' which are very strange and just come on at any given time. When I started these injections I was reading the leaflet to DH and it said 'may be prone to mood swings' he just looked at me and said 'nothing new there then' - LOL. So hopefully this operation will bring me back onto a more even keel.

I was keeping things to myself, well some my closes friends knew, but after telling a few 'other' friends I'm amazed at how many people have had the operation, or have been going through the same thing as me or similiar, and it doesn't get talked about, so I thought I'd fill you all in. Maybe reading this, you might think its a strange thing to write on a blog, but like life in general its not always happy things that happen to people that gets blogged about, if that makes any sense.

I know its a common/routine operation but nevertheless its still very frightening, and I don't know how I will be after, but with some people who have not had the operation telling me that I will be up and running - so to speak - in 2 to 3 weeks and others who have telling me that it will be a couple of months (someone said 6 month to a year - ahhhh !!!) before I feel right, I'm struggling to cope with it all. I swear that when women are going to have a major operation like this they should be offered counciling just to get things off their chest, it OK talking to your Consultant but you only have a limited amount of time with them and you have other practical things to talk about.

The fact that I won't be able to drive for a couple of weeks is going to send my stir crazy, especially when I'm used to just getting up and going. Some of you know I can do at least 3 crops a month - something that I've reduced over the past few months, but this is mainly due to the other things happening in my life, but it is giving me an idea of what it will be like over the summer months. I'm not planning on doing must scrapping over this period and have not got anything booked until November, which by that time I will be back hopefully to full strength and raring to go.

I've cancelled my girlie holiday in September, this was due to having the operation and other factors, but again, something that was hard to do, and spending time with the girls the other weekend, knowing that they have booked and are getting all exciting just make me wish I was going.

But there you go ... I'm sure I will be able to cope with it all in the long run ... well really I have no choice do I, and I've got some great friends who are willing to visit and cheer me up.

Thanks to everyone who has wished me well and I hope that I will be able to blog about the operation after its all over, but scrapping will have to wait.

xxx