Archives: Annoyances

Last night turned out pretty exciting as I ended up on a late-night rescue mission after Dazz and Tinks managed to drain the battery of his car and strand themselves at a nearby lake.

I was busy introducing K to Ghost, a flick I love but haven’t seen in years and which she ended up kind of liking, I think, when Dazz buzzed me to see if I have any jump leads.  I don’t but managed to grill him enough to find out why he needed them, at which point I decided to go get them.  Dazz tried his hardest (ish) to protest, but when I pointed out he was sat in a car park in the cold at 10.30pm with a 7-month pregnant young lady he relented.

I swung by his parents’ house to grab some jump leads (which turned out to be his anyway) and then found them sat in a secluded car park (where they’d ended up after trying to push-start the car), in the pitch black, with heavily-steamed windows.  Too many jokes presented themselves for my brain to unscramble them all quick enough, so I ended up only managing “Hello” which kind of disappointed me.

Being the mechanic I am, I bravely stood and watched Dazz as he did all the things you need to do to jump start a car, which mostly involved a tangle of wires, untangled, connected to various pieces of his engine and mine.  I started my car, he tried his, but it didn’t work.  At this point we had spent about half-an-hour WAY past the level of my expertise with cars (push peddle, make go), so we relented and got on the blower to the AA.

Telling us they’d be up to an hour and given the obscurity of our location, the helpful call-centre man told us it’d be better if we went and waited in the nearby pub so he could find us easier.  We reluctantly agreed and set our stall out in the welcoming arms of the Something-Or-Other Pub on the lakeshore and got the drinks in.

In fact, Mr AA managed to turn up almost immediately, so we did what all good friends should and sent Dazz off to deal with it while we finished our drinks.  Once we were done, we piled in my car (which was still nice and warm from having had the heater on almost-full-blast to re-warm Tinks – and me once I’d been out in the cold) and headed back to the flat, where we met Dazz, who’d had his car fixed and put back on the road and been for a drive to charge the battery and got to the flat quicker than we had got through our drinks.  Oops.

Tea was ordered, and provided, and we spent a good hour talking through the relative merits of the various Flanimals, plus whether Keighley is too far away to drive to MK every night to read Baby Ebn Apple Pear Orange Bear or if Dazz should record it as a book-on-tape.  We eventually sacked out after they’d left around 2am.

I lay in bed and didn’t sleep for, well, the whole night really.  I think they last time I checked the clock was 6.30am before my Tac-alarm woke me at 10, just long enough to down my various morning pills before zonking out again.  Next thing I know, K’s waking me up and I’m moaning at her telling her I’ve set my alarm to wake me at 11am and she’s telling me it is 11am.

Reluctantly, I rouse myself and stand under a shower for long enough for my brain to realise it’s really not going to be allowed to go back to bed, then throw on some clothes and we head out the door for our lunch date with my Godson Little R and family.

After ever the warmest of welcomes, we are fed the most amazing roast of slow-cooked beef and trimmings, which does much to brighten my day.  Stomach happy, Oli happy, everyone else happy(er) that I’m no longer grumpy.

We spend some time with R looking through his life-story book he was given by the family workers when he was adopted and we chat for a while with his ‘rents about adoption and such.  He’s got such a healthy attitude towards and such a detailed knowledge of it it’s so far away from the classic ideas you get of kids being brought up thinking they’re “natural” children then suddenly finding out when they’re 30 that they were adopted.  The way R sees it, his Mum is his Mum, but because she was poorly he couldn’t come from her tummy, so he came from the other lady’s instead.

After a couple of great fun board games (neither of which used a board, come to think of it…) R headed off to play with a friend – which he’d been dying to do all day – and we sat and chatted with D&H for a while before my tiredness finally got the better of me and we headed back home where I immediately hit the sack and slept for an hour, waking up a whole lot more grouchy than I had been before I went to bed.

To keep the grouch away, we settled on the sofa to watch another of the pile of chick-flicks K’s been lent my a friend at work, opting this time for Mean Girls – a film I’ve seen before and don’t totally hate – followed almost immediately (after a tea-visit from S&S) by Three To Tango, a movie I was almost embarrassed to find myself enjoying.  It’s no Citizen Kane, but it manages to be both totally predictable while at the same time surprising and fun.

When that’s done my eyes have had enough of being open for the day and order me to bed where I can hopefully get a good night’s rest.  With nothing much to do tomorrow, at least I can sleep till noon if I need to (minus the 5 minute wake-up call for Tac at 10).

I wake to my Tac-alarm (the 10am call that stirs me every morning I’m not up in time for my morning dose of Tacrolimus, my main immunosuppressant) and sit and read for a while as K comes to.  Once we’ve rolled out of bed and managed to get some clothes on, we hop in the car and run ourselves into town.  The walk along the river yesterday was great, but knowing we’re going to be exploring all over the hills of Durham today, we opt to take the car in to the centre so the journey home is easier if we’re exhausted by the end of the day.

We park up in their multi-storey by the Elphick Bridge and wander out through their “shopping centre”.  I use inverted commas because it’s not so much a shopping centre as a centralised collection of shops in a U-shape off a parking structure.  Given the olde worlde nature of the rest of the city, the cul-de-sac of high-street shops is somewhat incongruous, but we let it slip past us as we wander off and up the Bailey in search of breakfast, which we find not halfway up the street in the shape of Saddler’s, a small-but-perfectly-formed little cafe which does breakfast till 12 (we make it by 15 minutes) and other luxury items throughout the day.

Having charged ourselves for the day ahead, we continue up the Bailey towards the Palace green and the Cathedral which towers over the whole of the centre of Durham.  I pull out the camera to snap some pics as we approach only to discover I’ve forgotten to charge the battery.  I swear at myself a lot.  Mostly under my breath, although a couple of passing pigeons may have heard a little bit of blue-air in passing, for which I profusely apologise.   What makes it more galling is the fact that the weather forecast for the next few days is terrible, including snow storms tomorrow.  As we walk up to the Cathedral, with the castle bearing down on us from behind, the skies are a crystal-clear blue with barely a smattering of clouds, the city bathed in a warm Spring glow which fails to dissipate through the day.  I’m furious with myself for missing the best part of the weekend to snap decent pics of one of my new favourite homeland locations.

After an interval that would seem short for even the most temperamental five-year old, I clear out of my funk as we enter the cathedral.  It’s magnificence defies even my power of description.  I’m relieved to see all the signs telling me photography is forbidden, making me mildly less frustrated, but am soon distracted by all the point-and-wonder beauty of the inside of the building.  From the windows to the pillars, ever inch of the cathedral is steeped in over 1000 years of history.  The cathedral itself used to provide a respite for fugitives and law-breakers.  With a single knock on the great door, they would be admitted for safe harbour, given 30 days to sort out their affairs or leave the country through the nearest port.

The main hall of the cathedral is adjoined by a cloistered area and a dozen or so more rooms which afford the place ample space for coffee-shops, souvenirs and all the additional gubbins of a modern-day historical site whilst still allowing it to go about it’s regular daily business as a place of worship.

We eventually decide that it’s too much for us to take in after a big walk and with feet starting to ache, so we adjourn for the day to lower climbs down at the bottom of the hill over the bridge where we settle in for lunch at the Swan and 3 Cygnets, a pub which doesn’t end up providing the rustic-pub-grub that we had been hoping for, but it’s decent enough sustenance all the same.

While we eat, we talk to Pops, who’s calling it quits on her day’s work and heading down to meet us, nothing at all to do with the cafe opposite the pub having, “the best cake in Durham” (a direct quote from the text message).  She and her other half wander down and we head over the road to the Cafe Continental and seclude ourselves away in their uppermost room, where the two of them have lunch while K joins them in dessert.  I restrict myself a mediocre milkshake, but I’m assured by all and sundry that the cakes are, indeed, magical.

Totally failing in our planned return to the college to catch some Z’s before the later afternoon’s programme of events, we instead end up sitting and whiling away most of the afternoon in the cafe with Pops and Alex, covering as many conversational bases as it’s possible to cover without slipping into a brain-frying tangential spiral more akin to Eddie Izzard.  Mind you, we still manage to fit in a good few tangents all the same.

We head back to the college, paying our extortionate parking charges on the way, and grab a quick feet-up 20 minutes before we head back up to Castle for the afternoon’s main attraction, the Big Chill With Bill – an opportunity for the Durham students to come and meet their Chancellor that surprisingly few of them take up.  I’m not too disappointed though, as the group who do arrive mean the afternoon is passes in an intimate chat about organ donation and the amazing gift of life – both Pops and I relaying our various personal stories of transplant (her brother being a heart-recipient 2 years ago), with interjections from various people in the group to ask questions or find out what more they can do to help.  In any of the talks of events I do, however formal or informal, I always feel that if one person goes away and talks to someone else, or signs someone up to the ODR, then it’s been a worthwhile use of my time and that’s exactly how I feel as K and I walk away from the Castle to shoot back to the college to change for the main event of the evening.

The Hatfield College Charity Fashion show is an annual event that is run entirely by students (as the Master of the College’s wife was so keen to inform us).  Having never been to a fashion show before, I have no idea what to expect, but manage to take the majority of it in my stride.  Sitting on top table as guests of honour (well, of the Chancellor, anyway), we are afforded one of the best views in the house, which is only a little uncomfortable when watching the La Senza section as the barely-out-of-their-teens models (my God, I sound old) parade themselves mere inches from their Chancellor’s face.  I’ve no idea what he’s thinking, but I don’t know where to look, so take to alternately bitching with Pops and K, sitting either side of me.

The main highlight of the evening (apart from a 3-item attempt at an auction, which included dinner with one of the male models) is the group photo after the fact with all the models in My Friend Oli t-shirts, myself and Bill.  Promotion/attention seeking as I am, I have high hopes that the free t-shirts will be worn and talked about all over Durham and the photos will find their way into as many student publications as  Alice and Pops can persuade.

Torn between wanting to experience a night out in Durham and the fact that we haven’t managed the rest we needed during the day, K and I finally decide we don’t want to push it too far, so after saying our farewells to Bill, who will from here on out be detained on Uni duties and too busy for the campaign (we have spent our allotted day of his time, which is more closely guarded than many a club door on a Saturday night) , we head back to the college to crash out, which we do by 11pm. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m am rather pointedly against Valentine’s day. Tipping point this year undoubtedly came when I read an article in TIME Magazine talking about “the holiday” and all that comes with it.

Far be it from me to deprive the un-romantics of this world from their one day when they manage to muster up enough retail-fed creativity to find a gift that won’t make their girlfriend sigh with disaffection, but when we start to call Valentine’s day a “holiday” you know things have gone too far – and too commerical.

As if diluting the true meaning of Christmas and Easter down to a pair of jolly, junk-food inspired cartoon characters (or near enough) wasn’t bad enough, it is now apparent that we have to encourage our kids that February 14th means sending over-priced, over-valued, empty-sentiment cards and gifts to the people we love. I say people because I’m reliably informed that in some schools it’s now no longer possible to send a valentine to the one you kinda fancy, but instead it’s a requirement to send them to EVERYONE in your class. Gosh, if only the real world were that loved up we’d have no war, no poverty, no famine – we’d all be happy little cherubs floating around on clouds of marshmellows.

Personally, I don’t need anyone to tell me – Tesco, Asda, Clinton’s, Homebase – on which day of the year I love my girlfriend. I’m incredibly lucky to have the most wonderful other half (and she very much is my mirror image – only with her own lungs and not someone elses) who loves me to pieces and whom I love just as much. But we love each other this much every day of the year, not just when someone decides we should in order to sell more tat.

My plan for Valentine’s day had been to avoid it all together and not worry about it, but as it happens a friend of K’s had to pull out of going to the Theatre this evening to watch Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker, which left a ticket going begging and a very doe-eyed K looking at me plaintively.

So – grudgingly – along I went, feeling very much like most men look when they go to the ballet: slightly bored, slightly put-upon and wishing they were sitting at home watching Bruce Willis blow something up at Christmas.

So it pains me terribly to say it, but I loved it. Having worked in theatre for most of the last 8 years, I’m only too well aware of Bourne’s reputation as a choreographer and theatre-maker (for his is quite definitely both), but all I’d seen of his work was his Edward Scissorhands of a couple of years ago, which I’m reliably informed is by far his weakest piece. I’d managed to let his Nutcracker, all-male Swan Lake and reportedly spectacular Play Without Words pass me by. And boy to I regret not taking them in when I had the chance now.

His Nutcracker was remarkable – vivid, colourful, soulful and emotive, a real feast of visual theatre that at times strayed about as far from ballet as it’s possible to go without bursting into song. As we arrived at the Theatre, an old colleague of mine commented that at times you forgot you were watching dance and that it wasn’t simply one of the best choreographed musicals you’d ever seen, and I now know precisely what she means.

Humble me it did, and also made me remember my old maxim from the olden days that it’s always worth giving a show a go, even if you think it’s going to be the worst thing you can possibly imagine plonking yourself in front of for two hours of a perfectly good evening.

I resolved to keep that at the fore-front of my mind from here on out and to embrace the new challenges that the Theatre may throw at me now I’m able to pop to Town and take in some of the Fringe theatre around London and more of the delights that visit MK. All judgements will now be reserved until at least the interval. If you haven’t caught my attention by then, mind, you might well see my seat empty during the second act…

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.

The inside four walls of Harefield hospital are starting to become depressingly familiar.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great place, with experienced medical teams who are – in my humble opinion – second to none. But every now and then – just occasionally, mind – I do find myself wishing I could spend more than 4 days in a row at home without getting myself admitted back onto E ward. Or F. Or any alphabetical character’d ward in the place.

Give me my due, though, at least I’m giving the docs a variety of ailments to deal with – Heaven forbid I should make their job dull and repetitive. First off we had high Tac levels, swiftly followed by good, strong infection, chased down with Norovirus with a sprinkling of chestiness and now we have my first official episode of rejection.

Now, I’m assured by people who know a lot more about these things than me that this is perfectly normal within the first year and particularly the first few months and is nothing to be worried about.

My lung function hasn’t picked up since the touch of infection last week, indeed it’s dropped back ever so slightly, and combined with a stubbornly low level of Tac in my blood, the doc’s are left to presume that, what with my infective markers all dropping and me feeling grand in myself, rejection is top of the list of possibilities.

What this means is a wee holiday on the ward so they can perform a bronchoscopy tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to take a biopsy of the lung tissue to have a good look-see.
For those of you who prefer non-medical, they’re gonna chuck a camera down me gob and snip out some bits of me blowers to see what’s causing the hissy fits.

To say I’m scared would be to over-state it – I have a team I trust 100% here and if they say it’s cool I believe it’s cool – but I still can’t escape the niggling reminders that they last time I was knocked out for a “routine procedure” I woke up a day later in ITU on a ventilator and dialysis. Not fun.

Doubtless this is all going to go a lot smoother, but I will certainly be glad to see the ward staff at lunchtime tomorrow and know it for sure.

For the time being, I’m now enjoying my stay in my 4th room on E ward, my 5th room between E and F in the last 2 months and that’s not counting the two spells on ITU.

One day I swear I’ll get to spend a whole week at home with my new lungs. Now that’s gonna be a novelty.

 Update…Oli is fine, just a bit of a sleepy head because of the general anaesthetic.  Unfortunately we haven’t seen the doctors so don’t know how it went but we are working on the assumption that if there was anything serious they’d have been in to see him before now.  Will post news tomorrow once we’ve got biopsy results.   K  x

So here I am with my butt parked in the very same room I was sat in almost precisely 8 weeks ago waiting to be told my life was about to change forever.

Thanks to the wonders of the now famous (or is that infamous) Norovirus, F-East ward of HAREFIELD beckons again. I don’t remember my last visit here being quite so deeply involved with vomit and isolation, but there’s a weird sense of calm and good omens that comes with being back where my journey began two months ago.

As it happens I don’t think I’ll be here much longer – I was admitted yesterday mainly so that they could give me IV fluids through a drip to replace all the stuff my stomach was resolutely rejecting and sending back out from whence it came, and also to give me my immunosuppression IV as well since there was no chance of me absorbing the oral pills.

I’ve a bit of an infection rearing its head in my chest, but that’s much to be expected when I get knocked back at the mo, and should be easily sorted by a short course of antibiotics which shouldn’t keep me in here.

K has written a nice pleading note to the docs in Scrabble tiles (we couldn’t find any paper) so I’m sure doc C is going to be convince by her superior medical knowledge and eject me straight from his rounds in the morning.

Watch this space, I guess…

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….

It feels like it’s been an age, when in fact it’s only a little shy of 6 weeks since I was last sat here at my desk, my Mac, in my study writing up a summary of my day on the waiting list.  What a lot has changed in those six weeks – what a remarkable six weeks it’s been.

I keep having to catch myself from protesting at how long it’s taken me to get back here, or to stop myself from trying to do things that I’m not supposed to do yet because to me it feels like months that I’ve been away and out of the loop.  It’s been fantastic to receive all of your messages, cards and comments, but they are about the only things I’ve been collecting from my “life”.  I now have 6 weeks of unopened mail to go through (except Christmas cards, which K opened – funny how she avoided the bills…) and an inbox which has just downloaded the 420 mails I’ve received since my transplant and that’s after K had a bit of a clearout not too long ago.

It’s so funny to see myself moving freely, doing things around the house (I’ve been cleaning this evening!) and generally getting on with things in a totally normal and nonchalant manner.  Already things are becoming second nature to me and I don’t think twice about them until I’ve done them and I sit with time to reflect,  or until someone points out just what I’ve done.

I’ve definitely tired myself out today, with a trip to Harefield this morning for bloods, a good, brisk 10 minute walk along the lakeshore this afternoon and then an hour’s manic unpacking/cleaning when I got home tonight, but it feels wonderful to have heavy eyelids and not heavy lungs.

I must add, for those of you thinking anything was amiss – the cleaning I was doing was only because we swapped our bins over and I had to clean off the old one to be used as our recycling bin as the new one is more hygienic for kitchen waste.  K has actually, with the help of our great friend Dazz, completely overhauled the flat and scrubbed it top-to-bottom without missing a single nook or cranny anywhere at all.  All traces of my former life have been whisked out – no Neve, no concentrator, no oxygen cylinders – and the place is positively sparkling.  I can’t explain properly just how hard they’ve worked to make sure it’s ready and bug-free for me to come back to.

The slight downer on the day today (and it is only very slight) is that my Tac level has gone up to 20 again (they’re aiming for 10, remember), and that’s only after taking 3mg, so goodness knows what my body’s up to.  I’ll be off for more bloods in the morning and should get chance to chat to my Tx team about what’s going on and also about the scar pain.  The trouble with going to hospital on a Sunday is that it’s only the weekend cover who are on and you can’t guarantee that they’ll be the Tx team (which they weren’t today) so it’s hard to get things sorted.  Tomorrow should be a different pot of pike, though, and I’m sure we’ll get somewhere with it all.

My walk this afternoon was great – again an amazing experience to get myself out of breath and feel it was my legs that were going to give up before my chest.  In fact, after doing the physio’s exercises yesterday, I couldn’t half feel it in my calves today during my walk.  Note to self: don’t forget to stretch!

New Year’s eve tomorrow and I’m looking forward to seeing in 2008 with a sense of optimism and possibility rather than worrying about what’s just around the corner for me.  Hope you and yours all have a great one and if I don’t blog tomorrow, catch you next year!

24 hours later and I’m all tucked up home again.  My tac levels are all over the place and the docs can’t really work out why, but on the basis that pre-Christmas they let me go if I came back every day for bloods to keep an eye on them, they couldn’t see any more reason to keep me in if they were only going to be doing the same thing there and have me taking up precious bedspace and resources for the rest of the time.

I’m not about to start arguing with their logic.

I guess, after the last two blog-hijackers entries, I can hardly say I’ve had a rubbish Christmas or that I spolied it for everyone, since that’s already been disproved.  What I can say is that it’s no fun spending Christmas day feeling like you’re about to hurl, nor is it a bundle of laughs spending Boxing Day actually hurling and in hospital.

That said, it was wonderful to be at home and have the chance to celebrate, as much as I could, with my nearest and dearest, even if it did feel somewhat tainted by sickness.  I was incredibly lucky with the tremendous gifts I recieved from family and friends and I shall enjoy getting out and spending the bundle of vouchers I received as soon as my docs let me out in puclic places.

There’s not a great deal for me to add – being in hospital, particularly for one night when you’re mostly concentrating on not throwing up – doesn’t give you a great deal of war stories to relate.  The team of docs and nurses were fab as usual – the nurses particularly making me feel right at home again.  The one advantage of spending a month on the same ward is that you do get to know the staff particularly well, and it feels like something of a bittersweet homecoming when you’re entrusted to their care again.

So, Merry Christmas again, and apologies to all those of you I didn’t reply to on the day with emails and text messages, but I was rather preoccupied with either celebrating as best I could or sleeping the sickness off.

Here’s to a better and more stable New Year’s celebration and to an ever strong me off into 2008.

Today didn’t get off to a great start but has ended on such a high, even as I write I can’t get a stupidly happy smile off my face.

As far as I can gather this morning was pretty rubbish.  Lots of things happened all at once and although none of them were particularly drastic, they didn’t help improve Oli’s already negative frame of mind.  Big bro was there thoroughout the morning and after a while deemed it necessary to give younger brother Oliver (because you always get called by your full name when you’re about to get told off) a bit of a talking to about taking a fresh perspective on things and seeing that things may not be as bad as all that.  Big bro is a muchly big legend and after leaving Oli to think things through, Oli had the biggest turnaround I think I’ve ever seen.

I have to admit I haven’t seen Oli now for two days as I have a very important Uni’ interview next week that needs a lot of prepping for.  It hasn’t been much fun not seeing him,  especially when I know he has been having a difficult time, however now I know that this afternoon he has been chatting, laughing, exercising, and more  I couldn’t be happier.

I have proof of happiness, too.  At some point this afternoon my phone rang with Oli’s number showing.  My immediate thought was along the lines of “who could be ringing me from Oli’s phone?”, who else but the man himself!!!  Yay!  I couldn’t believe he felt well enough to even look at his phone, let alone call.  What’s more, we had a good few minutes chat, mostly from his end as I couldn’t stop repeating “I can’t believe you”re calling!”.  This evening more happy surprises came through as Oli sent me some text messages, and because he managed to link a few together to make another conversation put me back on cloud nine!

This really represents a massive breakthrough for Oli’s mental state, he’s had such a bad time over the past few days, being stuck under a big black cloud and taking the big black dog for a walk.  It’s so great to hear from him and know that he really feels happier and is able to look positively at his achievements and see what’s ahead in a positive light.

We’re on such a journey together, all of us, and we’re going to come across many ups and downs.  It’s so important to treasure the good as it’s often what can help you get through the bad.  It’s also really important to have a big brother to give you a kick up the pants every now and then!