Madrid, Sunday, 26th October, 2026
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| In my room at the Quirón Hospital waiting to be operated on on Friday morning. I was all smiles but inside I was a little nervous. My friend Amanda asked how I managed to look glamorous even in hospital. That's probably because the camera was being kind to me. |
Dear all
I actually wrote most of today's blog on Thursday, as my operation was on Friday as I didn't know whether I would be up to writing after it. I didn't know how it would go; well, I hoped and I had my worries as anyone would. Come Saturday morning I shall update you on how I am.
First let me rewind to the beginning, to last Sunday. The big news of the week came that day when at just past 9 in the morning, the Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, was robbed of some of the French Crown jewels from the Napoleonic era. In an amazing heist, similar to those we see in films, it has left the French and the world stunned. The robbery was actually a rather easy feat and it was done in just 7 minutes, daringly and security was weak. 4 men posing as workers parked a vehicle with an electric ladder next to the Louvre and opposite the Seine.
2 of them got out in broad daylight, climbed the ladder, broke the window of the Apollo Gallery, got in and went straight to the vitrines where France's crown jewels from the Napoleonic era are on display. They used power tools to threaten unarmed guards and smashed several display cases. In all, they grabbed 8 pieces of jewelry of incalculable worth. The alarms went off while the robbers fled down the ladder to where high powered scooters were waiting for them. They literally scooted off but in their haste dropped and damaged probably the most priceless piece of their heist, the crown of Empress Eugenie (wife of Napoleon III) as well her corsage bow.
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| The crown belonging to Empress Eugenie which the thieves dropped and damaged in their rush to leave |
They have not been seen since and neither have the jewels worth over 80 million euros in money but far more in terms of French heritage and history. It beggars me how on earth they were able to penetrate the Louvre so easily. Where were the cameras and where was the security? How could they just park like that and smash a window easily as well as the vitrines? Shouldn't all this be heavily protected? That's what the French are asking themselves. It's not the first time this famous museum has suffered a robbery. We have all learned that the Mona Lisa was stolen by a worker in 1911 but this is 2025. Hasn't security got better? Maybe the thieves will be caught but most probably some of France's most famous jewels will never be found as they will likely all be taken apart and sold in pieces of gold and stones. The story fascinates me and is ongoing.
Life at home was quiet in comparison. That morning I made a Sunday roast with lamb - my favourite. This was it.
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| Roast lamb for lunch last Sunday |
It wasn't peaceful in the Middle East. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continued to bomb Gaza. Both sides accuse each other of breaking it and Trump insists it is in place. I don't know, do you?
I had a French couple from Poitiers who arrived that afternoon and as soon as they realised I could get by in French, French it was which left me quite exhausted. I never saw them again and they left on Friday. They must have been happy as Cecile and Benoit gave me 5 stars. Merci. Later Cassandra, a very young student from Ottawa arrived. She wanted to use the pool at this time of year. Each to their own haha. I also got a booking from a girl from the UK coming to a wedding next month and when I looked her up on AI it seems she is possibly one of the Manchester Arena bombing survivors. Wow I thought!
I spent free time in the afternoon watching Season 3 of The Diplomat. I rather like it but it's a bit too cloak and daggery and it's easy to lose the plot.
Monday was the day Suzy started work as a dietitian with Sodexho, the French catering multinational that employs around 450.000 people. Being her first week she has spent it being trained for the job. She and the team at the University in Villanueva, provide meals for patients at a local hospital, that is 50 lunches and 50 dinners a day. It seems easy but it's not as Suzy was explaining - it's quite a responsibility. You can't give the same food to post operative patients, diabetics, etc. Suzy started her career in a similar role with Aramark, Sodexho's American competitor. She says it's like going back to square one. It's not. It's a huge achievement after all she has gone through and surviving this week is a feather in her cap. She has come a long way from how she was a year ago. I maybe shouldn't tell you but she's also got a beau and I'm so happy for her. These days I see her smiling more often. Oh Suzy all I want for you are good things. I' m so proud of you.
We had our usual morning; a walk, coffee, etc and I kept thinking about her, of course. She came home for lunch with a smile of survival on her face. She is so brave.
Meanwhile in Washington, Zelensky was in town to see Trump who probably wasn't reeling from the 7 million who demonstrated against him on Sunday. They are sick and tired of him and his autocracy and so am I. It transpired later that their meeting once again turned into a shouting match. Trump wants to do with the Ukraine what he has tried to do in the Middle East but Putin is not having it. Putin will only end the war if Russia can keep the territory they have won and if Ukraine does not join Nato. Those are two big red lines for Ukraine and for Europe. So we are at stalemate again. Trump has decided to cancel the meeting with Putin in Budapest and has now imposed more sanctions; sanctions that never work. Poor Ukraine. This week the Russian army bombed a children's nursery. Really?
On Tuesday, the French must have felt embarrassed again with the image of their country when Nicolas Sarkozy, former President (2012-2017) was escorted to La Santé prison for all the world to see. Reuters wrote later that he has received death threat from inmates but don't worry, he has his own body guards, even in prison. It was a very unusual scene. His crime appears to be funding for his campaign from that horrible dictator Gaddifi of Libya. I think of Presidents and Prime Ministers who have done worse things and never been punished. In any case his stay will be pretty token as he is now 70 and it is thought he will only be in jail for a few weeks. Interestingly he took with him Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo who was innocent. This was Sarkozy making a point I suppose.
It was on Tuesday that I wore a coat for the first time on our walk since well before the summer. It has not been cold but we have had some showers; rather welcome ones. The highlight of the day was my weekly Facetime call with Amanda. After catching up on each other's lives, we even played a game together - a word game called "Contexto".
On Wednesday I finally met my guest Eric from Chiapas in Mexico. He came the Friday before, but we were out and Tana received him. What a lovely chap. He is an architect as his aspiring daughter will be too as she is studying the subject here at the UEM University. The dear man brought us some coffee from Chiapas saying the area was famous for its coffee. I thought it was more famous for the Zapatista uprising in 1994. He actually agreed. He left the next day for Copenhagen where he hopes to learn more about cycle lanes - good place, of course.
We had a late walk and combined it with my morning coffee. We took photos as I hadn't taken any till then. Here we are growing old gracefully hahahah.
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| Coffee at the Churros bar on Wednesday |
We went to the local churros bar and I am proud to say I resisted eating one. Lunch was late but wonderful because the four of us were together as I had invited Oli. She says we have to celebrate Suzy's new job and oh yes we will. For the record I made a smashing chicken curry and a prawn version for Suzy and later gave lots to Oli to take home as she has little time to cook
Thursday was a big day. I spent the morning at the hospital from 9 till 1 doing a blood test, a chest x-ray and an electrocardiogram after which I saw the anesthetist who would decide if I was fit enough for general anesthesia and for the operation. I was scared about the x-ray as I am a smoker but he said my chest; i.e. lungs and heart were fine as were the other tests. So I was good to go. I found it funny to be seen by a very fat anesthetist who didn't give a very good image. When he asked me how much I weighed I told him 60 kilos but that I had lost 11 taking the pen (Monjauro) and hoped it might stick with him. I was home for lunch for which we were joined by Suzy.
I was amazed to get a sudden booking late that afternoon from a British couple for 4 nights at our apartment in Santa Pola. Thankfully it was clean and ready and Gina was around to hand them the keys.
It was on Thursday that Pope Leo XIV and King Charles III made history. He was the first English king to pray publicly with a Pope since Henry VIII split from Rome in 1534. It was an event seen as a symbolic reconciliation between the Catholic Church and Church of England. Here is a photo of this historic moment.
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| History in the making this week |
Interestingly, the Queen, as a non catholic Queen, wore black and covered her head with a black veil adhering to the traditional dress code. When Catholic Queens visit the pope they wear "privilège du blanc". I remember that from seeing the Queen of Spain, Doña Letizia in white at the Vatican. I wonder what was going on insider the Spanish monarch's head when she was there.That's because before she married she was a republican and never a practicing catholic. The things one has to do for love, hahahaha.
Friday dawned, my very big day but I was ready physically and mentally for this major surgery on my pelvic floor organs which were in a very bad state and I won't go into details. I had a coffee before I left even if I shouldn't but I knew I had a long day ahead of me most of it "nil by mouth". Eladio took me, of course. I reminded him of our wedding vows; "in sickness and in health" which for us are a given. I do love the man so much, I do. After admission at around 9 am into the Women's Health department of the Quiron hospital in Pozuelo, I was given room 176 which was quite plush. That's where Eladio took this week's feature photo. The Quirón is where Oli gave birth to Juliet and where the former King of Spain was given a replacement hip after a scandalous trip to Botswana to hunt elephants. Soon Olivia and Miguel were there to see me and to get a medical certificate.We were all amazed that Spanish law allows first and second degree family members 5 working days off if the patient is admitted to hospital, even if it's only for one day and even if he or she is not operated on (not my case). Here are Oli and I hugging when they came and shortly before I was taken away.
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| With Oli at the hospital on Friday |
And here I am being carried away on a stretcher by an orderly along long passages in a very big hospital, to my destination, the third surgery of my life. The first was to remove my wisdom teeth in my early 20s at the Leeds General Infirmary, the second was to mend a fibula bone I broke in the ice coming down a mountain near Montrondo in about 2014. This one though was more serious but I had no worries about anesthesia. However, I was in for a bit of a shock when I came round.
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| On the stretcher waving goodbye to my dear husband who was left waiting in our room for quite a few hours |
I was prepped for surgery not unlike what we see on hospital series. Everyone was very nice, including my surgeon, María del Mar de Haro - a competent woman probably in her 50's. I remember being taken into the theatre with lots of people around and music too and after that I don't remember a thing. From what I have been told the operation took longer than scheduled as not only did I have cystocele, I also had a rectocele and a torn perineum. Basically the surgeon strengthened the walls of my pelvic floor, repositioned both my bladder and my rectum and mended the torn perineum.
Last week I did some research into female pelvic floor anatomy which I didn't know much about but now I do. I concluded we women are not well designed "down there", are we? It's all too close.
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| Women's pelvic floor anatomy |
I also wondered later whether all this was caused by giving birth 40 years ago. These days women who give birth are given pelvic floor physiotherapy to correct anything that might have been disturbed during birthing. In my day and I imagine my mother's day, we would take the babies to be seen but no one looked at "our parts" to see if there was any damage apart from the awful stitches. Maybe mine came undone and my perineum has been torn ever since. And imagine Eladio's mother who gave birth in the 40's in an isolated rural village with only a local woman to help. Any birth that went wrong in Montrondo ended in death. Today things are so much better.
I woke up from the anesthesia very, very confused. I thought I was dreaming and wanted to get up and go to the toilet. I also wanted my husband with me and had no idea the operation had already been performed. I also woke up to terrible pain - they had left an enormous amount of gauze inside me to absorb the blood which hurt. They had also fixed a dreaded catheter which I find more difficult than most women to tolerate because of my underlying bladder condition (dry OAB). I was in a sorry state when I was returned to my room at about 2.30 and just melted into my husband's arms. All I wanted was him. I was hungry and thirsty too but wasn't allowed to drink water until 5 pm. At 6, I was given pear juice and later a light dinner I ate ravenously. If it had been offered to me anywhere else I wouldn't have touched it but I was starving and ate every morsel.
I slept on and off while Eladio went to have a late lunch. I was given more pain killers and was advised to walk around which we did together. We even went outside for me to have a "fag" which I did very sneakily. My husband could have spent the night with me but it wasn't necessary and also he needed a break so off he went at around 7 pm. I was feeling better and more so after a cheering up video call with my dear friend Amanda who I had been keeping up to date all day as well as my other friends, Sandra and Adele who are in Brittany together now and of course Kathy and Phil who are at a wedding in Kew Gardens. I do envy them all.
I was surrounded by my technology - my PC, kindle, phone, headphones, etc but only read a bit on my kindle to help me fall asleep. I woke up at about 5.15 am on Saturday morning and thanks to Eladio was able to have a "café con leche" and a yoghurt he had brought up for me from the cafeteria before he left. The coffee was cold but it was coffee and you all know I can't start my day without one. I was given pain killers again at 7.30 and told the doctor wouldn't be coming to discharge me, prior to removing the catheter and me weeing until 10.30 - so feeling better I went and got breakfast from the cafeteria wearing just my nightie and some slippers I had brought. I later had the coffee and pain au chocolate in my bathroom and ignored the ghastly breakfast they brought me at 9.30. To cut a long story short, the gynecologist came on time and removed the never ending piece of gauze stuck up me. Then a nurse removed the catheter and it was up to me to drink lots of water and try and pee which was not easy but I did it. By 12.30 or so Eladio was there to take me home. I came out clutching my medical report including prescriptions for a host of pills, and everything under the sun for a vagina including dreaded suppositories. We stopped at the chemist to get everything and soon we were home. Oh home sweet home, the best place to be in the world. I was greeted in this order by Pippa (of course), Tana and my sweet daughter Suzy. I was starving for lunch and ate everything on the table; a bit of ham, some salad, vegetable soup followed by curry with rice and a mandarin. I have been told to eat a lot fibre; i.e. veg and fruit and my body is craving for both.
It was lovely to rest at home and most of the pain had gone. I have a month to recover and must not do anything strenuous or lift weights but I can go for short walks and I shall do so. It wasn't pleasant but the worst part is over. All I need now is lots of TLC (tender loving care) which I know I will get at home.
I hope I haven't bored you with all these details of my operation and the experience at the hospital but it was a big thing for me and I have suffered for years like "a good beast and in silence", something I learned from my father. But I don't want to suffer anymore. I hope this will now make a new woman of me. Time will tell but I am sure it will.
Last night the clocks went back which is always confusing. Today is
Sunday and we have been robbed of one hour and of light in the afternoon. Instead of getting dark at 8 pm it will now get dark at 7pm. I do wish we could do away with the changing of the clocks and I vote for staying permanently on summer time.
I had a reasonable night's sleep and am feeling less pain today. I shall take it slowly. Until next time, my friends, that's it from me for this week.
Cheers Masha
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