This week has without doubt been the busiest week of my life in which I’ve achieved precisely nothing. Today I have a “day off” and I’ve spent the whole thing in my PJs desperately trying to catch up on the sleep and rest that I’m told (and feel) my body desperately needs right now.
The essence of the problem? Because the docs were nice enough to let me out before Christmas – and before my Tac levels had sorted themselves out properly – I’ve been having to go to Harefield for blood tests to check the levels every day. Which means from New Year’s Eve to yesterday I’ve been getting up at 7.15am every morning, traipsing the hour to Harefield for bloods and an indeterminate wait of between 15 minutes and 4-and-a-half hours before they let me home again.
In the process, I’ve had a white cell count creeping northwards, which has since settled, plus some other slightly raised (ie: dodgy) results back, which have put the docs on their guard.
I’m not really complaining, as it’s better to be commuting every day than still being resident on the ward, which I’m sure my ‘rents will agree with, even if they are the ones having to ferry me to and fro every day. I am also well aware that plenty of people have much earlier starts and longer days than me and suffer it without moaning, but right now I just miss my sleep. I can categorically state for the record that 7 hours sleep is not enough for a body still recovering from the rigors of having half it’s engine ripped out and hastily replaced with a new, improved model.
So I’ve been delighted to bask in the chilled relaxedness (it’s a word, I just decided) of a day with no Harefield visit.
Yesterday was my first post-Tx clinic appointment, which went really well, despite being deathly dull and involving a 4 hour wait to see Doc C. He’s mightily impressed with my progress and all the infection markers which had been creeping up have come back down again, which is ace. The upshot is that I have a day off today, then hopefully my last day-time visit for bloods on Saturday morning, after which I should settle in to a pattern of twice weekly clinic visits, which will gradually become less over time.
What all of this to-ing and fro-ing from Harefield has meant, however, is that my time at home is taken up pretty much entirely with eating and sleeping, with barely a couple of spare hours left over to spend time with K, which has been a real drag. We both naïvely assumed that being back at the flat would mean we’d get more time together, but it turns out that’s not so. We are both anxious anticipating my switch to clinic rather than ward visits so that we at least get Tuesday and Wednesday to ourselves.
Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, it’s not doom and gloom at all, really – I can’t moan when I still spend all my day thinking about the myriad things I want to and will soon be able to do with my new life. I’m just itching to get back to work, soon as my body and my doctors (who work, naturally, in unison) allow me to.
Think of me, being poked and prodded, when you wake lazily in bed tomorrow morning. But don’t feel sorry for me, because shortly afterwards I’ll be tearing down the corridor to escape at a speed I never imagined I’d achieve again….