CREATURE COMFORTS

Dear All,

Blimey! What joy it is to be sat here in front of my big 21 inch screen iMac. So easy to read and type - no balancing my iPad on my knees!  Got home late on Saturday afternoon. Lulu and Julian doing me the honours of collecting me outside the front door of Kings. It is icy cold. I am wrapped up to the nines but lovely to feel the elements on my face. Dark with spitting rain and stars as we speed our way back to Forest Hill.  I see warm lit houses, spikey winter trees, kids on bikes, headlights, dog cocking a leg at the curb side. All life again.  I sink back and breath slow and deep.

I am feeling ancient. I have to go up the stairs one at a time. Huff and puff. Very slow and full of tremors and internal shakes. My ears ring, tinitus whining. Aching limbs. These are all results of the aggressive medications I am on (5 times a day total of 18 tablets) I have to get used to this. These include my anti-rejection drugs. I need them big time. But side effects are what I have to stomach for a good few months, until the dose can be reduced without any danger to me.  My nausea though is better managed at home. Access to food, little and often. Yesterday it was scrambled egg on toast at 9am. This morning it was bacon and tomatoes on toast, served in bed (cooked by you know who) with a mug of tea.  Spoilt.

I woke at 6am today and in the blue grey underbelly of this winter morning I heard the thin soft sound of bird song.  So different to the summer chatter that is busy and bossy and "my song is bigger than yours".  It was shy, tentative - almost like a secret.  I see outside a light scattering of snow. I wrap my duvet tight round me. I realise how lucky I am to be over the first two hurdles and out of that wretched hospital room.

I have spent the last two days in slow motion. Kitchen. Post. Sofa. TV. Bathroom. Computer. Sofa. Computer. Sofa. Kitchen. Sofa. TV. Bed. It all requires up and down stairs. Ridiculously, I am shattered after a day of such expended energy!  Luigi shops, cooks and washes and provides me with a continuous supply of hot water bottles and sliced carrots and mini babybel cheese.  He also puts out endless handfuls of bird seed - the robin visits frequently throughout the day. So too a handsome pair of jays, two squirrels, a thrush, a blackbird and as of yesterday a small wood mouse, who is remarkably familiar and sits happily nibbling away. Definitely not camera shy! Mmmm, seems while the cat's away the mice really do play! Lilly is no doubt turning in her grave. All that dinner!

Tomorrow I have my first HOP clinic (Haematology Outpatients).  I am nervous. I have been without a daily blood test for 3 days. Have my counts fallen - or rather are they holding without the GCSF? All will be revealed in the morning.  Tense. More waiting. More wondering. Best not to wonder. That is an important lesson I have learnt. Take each day as it comes. Pointless to do anything other.

Exhausted now after writing this, with supper in between.  I am off to watch Miranda and have a laugh. High fives to everyone in both hemispheres.  It is just the BEST being home. Back amongst all the flotsam and jetsam that makes up my life, my house, me.  Catch you all soon. tch xx

 robin

wood mouse

winter view from my bedroom window