More than just a bag lady

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

I’m writing this post from A&E and I’m so sad and frustrated and pissed off. I only got discharged from St Marks on Friday and already I’m back in hospital. It feels like the universe is against me at the moment. As it is we’ve been trying for bloody months to book a holiday but either had trouble getting travel insurance or I’m never out of hospital long enough for us to feel confident we will get away. We were going to do a last minute booking and go next weekend but it looks like that plan has now been well and truly scuppered with this admission.  So why am I in A&E? Because my bloody Hickman line has broken. When I disconnected my feed I tried to change the bionector (as it has to be changed every week) but the bloody thing was stuck. This has happened before, lots of times, so exactly as I’ve done a million times before I gave it a bit of a tug. Normally this would loosen it and then I can change it as normal but this time the green part of the line came away with it 😱 a

So I’m currently in St Marks hospital at Central Middlesex Hospital (CMH). It’s the first time in about 5 years that I’ve been an inpatient under St Marks but even then that was at Northwick Park Hospital (NPH) so it’s my first time at CMH. The last few years I’ve spent an awful lot of time as an inpatient at QMC in Nottingham and I’ve gotten used to the staff and routines there so being in a different hospital is a new experience. So how different is St Marks to QMC? The hospital:  CMH is in North Acton and all around are flats, shops and according to the sign when I drive past, Europes biggest industrial estate. There’s no A&E; only an urgent treatment centre. It has a small Costa and WH Smith in the main entrance and a restaurant on the 2nd floor that’s pretty small and serves a limited menu. Just across the road is a Greggs and an Asda is a couple of minutes walk away. Although it was opened 15 years ago it still seems like quite a new hospital with everything shiny and clean.

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