Freedom at last – after a week spent couped up inside despite feeling just as well as I had the week previously, it isn’t half a relief to be back at home and within my own four walls.  Even if I don’t leave them for the next 7 days, it’s going to be a heck of a lot nicer than it has been on E ward this week.

That’s nothing against E Ward, you understand, it being the very best of the best places to be if the docs suspect you’ve something dodgy going on in the new blowers they implanted, but let’s be honest: hospital is hospital.

Interestingly, I didn’t find this 5 night/6 day stretch as hard going as my previous one (just a week prior) – I was fairly upbeat and resilient the whole way through.  I think it largely had to do with the fact that when I was admitted the team let me know straight away that I was going to be in until Saturday at the earliest, most likely, whereas the previous week every day had been a will-they-won’t-they let me go connundrum whic, upon the arrival of the nigh-on inevitable “won’t”, always served to deflate and depress me – getting one’s hopes up in a hospital is a bad plan at the best of times, but when you’re feeling physically fragile, too, it’s never good.

Still, three days of being pumped full of more steroids that the US sprint team and the Tour de France combined have served to set me back on the straight and narrow (we hope) and get me sent home for a glorious span of 5 days before my next clinic appointment.  Getting discharged on a Saturday is usually no mean feat, but luckily for me, my team were on duty this weekend, which meant full access to the key decision makers who could kick me out at will (mine or their’s, I’m not sure which yet).

All I have to show for my week’s stay in the Big House this time is a severe sleep-deprivation hang-over.  One of the side-effects of the Methal Prednisalone (the IV steroid they put me) is sleep disturbance and although I managed through the first night with just a bit of a late nod-off and minor leg-cramps, last night saw me lie awake until 6am before being unceremoniously awoken for my breakfast at 7.45.  Under 2 hour’s sleep does not for a chirpy Oli make.

Still, it’s hard to moan too much when I’m just happy to be out and back home.  Perhaps the total lack of sleep last night – and my managing to stay awake throughout the day so far today – will do me good in getting me off to sleep nice and swiftly tonight.  One can only hope.

Oh, the only other good thing to come from having far too much time on my hands in hosp for the week was a chance to get started on the treatment for my next writing project – a low-low-budget flick about a band on tour which I hope I’ll be able to knock out in quick-time and see about getting shot sooner rather than later.

Of course, like most of the projects that get mentioned on the blog in their formative stages, there is bound to be a mishap which gets in the way of this one at some point soon, but then perhaps this will be the exception that proves the rule.  Watch this space is about the best I can say, I guess.

I’m off to flop in front of the telly to try to stay awake till my last dose of daily immuno-suppressant is due at 10pm.

For those of you who read this in time over the weekend, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Observer, where I *should* be featuring prominently in a health-article to back up the paper’s continued push behind the Opt-Out campaign.  For those who can’t get out to pick one up (and thus see a picture of my lovely mug) I shall endeavour to post a website link up here as soon as it’s up.