Category: In the ward

The final bits…

On By Jen EveIn In the ward, surgery3 Comments

With the trachy out, it was time to start breathing through my mouth. My nose was entirely blocked so there was no chance of it helping me out. My mouth got so dry. Night time was the worst. I already wasn’t sleeping much, but now my mouth and throat were dry and burning. And I couldn’t swallow. I could use little pink sponges to moisten my mouth but it didn’t really help. So I grabbed a syringe and syringed water into my mouth to properly coat it. Then I realised I could swallow my saliva and I could put water in my mouth and I may have cheekily combined the two a little. It didn’t make my mouth any less dry during the night, it didn’t stop me waking up constantly, but it did bring me some relief.

The Trachy was out on the Friday. On Saturday Dr Claire came to visit me and said I could start trying to drink clear liquids. I sheepishly said I had been experimenting with it a tiny bit. I showed her and her two doctor friends in tow how I had been syringing water into my mouth and swallowing it.

I had to do it over the sink because there was always a chance I would spill it. I couldn’t close my mouth so it was hard to make a seal. But I managed to seal my bottom lip with my flap. It had been almost 2 weeks since I’d had anything to drink, and a lot had changed in my mouth. But I practiced.

When Mum and Dad came to visit that day we went down to the cafe and had a peppermint tea. I shared it with my jumper, but I did get to enjoy some of it. Dad also popped out to get me some Ribena. The Ribena was amazing. It got rid of the horrible taste in my mouth, and it was pretty nice to taste something sweet and cold and delicious.

The following day I was allowed to progress to REAL TEA and we went down to the cafe again and I had my first cup of tea in 2 weeks. I don’t think I have ever gone that long without tea. I hope to never do it again.

On the Monday I had an assessment with the speech therapist Lucy to assess my swallow. I like her. She was the one I met before the surgery, and seeing her in hospital felt like meeting up with an old friend. She was amazed by how well I was doing considering my lips wouldn’t meet and I had just had this massive surgery! My swallow was not compromised, though my mouth was being a bit tricky. We tried a syrupy chocolate supplement drink and then custard. Using the spoon was difficult because I didn’t have a top lip available to scrape the contents off it but I quickly found I could use my bottom lip for that job. So I would put the spoon in my mouth, flip it, scrape it off, and say ‘mmmm custard’. (I like custard).

I was spurred forward by this and that afternoon I was given the ok to move to puree food. I ordered pureed salmon for dinner. But they ran out. So I got puree roast beef. Um… why is that a thing? It was horrible. I struggled to get it in my mouth, I struggled to get it off my spoon, and I struggled to swallow it as it was like dry paste. Not to mention it was yuck. The soup and the yoghurt I was fine with though. It was messy, and I had to cover myself in a towel, but I got through it. They would be assessing me to see if I would have to go home with the feeding tube or not, and it seemed likely I would. I’d had my training, I had the pump etc. I was ready to feed myself at home. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but figured it was better than staying in hospital for too long.

The next day Deepti came in for the Doctor’s visit. The first thing she said to me was ‘how would you feel if I told you that you could go home today?’

I was in shock. ‘I would feel very good!’ I finally exclaimed.

It was Tuesday. Two weeks and one day after first surgery, one week and three days after second. There had been talk of me going home near the end of the week, but I had just been saying to my parents the day before that I didn’t know how I’d last many more nights in there. They were starting to take their toll.

Deepti asked how I was going with my eating. I said it was difficult, but I was fine with the soup and yoghurt, custard etc. and drinking, but I found the puree food tricky. She said she trusted me to sort out eating and promptly took out my feeding tube. I can’t explain how happy I was. I had not been feeling very well with the feed they’d been giving me and I hated being hooked up to it. I wanted to be mobile and zoom about the place.

I was freed from my shackles and about to be freed from my incarceration! I couldn’t believe it!

The rest of the morning was spent packing, getting loaded up with supplement drinks, dancing around the room with Clarence, saying goodbye to nurses and Kat the physio (I was going to miss her the most) and waiting for my medication so I could LEAVE. I was excited to tell my parents when they turned up for their daily visit that I would be leaving with them!

I was exhausted when I got home. I hardly had the energy to say hi to my housemates. But I did. Then went to bed. I had a long way to go, but I was home. No more being woken up every few hours. No more having to buzz and wait and ask every time I needed something. No more freezing cold dry room. No more having to appear perky for every new visitor. I could just lie on the couch, drink smoothies and feel sorry for myself. Things were looking up.

Little adventures

On By Jen EveIn In the ward, surgery3 Comments

On day 13 of my hospital stay, Kat the Physio said I was allowed to go for a little adventure, so I actually got to leave the ward and we went up to Level 16 and looked out at the view. UCLH has a tall tower, and is situated pretty in the middle of London, it therefore has a pretty decent view! The big window looking out from the corridor as you leave the lift faces West.

I wore my hospital sock/slippers, and we carried box of tissues, and off I wobbled.

I also had a pretty decent view from my room for that matter. It was nice, especially when it snowed. In the afternoon I would sit in the chair by the window and watch North London finish its day.

We went up to level 16 quite a few times. There was something calming about looking out over the tops of the buildings, watching the buses traverse the streets, watching the world go by. One day as we were getting into the lift to head back down, I ran into a Physio I had seen in ICU briefly. ‘Jen!’ She exclaimed! It took me a minute to place her, but I got there. We had a quick catch up, it was nice to run into her.

One day we even went out the bottom of the building and stood in the sun. Its rays soaked through me and recharged my batteries a little.

Once my Trachy was out and I got the OK to have clear liquids, we started making trips down to the cafe for peppermint tea, and then the next day I was allowed proper tea. That first cup of tea was heavenly. I had been desperate for it. Most of it ended up down my front (I couldn’t close my mouth, so keeping liquid in there was an interesting challenge) but being able to sit in the café and have a cup of tea made me feel a bit human again.

Mum and Dad visited every day. This was amazing, it made me so happy. I looked forward to their visits and was sad when they had to leave. Ma would read me a couple of chapters of a book each time. It brought me no end of warmth and comfort. Da would pop out and get me things like wet wipes and Ribena once I could start drinking.

My days consisted of a few highlights – visit from the doctors, visit from Kat the Physio, visit from my parents. Occasionally I got other visits too.

Near the end of my stay in the ward, I had a visit from the Sister I had met during my first time in ICU. It was so nice to see her. Once again, the people I am meeting along the way are amazing. These poor people who work in ICU – they deal with people just coming out of anaesthetic, and people in their first few days after admission… basically they see everyone at their worst. And a lot of them saw me at my worst. And the amount of love and support I got from a lot of them regardless, was amazing. But it must get disheartening to never see the stage when people get better! You just get them to a stable point and then ship them off to the ward. Anyway, it made my day that Erika came to visit, it was nice to see her again, have a catch up and get a hug.

On my final day, as I was packing up, who popped in to my room but my bestie Rebecca! I was sad it was looking like I wouldn’t see her again, so I was ecstatic when I saw her and gave her a huge hug. We had a bit of a catch up and a chat before she had to run back to work and I had to talk to a nurse about discharge details.

I can’t quite explain how much I like and appreciate these people. I know I only met them for a short period of time, but some nurses (and doctors, nursing assistants, etc.) I felt like I really connected with, and when I was feeling so low, that meant everything. It’s something that’s hard to explain if you’ve never been in this situation. But these nurses were my lifeline. And the fact that they came to visit me after I had left their care will stay with me forever.

View from T16:

View from my room:

Out in the sun (note mum carrying the arsenal for dribble and blood catching. Also note trachy is out):

Trachy tales

On By Jen EveIn In the ward, surgery5 Comments

While a lot of the point of this post is really to say ‘Kat the Physio is amazing’, because I definitely haven’t given her enough time yet, I feel I also need to talk a little bit more about the Tracheostomy.

The concept is great. Hole in the neck to breathe through, so no matter what they’re doing to your mouth/face, no matter how much swelling, you are still breathing fine.

I kind of wish I’d had more details about it explained to me before hand because I had no understanding of how it worked whatsoever and it stressed me out. I wasn’t in control and I didn’t understand what was going on. In fact I regularly wrote Kat messages saying that I didn’t understand what she was doing. She was very patient and explained everything to me. She even drew me some diagrams which really helped. In fact a few people drew me trachy diagrams, I have three in total in my books. At this time I think I was still falling asleep mid conversation but regardless, Kat taking the time to explain everything to me was very reassuring.

After you’ve had it in for a while they start going through the steps to take it out, weaning you off it, which can take many days. I started the process before I had to go back in to surgery the second time, but had to start again from there. It was 6 days between second surgery and getting it out. I don’t think I would have lasted much longer.

Of course you can’t talk with a tracheostomy. This is the most obvious effect of it. It goes in below your vocal chords and seals everything off – no air rushes past to make noise. Not great when you’re straight out of surgery. Also means making friends is harder (although maybe people liked me more this way).

Firstly, the tube irritated me so much. I’ve always been quite a cougher, often quite wheezy and irritated. This was like the ultimate. And you can’t cough with a trachy. You can try, and it just makes a horrible hoarse sound and just irritates more.

I also could often hear mucus in my breathing which stressed me out and I wanted them to suction it out for me but they didn’t seem too bothered. Weird.

I had a constant struggle with nurses over clearing the trachy. They have this super long suction tube which they shove miles down inside your trachy and would almost kill me with coughing for a good 15 minutes. I hated that one and it was never necessary. Alternatively, I could cough up whatever was in there and they could just suction it out the end of the tube. No dramas. But they all preferred the first and insisted on doing it. A few of my special nurses got it though. They had my back.

Every time I coughed, the trachy also pulled on the stitches holding it in which hurt, and there was often mucus and blood that came out onto my neck when I coughed which I hated so much (who would like it…)

So day 2 post second surgery it was time to take the first step with the trachy – deflate the cuff around the tube itself. This allows some air to flow through. Unfortunately this required sticking the long thing through the trachy which sent me into a tremendous coughing fit and Kat decided I wasn’t ready so the cuff went back up. This didn’t fit well with my obsession to be always moving forward, but I was tired so I didn’t complain too much. Kat also knew how much I liked to progress so she was pretty good at managing my disappointment if I ever didn’t.

The following day we did it again and I did a lot better, though lots of coughing still ensued. They also changed to a different inner tube at this point.

The funny thing is, coughing is usually a sign that you’re not ready to progress to the next step. My coughing was my body screaming for the bastard to be taken out.

The day after, it was time for the important step – the speaking valve!!! This allows air to still come in through the trachy, but it goes out through your mouth, therefore passing your vocal chords, therefore allowing you to talk. And amazingly, cough! It was a dream!!! I got the valve in and mum and dad came to visit shortly after. Kat passed them coming in as she was leaving and mentioned that there was a surprise waiting for them but she wouldn’t say what.

They came in.
‘Hello’ they said.
‘HELLO!!!’ I replied.
For a moment it didn’t register with mum. ‘Did you just speak?’ Asked Dad.
That was fun.

The second I got that speaking valve in everything felt better. I could also swallow. I’d accidentally been swallowing over the day or so before this and it felt like it was pushing mucus and blood into my nose and ears (I don’t know if that’s actually a thing but either way it wasn’t nice). But now I could swallow and talk. Phew. Usually you would only have the speaking valve on for a short period of time at the beginning but I kept mine on full time. It felt so much better.

Kat had never heard my voice. I was excited and talking at a thousand miles an hour, forgetting that as I had a huge new mound of skin in my mouth, no teeth and an entirely blocked nose, I was pretty difficult to understand. Once again she resumed the role of telling me to slow down, but for different reasons this time. One of the speech therapists was there too. When she heard my voice she asked me where I was from. People don’t usually realise I’m a foreigner! How did she mange to do it amidst my compromised speech?! She was from America, maybe expats are particularly tuned in to accents that aren’t quite British. Or maybe it was due to her being a speech therapist, I suppose she’s used to dealing with language and how words are formed.

By this stage we had all worked out that the sooner we got this thing out, the better. So after two nights with the speaking valve, it was decided it could come out. This had another implication too – that my surgeons were feeling confident that I wouldn’t have to go back in to surgery.

Taking it out was an interesting affair. I wanted Kat to take it out as she was my bestie and we’d been through so much together. But there was a nurse who wanted to have a go. Andrew was also there, my surgical clinical nurse specialist.

I’m always happy to let someone have a go, everyone needs to learn sometime, but this was one of the most heavy handed nurses I’ve come across. She was lovely, just didn’t have a very delicate touch. But Kat was there too, to help, to explain things to me as we went, to hold my hand when it hurt.

My goodness did I cough. They had to hold the trachy while they cut out the sutures and I couldn’t stop coughing. Especially when the nurse took over holding the trachy and she pushed me down on the bed with how hard she was holding it, I remember staring up in fear. Andrew seemed to realise and stepped in to do it quickly. I tried really hard not to cough, I tried to be good. I mostly failed.

In the end, actually taking the trachy out was the least difficult part. I didn’t even notice when they pulled it out of my neck, except for the fact that I miraculously stopped coughing. They told me it was out and I suddenly realised I was breathing through my mouth again. I lay there smiling, a look of bliss on my face. Kat was checking the oxygen level in my blood. All good. ‘Are you ok?’ She asked. I beamed up at her, nodded and gave her a thumbs up. It was like I was in a dream. I was floating on clouds.

They dressed the wound and explained to me that I would need to put my hand on the hole whenever I tried to talk or cough, because until it healed, I had a rather large hole in my neck. In fact I woke up during the night that night and realised that I was suddenly breathing through my neck again and needed to get it re-dressed.

So many people who saw me after that commented excitedly on how my trachy was out. They all knew how much it bothered me. This was a good day. This felt like a win.

Trachy drawing:

Hole in my neck after getting it out:

Struggles and some gory details…

On By Jen EveIn In the ward, surgery2 Comments

At this point I was waking up every morning not able to open my eyes, as well as being cold, wet and covered in blood. It was pretty grim. I couldn’t breathe through my nose or close my mouth. I had blood and yellow discharge streaming out of my nose, and blood and saliva running constantly out of my mouth. Managing it during the day was a full time job and the lack of management during the night meant that I was a terrifying scene when I woke up. After the 6am drugs and check of observations (blood pressure, temperature etc.), I would treat myself to a shower in my private bathroom. I wanted to look half decent decent before my doctors showed up for their morning rounds, so this was the first step in my 2hr morning routine to get to that point.

I didn’t attempt showering until I got the last of my drains removed. From each surgery, I had new wounds, each of them had drains coming out of them, and little bottles for them to drain into. I had 4 in total – two from my shoulder, two from my neck. It felt so good when I finally got the last one out because I no longer had something permanently attached to me. I think it was maybe my second day in my private room in the ward (Wednesday) that I got it out. Then I was able to shower and wear my own clothes.

When I say shower, I use that word lightly. I had a big fluffy bandage on my left leg, a dressing on my shoulder and a trachy in my neck. This gave me a diagonal line that was ok to wash – my right leg, most of my torso and my left shoulder… Ok…

Double layer of plastic bags tied over my leg, shower head taken off the shower rail, towel over my left shoulder. Use the shower head to soak the towel over my shoulder, nice and warm. Turn the shower head around and point it over my one good leg, use the reflective back as a mirror and start trying to clean my face. When the towel got cold, re-wet, then continue cleaning face. I had a system going. (A few days later when they took my bandage off and removed the dressing from my shoulder I was allowed an almost normal shower and I hardly knew myself. I was having 2 showers a day at that point).

Then after the shower, I would start cleaning my nose, moisturising my face, putting my hydrocortisone cream on, more cream on my lips, cleaning my eyes… By the time the doctors came around I looked like an entirely different person from the monster I had woken up as. As well as looking better and thus feeling a bit better, this also gave me a great sense of achievement.

These are the gory details you totally want to know about this time.

* I found a way to get a tissue so I could put one end in my mouth and poke the other ends in my nose so that it would catch everything that was dripping for a few minutes so I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

* I tried a few different approaches but eventually settled on tying a towel around my neck every night to catch all the blood. I secured it with a little pair of blue scissors which was actually a clamp.

* I went through packets of tissues, paper towels, I dribbled on everything I owned (and washed my shirts in the sink and hung them up overnight), then I changed my approach and used a towel to try and catch it all during the day too.

* I was coughing all the time. Sometimes when I coughed, mucus came out through the outside of my tracheostomy and sat on my neck… I’m sorry, this is all pretty gross.

* My feed was making me feel nauseous, and that combined with the flap feeling so huge in my mouth, right at the back of my throat, and the fact that I was coughing all the time meant that I was gagging regularly, dry heaving.

* I had a horrible taste in my mouth. I hadn’t brushed my teeth in ages, and it had gone through two surgeries and had a lot done to it. The most I could do was soak a little pink sponge in water and put it gently in my mouth, making sure I didn’t touch it on the flap too much.

Ugh I think that’s enough for now. Thanks for listening.

The second trip to the ward in 3 days…

On By Jen EveIn In the ward, surgery4 Comments

When I was transferred to the ward for the second time in 3 days, I was back in a shared ward. Thankfully this time there was no one wailing all night like there had been the time before (I remember writing to my nurse saying ‘just give her sleeping tablets and give me sleeping tablets and all will be well. I’ll meet her in my dreams and calm her down’).

My doctors came to visit me and they said I would be moved into a private room the following day. Aah thank goodness. They checked the flap and I thought Deepti looked concerned so I asked what’s wrong. She said there’s no concern, she was just tired. Poor thing, I can imagine. My goodness these guys work hard.

Once again I thought my trachy was choking me. I was struggling to breathe and I was coughing a lot (it really irritated me, have I mentioned?!!). I wrote down a long note to the nurse, Rose, about how it was my first night and I was feeling stressed about the blood running from my nose and mouth and thought I might be being choked. She was amazing. She put my mind at ease immediately about the choking. And she taught me all about ‘suctioning’ which involved sucking the saliva out of my mouth that I couldn’t swallow (the trachy didn’t allow swallowing). Since at this point my saliva was pretty much just blood, it was nice to suction it for a bit instead of waste another box of tissues.

When it was bed time, I tried to get comfortable and sleep but I couldn’t deal with letting the blood just go everywhere so I was trying to catch it all the time. This meant no time for sleeping. After a few hours, Rose came in and suggested some sleeping tablets. YES PLEASE!

I think they managed to get me about 2 hours of sleep before a cleaner decided to burst in and started trying to clean the floor at about 4am.

When my doctors came to see me the next morning I was a mess. I had cleaned up my face but my gown and bedding were covered in blood and I was feeling pretty damn low. They ordered the nurses to clean everything, as well as change the dressing on my trachy. They also told me that at around 11 I would move to my own room.

I can tell you, by the time I was settled in that room, I felt like a different person to what I had been that morning. I even had my own bathroom! Amazing.

I was so happy to find out Rose was my nurse again the following night. In my mind she was my guardian angel. I knew she would protect me, put me at ease if anything was wrong, help solve my problems. She was also just one of the sweetest, loveliest, most awesome people… I am very grateful I had her that first night in particular, but also for two other nights too.

A few of the amazing nurses on my first trip to ICU

On By Jen EveIn In the ward, People, surgery6 Comments

The first thing was to work out a way to communicate with people. How else would I make friends?

The first notebook Dad got for me said on the front ‘Be your own kind of beautiful’. Seemed fitting, since I would definitely be challenging the normal ideas of ‘beautiful’ for some time (someone did just tell me I was totally rocking the look hehe – the ol swollen face look).

The scribbles start to make sense after a few pages, as the initial anaesthesia wore off. I was never far from my felt-tip pens or notebook. In fact everything was covered in pen – my arms, my sheets, my gown, at one point I even managed to draw on my Physio.

After the first couple of days of confusion, things got a bit clearer. I was helped through by some amazing people as I was recovering in the ICU.

Anna was the Portuguese nurse from Porto. I promised her that once I was better I would prioritise visiting her home town. She said to drink their special ‘Porto wine’, I of course agreed. I realised later we were talking about Port. Yes please, I will drink it all.

Then Maria took over. She was lovely. She had a brilliant knack of explaining things to me really well as she was doing them, putting me at ease and making sure I was informed about everything that was going on. This appeals to me so much. Looking through my conversation book from Maria’s shift, it appears I finally managed to work out the reason as to why my neck was sore – something that had been plaguing me – of course, they made quite a big cut in my neck to connect the blood supply, I’d known his all along but for some reason this was when my re-realisaion epiphany happened. I also wrote ‘Elephant’ and underlined it, so I’m sure that was important. The lovely Maria also came and popped in at another time, a few shifts later, she crouched by my bed and held my hand. She was great.

Then there was the amazing Rebecca, with a pixie haircut that gave me massive hair inspo, beautiful straight teeth, a great smile and very pretty eyes. It was Thursday, day 3 post surgery. My memory of my day with her is surrounded by sunshine. We put the radio on in the morning and had it going all day, managed to find a station that was just playing an awesome mix of retro songs. We boogied through the day and she would pop over to come have a chat/write with me. She also knew Sydney, which was fun. When she went on her break, she had a tea on my behalf because we drink it the same way. I got up and danced to the radio as my bed was made. Kat the Physio came by and decided it was time to go walking! So I got all my lines and drains bundled up and with Kat on one side and Rebecca on the other, Clarence under one arm and my parents as cheer squad/photographers, my support crew and I went thundering down the corridor. I, of course, was certain I was fine and was trying to do everything myself and quickly. It became a common theme of my friendship with Kat that she would spend a lot of time telling me to slow down, calm down. I appreciated that. I need these sorts of reminders when I’m not well. Later in the afternoon after everyone had left, Rebecca and I went for another walk. We danced down the corridor, and she took me on a short tour of the floor outside of our ward. We recommended each other our favourite Ramen places (Kanada-ya: mine, Koya: hers). I told her my legs were randomly itchy and she said it’s a side effect of the morphine and that I had a drug on my file that would counteract that! Brilliant! I was sad when her shift ended, I’d had such a fun day.

I was lucky however, as it wasn’t long until I met Ronnie, who took over from Rebecca, and had actually been there that first night with me in the ICU as I was coming out of anaesthetic. I didn’t really remember of course but I wanted to know all about it. Well, I was distressed and thought I was being choked (start the 11 day obsession with getting rid of the thing hat had been choking me – my tracheostomy). Apparently I was so stressed they got someone in to have a look if there was something wrong with it. Nope nothing wrong, but my body did think this new invader was trying to kill it. Anyway, we chatted and learnt about each other as she pottered around doing her work tasks (entertaining me was obviously the number 1 task). I wrote out my ‘list of demands’ that I wanted her to fill for me before bed (cheeky). In the morning, she cleaned my eye for me and put ointment and drops in it, and for the first time in 3 days we saw my left eye!

During this whole time I was in a shared ward, though our bays were big. The room felt so different with each person who was looking after me in that time that in my mind, each time the shift changed, I also changed location. This of course didn’t happen, but it could have! Someone could have been trying really hard to mess with me!

At some point someone described me in this time as a ‘big personality’. Just goes to show that you can be dopey and not able to speak and still get yourself across.

The roller coaster ride that puts me in the ward… then puts me back in the Cotton Rooms the next day… But now we need home tomorrow please!!!

On By Jen EveIn Friends and Family, In the ward, treatment7 Comments

So…

This is going to be a bit of a roller coaster. post.

This morning kind of went from bad to worse…

My hopes to get out tomorrow (Friday) in time for our Christmas lunch on Saturday were slowly to rapidly slipping away from me.

And my hopes to get out of the ward and back into the Cotton Rooms today appeared to have gone entirely. I was less worried about that, I just want to get out tomorrow! But they got my parents to go over to the Cotton Rooms (thanks parents, you are amazing), check me out and bring all my things over to the hospital.

So I met with my Oncologist this morning, well he came to visit me in the ward. And basically he thought they’d be keeping me over the weekend unless I did some super human, never-before-seen type Methotrexate clearing. And he said it’s possible (likely) that this is what I’m looking at for my final 6 Methotrexate treatments. Hospitals and weeks that drag out longer. Ugh more hospitals.

As a result, he also said we would be putting off next week’s chemo by a few days. Which means goodbye to all free weekends for the foreseeable future (until the schedule needs to be put off again).

I’m not going to lie, this was all getting me down. The thought of my last 10 weeks of chemo probably now being pushed out, maybe even for months. It’s hard to manage. BUT you know what? Last week I ran into one of my fellow Ambicare Crew (he’s in my next ‘people met so far’ post so I won’t give away too much right now), and he was having a bad week. Sure I was having a bad couple of weeks too. But he had received some bad news, and I can only guess, but perhaps he found out that his chemo isn’t working. Or there may be some other big complication that means his prognosis is not so good. It seemed somewhat serious.

In terms of that, I have had only good news the whole way. My chemo has worked, my scans have been good, I’m finally meeting with the surgeon in a couple of weeks.

Sure, it might take a bit longer, and yeah it will be frustrating and no it’s not what I want. But at least we’re still going in the right direction, even if it’s at more of a crawl. All that will sort itself out.

BUT I NEED TO GET HOME TOMORROW!

Anyway, then my blood results came back, and they were… good. Back to what you would expect for a Thursday! So but an hour after my parents packed everything up and walked it over to me, we were all packing it back up and walking it back to the Cotton Rooms.

So that is good!

I went back into Ambicare, and they think that result is borderline for clearing by Friday afternoon and getting to go home. BUT BORDERLINE IS BETTER THAN THE ‘NO CHANCE’ I HAD THIS MORNING!!!

Not sure what’s going to happen with next week, I was meant to go into clinic tomorrow morning, so I’ll just go and do that and see what happens.

I’ll still get a disrupted sleep tonight, with alarms and bathroom stops, but nothing like last night where people kept coming to shout at me about unimportant things that I’d already told them every half hour to hour.

Phew.

Once again, please cross all your fingers! It appears to have worked for getting me out of hospital by Tuesday last time (even though I had to miss my gig), this time we need to get out of here Friday afternoon. Please please just let me get out tomorrow afternoon. Whatever happens after this week will happen but please just give me this weekend, even if none others.