Bits of my body I can do without
A story about fertility, grief, toast, and risk reducing surgery
Hey there,
I can’t tell you how thrilled (and mildly terrified) I am that you’re reading this, my first newsletter, especially on a subject, a moment, so personal.
Welcome to Moments in Time, where, over the weeks, I hope to dive into the extraordinary, celebrate the mundane, and tackle the occasionally terrifying moments of everyday life.
Join me in laughing, crying, screaming into pillows and discovering new stories and photographs. 🐝
I’m Jane Adams, and I’m a writer, caregiver, naturalist, photographer and optimistic midlifer who loves cats and is partial to a bit (a lot) of procrastinating.
Drop me your thoughts, stories, and random musings in the comments. Let’s chat, have a laugh, and maybe even commiserate a little with each other.
Thanks for being here. Jane x
8am. 5th of June. At a tiny hospital in Dorset
Heart pounding, I pressed the buzzer. Waited. Now I’m following Nurse Mabel through the hospital corridors, watching her hips sway awkwardly in front of me. Despite being in obvious pain, she turns every few steps to flash me a grin, her eyes saying, “You’re good. You’ve got this,” and I silently pray she’s right.
As we enter the ward, my eyes immediately fix on a large handwritten sign boldly declaring, "JANE ADAMS," in capital letters. It’s like a first-day-of-school name tag, minus the glitter and smiley faces. Mabel sees me staring. “I spent over thirty years on a children’s ward,” she says, and I make a mental note to ask if I can take the sign home—who doesn’t love a quirky hospital souvenir?
Honestly, this isn't what I was expecting. This feels more like an office reception than a hospital ward. Though red-lipped stilettoed receptionists seem to have been swapped for nurses in overlong scrubs, there’s no sign of beds, no bleeping machines, no smell of despair or frightened faces. Instead, there are four comfy chairs, tea-making facilities, and, of course, the larger-than-life name tag.
“Sit yourself down, my lovely,” Mabel says, before settling herself in the chair opposite to run through what she calls ‘the basics.’
My blood pressure is fine. Temperature is normal. Pulse a little high.
“I’m 70,” Mabel says, out of the blue.
Shocked, I instinctively blurt out the first thing that comes into my head.
“I didn’t realise nurses got that old.”
She splutters. “Not dead yet, my lovely.”
“Oh, god, no, that’s not what I meant,” I say, trying madly to backtrack.
She explodes with laughter. My pulse comes down.
“Perfect,” she says, clapping her hands together with delight.
2.40pm. 9th of April. The big scary hospital
It had been two months since I had sat across from the consultant gynaecologist in a paint-scuffed consulting room, wishing I was anywhere else.
“Mum died of ovarian cancer aged 89,” I heard myself saying. “Then my sister died of it last year. She was 67.”
My words had come out sounding matter-of-fact, cold even, but they were the surface of a deep river flowing with painful memories. If grief was truly a measure of my love for them, then my capacity to love over the past few years had been exhausting and bloody endless.
The consultant nodded and scribbled notes. He was losing his hair, and I found myself mesmerised by a shiny spot of bare skin on the top of his head.
He took off his glasses and laid them on the desk in front of him.
“For someone of your age, health and family history, I’d suggest having your ovaries and tubes removed, as soon as possible,” he said.
At first I wondered if I’ve heard him correctly. He stared down at his notes, nodding, as if agreeing with himself, and I felt numb. Clammy. I watched as the questions I’d carefully prepared in advance flew out of the bird-shit splattered window behind him.
Didn’t he realise this was an initial chat? That he was supposed to commiserate, recommend yearly blood tests, maybe the odd ultrasound scan, and I’d go home feeling, you know, peculiarly reassured?
Instead, I leave the appointment clasping a signed operation consent form for risk reducing surgery.
Okay if I run away and stick my head in the sand?
Surgery hadn't crossed my mind—it wasn’t even on my ‘top 5 most likely things to happen’ list. To walk into a hospital perfectly healthy and willingly have bits of me surgically removed, on the off chance they might harm me, seemed completely over the top. Anyway, wasn’t that what other people do? Famous people?
I remember Angelina Jolie having her breasts removed because a variant BRCA gene had increased her chances of getting breast cancer. At the time, I’d felt her actions were brave but radical, and a somewhat Hollywood-esque thing to do.
BRCA variants aren’t only associated with breast cancer; they can also cause ovarian cancer, and I knew that. I had undergone the tests, and although they all came back negative, my risks were apparently still higher than most.
“There may be other variant genes we don’t know about yet,” the consultant had said. “With your family history, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Truth be told, I'm sure he used fancier, more scientific words, but it was weeks ago now, and you get the gist.
Looking back, my egg-delivery-bits had done their job flawlessly during my years of being fertile. Periods arrived like clockwork from age 15 onward—no heavy flows or agonizing days. I was lucky.
Fast forward thirty years to perimenopause, and my periods gradually faded to nothing. By my early fifties, they had vanished completely. You could say the egg box was empty.
I thought I'd closed the book on that chapter of my life, never imagined those parts or any lurking disease could threaten me. As far as I was concerned, I’d hung up a sign next to them saying 'decommissioned.'
“Keep away from children”
Honestly, I've always considered my ovaries to be a bit unnecessary. While others around me were longing for children, I never felt that particular pang, though I understood why others might.
As my friends gave birth, I quit my job and backpacked around the world. As I kayaked down white-water rivers, scaled glaciers, and marvelled at glow-worms deep within caves, kids weren’t on my particular horizon.
Had I been running from parenthood, dodging conversations with friends about babies, dirty nappies, and sleepless nights, convincing myself I had opted for a different adventure? Or perhaps it was a need to break free from a life that seemed uncomfortably predetermined?
Later, as the years ticked by, I occasionally wondered whether I had made the right decision. What if I met a man who wanted children? Would that change things? But I seemed to attract men who were as averse to having kids as I was, so my decision was never seriously questioned.
“Keep away from children” warned the detergent ads, and throughout my thirties and forties, I took heed of the warning.
Then there was Mum. She hadn’t been what you’d call the maternal type. Maybe it began with her? She once confided that if abortion had been an option back in 1964 (when she found out she was pregnant with me), she wouldn’t have hesitated to have one. At 39, struggling with finances and already raising two older children, she didn’t want another. I get it. It didn’t mean she or Dad loved me any less—they loved me with all their hearts— it was simply bad timing, and a few too many drinks at a party. I know I’d have felt the same.
9am. Okay, where’s our blood?🩸
I watch as one of the nurses finishes a phone call and shrugs as she looks at me. She’s been talking to a blood coordinator at the main hospital five miles away, who, she says, sounded half asleep after an all-night shift. She’s worried the emergency blood they need for our procedures today hasn’t arrived. Nothing can go ahead til it does.
Half an hour later, the blood eventually pitches up in a taxi minus its paperwork, they can’t accept it, and the nurses have to go through the whole blood-ordering procedure again. All of our operations are pushed back. I’m initially elated, then sad, then bloody furious at the waste of time and public money. No doubt, someone somewhere in the National Health Service will get a bollocking for this. Or maybe they won’t.
“Have you had a wee?” I’m asked for the fifth time. This is turning into kindergarten, but I’m getting into the swing of it.
10.30am. Big fat cats
“Any pets?” Peter the anaesthetist asks, as I climb onto his trolley and he sticks a needle into my arm. I know it’s more chit-chat to relax me. I tell him I have a big fat tortoiseshell cat. But as I drift off to sleep, I can’t help wondering how many times this middle-aged man has asked the same dull question, and if he’s bored with the answers yet. Why not ‘when was the last time you saw a donkey play football?’, or ‘how many bumblebees can you fit in a Mini Clubman?’
Then the world goes white.
Noon. Hot buttered toast
When I’m wheeled back to the ward, operation complete, Mabel reappears by my bedside. “Are you thirsty, my lovely?” she coos over the noise of an inflating blood pressure machine. I nod, woozy from the anaesthetic and high on the relief of still being alive. “Fancy some biscuits to go with it? Toast?” I nod again.
It’s been eighteen hours since I last ate, and I’m already drooling at the thought of hot buttered toast.
I message my husband. “All done. All good.”
He replies almost instantly, “Feeling OK?” I know he will have been worried about me today, even though he will have done everything possible not to show it.
2pm. Alternate reality
I’m changing into my normal clothes pleasantly high on liquid morphine and toast.
I sneak a look at the three keyhole wounds on my stomach while I’m having yet another wee-on-demand. None of the wounds are covered, which means it’s easy to see the glue and dissolvable stitches, each small cut haloed by a purple cloud of developing bruise. Amazing what they can do these days.
After another hour, I leave this bubble of alternate reality and walk back into my life as a carer, a wife, a sister, a friend. I eat chilli. Watch crap TV. Tell the cat about my day.
“It’s been a weird one,” I tell her. She sticks her arse into the air and walks away.
An empty letting go
The next day, Mabel phones. “How you doing, my darling?”
I tell her I feel fine. I slept well, no temperature, and the pain is manageable—just some general discomfort. All the things I know she expects to hear.
How am I really? Luckily, that isn’t the question she asks, and I hold it together long enough for the difficult feelings to bubble under the surface, but not break free.
The truth is, I feel empty. I know removing my ovaries and tubes made perfect sense, and I don’t regret losing them. Let’s face it, this decision may have saved my life, and yet?
And yet, perhaps I’m experiencing a loss I hadn’t expected?
Feeling unresolved grief for two women whose lives were unfairly taken?
Or is it sadness? Sadness for finally letting go of the children I never had.
I repeat to myself, “This, too, shall pass.”
Drop your thoughts, stories, and any random thoughts in the comments.
Let’s chat, and maybe even commiserate with each other a little.
I want to thank these amazing women wordsmiths for giving me the kick up the backside I needed to push this first post out into the Sub-osphere.
and for reminding me that life is about taking risks. , and for their total belief in other writers. and for taking the mystery out of Substack. for being the first Substack I paid for, and still look forward to reading. Lastly, , for her mind-blowing writing, and for believing in me enough to become my first paid subscriber, even before I had posted. 😘About me: I’m Jane Adams, and I’m a writer, author of Nature’s Wonders for HarperCollins/National Trust Books, caregiver, naturalist, photographer and optimistic midlifer who loves cats and is partial to a bit (a lot) of procrastinating.
Wonderful to see and read you here in Substack, and what a superb first post.
Brave and beautiful writing, thank you for sharing.