Be more Liz

Or why being fabulous helps immensely in hospital

Elizabeth Taylor, by Bert Stern

This is part two of my ‘things that might help if you or if someone you know has cancer’ series, covering - in I hope a lighthearted way - tips for making hospital visits and surgery a little more manageable.

You can find part one here - which is about my diagnosis in the first bit, and helpful resources in the second:

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Hospitals, surgery and Liz Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor didn’t have breast cancer, but in this, one of my favourite photographs of her, you can see the scar from her emergency tracheotomy. Why have I shoehorned Liz into this? Because I love her resilience - that really quite horrific things happened through her life, and she carried on - an icon of fabulous. I aspire to this.

I asked my sister, who is my go-to for old Hollywood information (she has seen pretty much every documentary on the period) how Liz felt about her scar and the surgery. She shared this:

‘I’m pretty sure she was proud of it - rarely if ever tried to hide it with make-up, and it’s v visible from Cleopatra publicity onwards, as in the Bert Stern portrait above.

Generally I think she viewed it (and other marks of illness) as a battle scar / part of her identity as a survivor, e.g. much later in life she posed with a shaved head after she had a benign brain tumour removed.

Tangentially, there’s a wry quotation from Shirley Maclaine about 'losing to a tracheotomy’ the year Liz won her Oscar for Butterfield 8 (they were friends, which dials down the bitchiness - but don’t think Liz would have disagreed.)’

Thinking ‘what would Liz do’ helps on pretty much every hospital related occasion, from check-ups to going in for test results to major surgery. By which I mean go in and be fabulous, rather than as a complete diva with an entourage of incontinent dogs. (You will have heard the stories about Liz and Richard Burton’s month-long stays at the best suite at the Savoy, which the hotel had to re-carpet after each visit because none of their dogs were house-trained. I mean - what. Don’t be that Liz. Incidentally, Marilyn didn’t house-train her dogs either. I find it deeply disappointing that arguably two of the most beautiful women of the century were surrounded by dogshit at home. There is a metaphor there somewhere, but cognitive dissonance is getting in the way.)

So, with that caveat:

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Wear something (which makes you feel) fabulous

Hospitals are necessary, clinical, and often depressing places. I feel 100 times worse going in with unwashed hair, wearing a hoodie and muddy dog-walking/gardening leggings. (Sadly my standard look for nursery pick-up.)

Throwing on one of your favourite pieces of clothing for a hospital appointment is an instant mood-lifter. It helps me to feel like hospital waiting rooms are places I only temporarily inhabit before going somewhere much nicer, perhaps for a glass of champagne. My go-to item of clothing is a pale cream three-quarter length wool coat - it’s from Reiss, beautifully cut and makes me feel like I could walk into a really fancy hotel, locate the loos, use them and march out without being rustled as not-a-hotel guest. Which is what every great item of clothing should do - give you confidence.

(As an aside, if you’re by Charing Cross, the Corinthia - a fabulous five-star grande dame of a hotel - is a good bet. Go into the main entrance, march past the reception on your right and and the lifts on your left. Walk up the short flight of steps, briefly admire the atrium with the tearoom, then turn immediately right. The ladies is a little way down the corridor. Since you’re there, you might as well stop for a cup of tea in the bar - straight on from the loo away from the atrium, unless you fancy a full afternoon tea which by all accounts is very good - in which case, turn back. Tim took me to Kerridge’s (turn left from the atrium) with the children and Pepper for my birthday, which is why I have this information. Stephen Fry was in reception!)

Incidentally, wearing something nice also helps with that odd dynamic where as a non-medical professional, you can feel infantilised in various ways in a consultation. (I particularly dislike being drip-fed information, when I’m usually adult enough to take the bad news all in one go.) And however competent you might be in your professional field, there is that feeling that essentially you are a small child being told varying degrees of bad news by a grown-up.

Dressing up a bit can - if you’re anything like me - help you to feel less powerless, and project some much-needed confidence. A bit of mascara - or lipstick if that’s your vibe, I still can’t find one that suits me - doesn’t hurt. And if you can carry that confidence with you, by the time your clothes come off for your 600th assessment, you may get to the point that you barely notice that you’re topless, and crack jokes or chat about your favourite organic fruit and veg shops as casually as if you were fully dressed.

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Non-sartorial confidence boosters

As Rosamund Dean points out in Reconstruction, one-on-one time with clinicians and particularly senior consultants is short, and precious. Some are amazing and will take lots of time to explain things, others will not, all of them are rushed off their feet.

It’s good to take in:

• a list of questions - written down so you don’t forget them. If you’re unsure of what questions to ask (and sometimes even with medical friends and family members to ask, you might want to chat with someone neutral), a call to an advisor at a relevant support body - Macmillan Cancer Support, Breast Cancer Now, Mummy’s Star, Maggie’s - can help you construct a list before your appointment.

• a friend or family member for backup if you can - my favourite hospital appointment (cripes, can you imagine tabulating best to worst) was pre-surgery with one of my best friends, Danielle, where we got so giggly in pre-op making the healthcare assistant redo my weight without an iPhone and jumper to take a few grams off - I am a woman of a Bridget Jones age, after all - that he must have thought we were complete nutters. A pal who makes you laugh and can take an afternoon off work for you is the best. (If they reassure you that any extra kilos on the scale are surely muscle gain and not the comfortable layer of squidge around your middle, all the better.)

Bear in mind you may feel really drained after big appointments and - easier said than done - try not to beat yourself up if you’re too knackered to do laundry/cook/do more than turn on the TV for the children. (I recommend Mary Poppins, because Julie Andrews can soothe both you and them.)

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Going in for surgery

Here is my non-exhaustive packing list:

• For overnight stays, your second-favourite pair of pyjamas. It’s a balance between wearing something you love, and something you might violently take against once you’re home. Do not pack flannelette or brushed cotton! You will overheat! And hospitals are hotter than hell, you do not need to pack a cashmere blanket.

• You do need to pack cheap flip-flops or slippers that you’ve pocketed from a hotel stay. You do not want to step on a hospital floor with bare feet.

• A box of chocolates to say thank you to the nurses who look after you on the ward. (My parents’ tip is to take wrapped chocolates because they’re easier for staff to pocket on their way round the wards.)

• A very large water bottle. I cannot emphasise enough how thirsty you will be after surgery with all the nil-by-mouth stuff beforehand - a nurse will probably bring you a bottle in the recovery room before you get your blue box of stuff back, but it won’t be enough and you will want your own, ideally 1.5 litres. These Habitat/Sainsburys knock-off Stanley cups are very jolly. (I have the hot pink Sainsbury’s one, and it’s only a tenner! Bargain.)

• That said, and to in no way diminish how much water you should drink to flush all the drugs out of your system etc, under no circumstances allow a nurse to give you a bedpan if you don’t know how to use one. Demand that they wheel you to a loo, or bring a special commode chair or whatever, and if you really have to, tell them it’s going to take much more time if they have to sort out the result of your being drugged up, desperate from having drunk so much water and having no idea how to use a sodding bedpan. This is the time to crack out the Liz - or perhaps Mary Poppins - levels of diva behaviour. Mitigate your (polite but firm) imperiousness by handing over the gift box of chocolates afterwards.

• On food - pack yourself the most luxe/comforting picnic that you can, because while again a kind nurse may find you a sandwich, if you come out of surgery after at about 9pm, there is no dinner service, and even if there is, you may not like it. With a freezer-block, and in a small insulated lunch bag, for my 3x surgeries I packed variations on:

  • home-made cream cheese or smoked salmon sandwiches (right against the block to stay cold)

  • M&S Cornish cruncher cheese biscuits

  • M&S Swiss dark chocolate coins

  • M&S salted cashews

  • M&S chocolate Viennese biscuits

  • M&S iced and spiced buns

  • a couple of tangerines (for Christmas stocking vibes and freshness)

  • Mum’s fruit cake

  • Turmeric & ginger shots (yes obviously M&S)

  To which I would add (god forbid no further hospital stays for me)

  • boxed pre-cut watermelon and a small fork

  • ditto pineapple

  • dark chocolate covered almonds (toss up between Ella’s dark chocolate orange and M&S 70%)

  I actually drove to an M&S to buy all of this before my first surgery, not realising that it’s the law that every NHS hospital has to have one (fool!) It was hiding on the other side of the building. So for surgery 2 (because surgery 1 didn’t take) and surgery 3 (to finish off surgery 2) I just did a quick in-hospital supermarket sweep at Marks before going into pre-op (which is not particularly fun when you’re on nil-by-mouth, but it’s comforting to know you can eat it all later.) Pack yourself something to really look forward to.

• An eye mask. Hospital wards seem to be brightly lit at all times, like airports - astonishing given that people need to sleep to recover. An eye mask is a must - if you can, go luxe - I love & still use this silk one, saves on buying blackout curtains at home. (There are much cheaper versions available online too.)

• Earpods/earplugs or both - hospital wards are also noisy, and shutting it out with the mask & pods is really quite necessary unless you’re one of those lucky people who can sleep anywhere. (I am not.) I was hyperactive after coming round from general anasthesia 2 out of 3 times - like actually euphoric, top of the world, and so ridiculously chatty with anyone who had the misfortune to put their head around the curtain - cleaner, chaplain, junior doctor, nurse, HCA, my consultant, that they all agreed I should be discharged ASAP. Probably so I’d stop with the inane chatter. (I collapsed into silence when Tim picked me up, possibly as had used up a year’s worth of conversation in 24 hours.)

• Skincare, toothbrush, hairbrush etc - I am not really a skincare or makeup person (which you can tell if you ever meet me without professional intervention) but I do love Sali Hughes Vitamin C serum, to the extent that when the junior doctors marvelled at how well I looked the morning after my first 7 hour slice and dice, I gleefully chirped that I’d put serum on as soon as I woke up. One v nice junior doctor on my op engaged in about 20 minutes of chat about our pared down skincare routines - I’d planned to send her some Vitamin C serum & champagne as a gift, but she moved hospitals v soon after. (Possibly in search of less mad patients.)

• Handcream, lip balm, face cream - take your favourites, particularly scented ones - the air in hospitals is extremely drying, and at best smells of disinfectant. I read that it’s a kindness not to wear perfume in hospitals in case it bothers other patients, but covertly sniffing scented hand cream or lip balm like a pomander surely doesn’t count? It’s either that, or a medieval nose-cone.

• A favourite book/something downloaded to watch - be realistic, you aren’t going to read your new critique of Paradise Lost - take something mindlessly entertaining. And a long phone charger!

• Finally - if something feels wrong, if you feel unwell in recovery or on the ward, if you’re having a panic-attack, ring the buzzer, and be polite but firm in your need for assistance. The NHS wards are overstretched and while everyone I met was extremely kind, this is not always the case, and it really is the squeakiest wheel.

  If you aren’t reassured, ask to see the doctor on call and be pushy. This is not the time for ‘oh, I don’t want to be a bother’ - be a bother, raise any concerns or questions - and if you’re in any pain post-operatively, be vocal until they give you decent levels of opiates, or whatever is appropriate in your situation.

• This is non-linear, but the advice above also applies to pre-op - if you’re getting very distressed waiting for your operation, tell someone! They can offer anything from a quiet room to a quick hit of Valium (albeit you’ll have to lie on a trolley, which could be more comfortable than the pre-op waiting room.)

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Gosh that all sounded quite bossy. (My daughter asked for 3x rewatches of Mary Poppins in the last 48 hours, maybe I’ve internalised some of it.)

Again I have run on, and not mentioned some other quite important surgery things so IN BRIEF:

• exercise as much as you can in the run up to the op, it will help so much with recovery

• ditto eating well, rainbow fruit and veg, nuts, seeds, fewer processed foods, booze if you can cut it down

• and once you’re home after surgery, eat LOTS of good protein to help with your recovery - I mainlined chicken, lime and coriander sandwiches like they were going out of fashion (they are not). Ideally some protein with every meal - yogurt, kefir, tofu, nuts, chickpeas, butterbeans if not chicken or fish. (I am not a nutritionist of course, but there are excellent NHS hospital guides available about what to eat post surgery, and why. My hospital didn’t hand one out, incidentally, but I found plenty from other NHS hospital trusts online.)

• On protein, here is a recipe for my three bean chilli from the Green Roasting Tin below, which is vg to batch cook / freeze so you don’t have to cook after getting home - we ate a LOT of variations on it this year.

  

  

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Thank you so much for reading - particularly if you made it all the way to the end! If you found it helpful or think others would, please do hit the heart button below - it helps other readers on Substack to find it too. Wishing you a chilled week ahead! I will be in the garden, so a big and very frivolous garden update next week! Mini xx