25.Wrinkles, tinkles and miracles

Night 1 at home after release. (Night 14 after treatment)

All snuggled up under half a ton of duck feathers I slept so well, until now.  It's still dark and all is quiet so it's the middle of the night as far as I'm concerned.  I try to turn over and pain like I've never felt shoots down my legs; my knees hurt, my hips hurt and attempting to move in any direction is excruciating. Two words shoot straight to the front of my mind:  serum sickness.  Just my luck that it decides to rear it's ugly head the first night I'm away from hospital.  I have no choice, I need to get up and go to the loo so I'm just going to have to grin and bear it.  I manage to sit up and spend the next 5 minutes sitting on the edge of the bed, contemplating whether my legs will actually hold me when I try to stand up.  They really do hurt.  Reasoning with myself (which can be very tricky at the best of times) I decide that the worst that can happen is that I land in a heap on the floor so I take a big breath and go for it.  I managed to stand, however walking was a different kettle of fish.  I couldn't really say that I walked down the corridor, it was more of a bent over shuffle as I couldn't straighten my legs, and each step seemed to be accompanied with a groan as I bounced off the corridor wall.  I made it to the bathroom without waking the rest of the house up which was the mission, hooray! 

Now, anybody who knows me well and has had the misfortune of having any kind of mishap in my presence will tell you that if ever anything goes wrong, my reaction is to laugh even though I know the situation is usually never funny in the slightest.  The more that goes wrong the more I get the giggles. For all those people I have laughed at, you can rest assured that you now have got you're own back.  Wee completed, all I had to do was stand up and make the journey back to bed.  I went to stand up and I couldn't.  My legs had decided enough was enough and were just not going to co-operate. I tried to see the funny side and in typical me style started to giggle, here I was in the middle of the night stuck on the loo, unable to stand, oh man, what a site.  My giggles got louder but very quickly turned from a small giggle to hysterical laughter to hysterical crying as I realised this wasn't funny, it really really hurt and I quite literally couldn't move, the pain searing down my legs was unlike anything I'd ever felt before.  Andy heard my hysterics (and they must have been loud to wake him up) and came rushing to find a blubbering me sitting on the loo unable to move and now totally panicking.  He was such a star, he completely calmed me down and we decided that the only thing I could think of that might ease the pain a bit was to soak in a big hot bath. Andy ran the bath and practically lifted me off the dunny and helped to plonk me in the bath.  It did offer some kind of relief and after all the crying I was exhausted.  "I'll come back in 20 mins" Andy said.  I lay there in the hot water trying to remember everything I'd read about serum sickness.  Next thing I new I was waking up like a shrivelled prune and the nice hot water that I'd been wallowing in was now cold water and not so nice.  I'd fallen asleep and so too had Andy, 20 mins had turned into 2 hrs.  I looked at my hands and they were wrinklier than a wrinkly thing.  I still couldn't move and there was no way I could get out the bath myself , I had a momentary panic as firemen and a big winch flashed across my mind along with a headline in the local paper, shit, how embarrassing would that be, so I shouted for Andy and he came rushing through, eyes still half shut.   My legs were most definitely still not working and hurting a lot again so that heavy lifting training Andy did at work all those years ago came in very handy, quite how he got me out the bath I don't know but he did and the assistance of the local fire brigade I'm glad to report was not required.  I think it must have been a bit like one of those miracle stories you hear on telly, you know when people suddenly become able to lift cars that have squished someone or something, well whatever super power they suddenly possess got a hold of Andy at this particular moment in time because I'm a big lump and I'm telling you, getting me out of the bath that night was nothing short of a miracle!

By this time it was 7a.m. so I phoned the hospital and told them about the serum sickness.  I was going in later anyway as my platelet count was rubbish and I needed to have daily platelet transfusions still.  Moo phoned to see how I was doing and found the whole loo story rather amusing and the two hour bath even funnier. 

I endured the trip to hospital, making sure we most definitely did not take the scenic route this time, but stuck to the straight roads instead.  It was dishy Dr Bevan on duty when we got to hospital and after much humming and hawing he prescribed me something to take at home for the serum sickness.  I didn't bother to look in the bag until I was in the car, blow me down it was morphine, and not just one bottle of it.......3 bottles of the stuff.  By the time we got home it was evening again so after a large swig , erm no, sorry, a carefully measured 10ml cup full I plonked into bed and had my second attempt at a good nights sleep.

24. Speed dating and sparkly lights

November 4th

Surprise, I'm still here and in the land of the living :-).  I thought I'd better update my blog as people were beginning to think I'd popped my clogs (and my mum was giving me jip!).  Truth be told it all got a bit grim and I couldn't bring myself to write about it at the time, but looking back at it all now is easier, in fact, I can even see the funny side of things and I never thought I'd say that.  Anyway, even if I had written about it all at the time it would have been complete gobbildy gook as the steroids sent me doo-lally (good old scottish saying for bonkers).

So where did I leave off?  Last time I wrote I was still in hospital but nearing the end of my stay and heading down a big black hole as I seem to remember.  The steroids sent me a bit,....... no, not just a bit, a lot doo lally.  I had the memory span of a gnat and was starting to be known as Dory (the fish in Finding Nemo who doesn't remember a sentence from beginning to end, let alone anything else!).  Days 11,12 & 13 which were a Friday, Sat & Sunday were ridiculously quiet but I was thankful and after being so sick the previous few days I really didn't feel like leaving my room, hmmmm, perhaps not so much that I didn't feel like leaving it - more that I daren't in case there wasn't a loo to bolt into should I need to speak to huey and ralf at short notice if you get my drift.  I hibernated and watched Tom diving, Bradley cycling, Victoria sprinting, Becky swimming and Phelps decide at last to retire and give some others a chance to win some medals, (did his mum never tell him it's nice to share?!).  It was the quietest weekend ever, the hospital was like a ghost town and I seemed to spend most of it on my tod.  Dougal and Andy popped in of course but they had a house full of guests to look after so were busy entertaining.  They did bring dad to visit but that was a visit that was on a par with a speed dating session, no sooner did they arrive and sit down when the nurse appeared with my special platelets and stan the stand.  The nurse hadn't even finished wheeling stan all the way into the room before Dad turned a funny colour and announced he was off, so that as they say, was that.  Dad, you win the prize for the shortest visit ever!

By Monday my consultant had come back and I was feeling much better, this was now day 14 which was a big milestone.  If you're going to get serum sickness it generally happens between days 7-14 and seeing as I'd got this far with no serum sickness, they decided I was going to be discharged and allowed to go home.  (I should just say at this point that serum sickness does not actually involve you being sick as the name would lead you to believe, in actual fact it's like arthritis and causes your joints to become very painful). I was so looking forward to falling into my own big marshmallow bed.  At 9a.m. they said I'd be going home, by 9.30am I was packed and at 5.45pm I eventually got to leave after a platelet transfusion.  Although I was REALLY looking forward to coming home again, I was most definitely not looking forward to the journey home.  The problem was that the steroids just made my head spin so even a simple car journey turned into what felt like a ride from hell on the waltzers.  The trip from St Richards to home is half dual carriage way and an ok road so it should have been fine....I say should have.....it was just that for some reason unbeknown to me Andy decided on this occasion that we'd take the scenic route home which was entirely made up of 20 miles of twisty windey roads (it should have only been 15 miles but we took a detour as we got stuck behind someone towing a boat on a single track road!!!). I concentrated on not hurling and listened to the radio as they commentated on the Olympic mens gymnastics - Britain won the bronze, then got promoted to silver, then demoted back to bonze again. On the plus side for Andy, I wasn't sick in his nice car!

Being home was amazing and there was the best surprise in the world waiting for me.   All the time I'd been in hospital Andy had been working away like a trooper and created me the most amazing present ....my dream craft room with sparkly light.  It took my breath away and I was quite simply speechless.  For a few moments I just stood and looked and forgot about everything I'd gone through in the last couple of weeks. 

(When you see the photo, bare in mind that this room had been covered in 70's pine panelling on 3 walls and lumpy wallpaper with about 10 layers of pink paint, none of the brickwork was exposed and the fireplace was covered in concrete).

It was so good to be home, I knew I still had to go to hospital each day for a while - that's ok though since I knew I'd be coming home afterwards.  I went to bed in what felt like the comfiest bed in the world and with a real downy, wowzers - sheer luxury after a fortnight of sleeping under a sheet.  This was going to be the best nights sleep ever.......or so I thought..............