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..............