I survived Back to School- give me a gold star! 🌟

I know it sounds mad but sometimes I actually enjoy it in hospital. Of course I don't like being more ill than usual but it's a chance for me to get a bloody rest. When I woke up at home last Thursday nobody brought me breakfast in bed or offered to put fresh sheets on. I almost forgot to take my medication because I had become so used to having a nurse sort all that out for me. Not only do I get to physically rest in hospital I am able to mentally shut down. I don't need to remember birthdays or which kid is going to which friends house or stress about what to feed my ultra fussy Big Fella. For a week or two (or sometimes more) somebody else has to worry about the minutiae of life and I can be selfish and just think about me.

The reason I say this is because since getting home I've become immersed in all this shit and I'm shattered already. The the kids going back to school is a major cause of stress. Big Girl was set 7 pieces of homework to do over the summer but with a few days to go she still had 3 left to do. If it were up to her she wouldn't do any of it and then ask me to write a note saying I had been ill and could she be excused? I've told her though that it won't wash now and she needs to pull her finger out but I basically have to go into her room, remove the phone from her hand and force her to do it. It would be easier to just do it myself! Luckily this weekend neither of them have been given any homework so we can relax and chill out.

I've just about survived the first week back. Setting the alarm and getting up at what feels like the crack of dawn had not been fun and has left me exhausted. I was alright Tuesday and Wednesday but by Thursday I was wrecked and couldn't get out of bed. I can't seem to shift this bug/virus/flu thing and it seems to have reared its ugly head again. I've spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday in bed and barely moved. It sounds pathetic but my arms hurt soooo much. They ache and throb and lifting them up requires so much effort it's ridiculous. It's like my body is made of lead; I feel heavy and slow and sore. I tried to get an appointment with my GP on the 6th September and the earliest one they could offer me was the 22nd!!! Two doctors surgeries in the local area have been forced to close due to malpractice in the last month and their patients obviously have to go somewhere. When the first one was shut 1000 new patients registered at my GP surgery someone at the attached pharmacy told me when I went to get my repeat prescriptions. One thousand new patients but no increase in the number of doctors or the opening hours of the clinic. And when the second one closed my Dad said he saw them queuing out the door so goodness only knows how many more have been added to the books.

I know lots of parents were desperate for their kids to go back to school but not me. I wish they had more time off because it meant lie ins, lazy days and holidays. I feel that I've missed out on so much time with the kids that I just want to keep them close and spend time with them doing fun stuff. I don't want to be nagging them to get their school stuff ready, or having to check they've got uniform ready for the next day or stressing about after school clubs and classes. But I don't really have a choice unless I take them out of school and homeschool them. I can teach them about antiques by watching Bargain Hunt, property management from Homes under the hammer and that actually our family is pretty normal by watching Jeremy Kyle! Only joking. Cause as much as I have loved the school holidays I have missed my quiet, childfree time where I'm able to have days where I stay in bed and feel sorry for myself. Because that's one thing that you simply cannot do when you have kids. As good as mine are they're still kids and most of the time they think the world revolves around them. Sometimes that's a good thing because it forces me to get up and participate in life. If I didn't have the kids I know that would barely leave my bed let alone the house!

I'm just hoping to start feeling a bit better because I'm fed up of feeling this crap. By the time I get to see my GP I will either be better or on my knees...

NB xx

Light at the end of tunnel

I’m sat writing this blog post in St Marks, the specialist bowel hospital in London. So much has happened in the last few weeks; it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind. But I finally feel like there is some hope at the end of the tunnel. Let me tell you why. At the beginning of June I was admitted yet again to QMC in Nottingham with huge amounts of pain, my bowels not working properly and just feeling generally unwell. I had only been home a couple of weeks since the admission in May but I had been feeling so rubbish most of my time had been spent in bed. I had tried everything I could to stay at home but the pain had become so bad I was barely able to stand or take a few steps on my own. I had expected to maybe be in for a week or two to get stronger pain meds and get back on my feet but I ended up being in for almost a month. They put me on morphine injections and ketamine but then stopped them when my heart rate dropped to 30 beats per minute and my breathing to 7 breaths a minute. Th

The light at the end of the tunnel is a train

Last week was a busy and pretty crappy week for me health wise. I had to go and have blood tests done with the nutrition nurses and I had two hospital appointments; one with the gallbladder surgeon in Nottingham and the other with colorectal surgeon at St Marks. I was hoping to have at least one surgery date to write in the diary following these appointments but I came home empty handed on both occasions. Here’s what happened. I began noticing over the last few weeks that I’ve started feeling really crappy. I’m feel lucky to have been at home for the last 6 months and I have been the most well I have been for years but it felt like things had shifted slightly recently but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But years of being sick means I know my body and I can tell when something isn’t right. I have been feeling permanently exhausted and having way more bad days than good. I’ve gone back to spending 2, 3 or more consecutive days in bed, unable to do anything but watch tv and sleep.

The wrong size line

I’m on the M1 heading back to Nottingham after a road trip to St Marks to get my line repaired. But this is me, and as usual it wasn’t a smooth ride. More like a bloody shit show. So what happened? Let me tell you… After being admitted to QMC in Nottingham on Sunday with a broken Hickman line I was taken down to Interventional Radiology on Monday afternoon to get my line repaired. Firstly, I couldn’t believe it was happening so quickly and secondly I didn’t want to get too excited because, well it’s me, and usually things don’t go according to plan. And sadly I right to rein in the excitement. When the doctor came to consent me for the procedure it was for a replacement, not a repair. I assumed he had made a mistake so I told him I was there to get my line repaired and was definitely not there for a new one. He looked at me and said “I hate to be the bearer of bad news…” and that’s a sentence that never bodes well. He then went on to say that they didn’t have any repair kits and that

More than just a bag lady

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