London Town

Following on from Saturdays, ahem, Sundays guest blog I thought I had better explain how I came to be out in London when I'm an inpatient at St Marks hospital. 

Months and months ago I planned a weekend in London with 3 of my oldest friends. We've been friends since school but as we are now scattered around the country we don't get to see each other very often. The idea was to get together, have a good catch up and they would help me tick a few things off my bucket list. 

The hotel was booked and paid for as was the icebar and the theatre ages ago.  The plan (as I saw it in my head- the other 3 might have thought differently!!) was to all meet in London on Friday lunchtime, check into the hotel and then head out to have dinner and drinks before going to the Icebar. Two of the ladies are pregnant but I had delusional ideas of going onto a club afterwards with the non baby carrying member of the group. I have never been to a club in London or the Icebar so that would be two things ticked off the list!

Saturday I imagined we would go shopping and I would get my first bikini in years. I also wanted to browse Liberty's, maybe even treating myself to something gorgeous (without the fear of a small child breaking a vase worth hundreds of pounds or leaving grubby fingerprints on a silk scarf or hand woven rug!) That's another two things ticked off. After a leisurely dinner we would go to the theatre to see The Bodyguard and then we would find a cool, trendy bar where we could sip cocktails or champagne and people watch. 

Sunday we would have a lie in and then have brunch before they caught their trains home and I headed back to Hubby and the kids. 

So that's how I had hoped the weekend would be but in reality it was nothing like that. 

I was in hospital a few weeks ago with a line infection and during that admission I was starting to panic that the girly weekend was fast approaching. When I went home I was so relieved. When I was admitted last week I was hoping that I would be in and out, obviously to get home to Hubby and the kids but also so that I would be able to make the London trip. As each day ticked by, my heart sank more and more as I knew, deep down, that I wasn't going anywhere for a while and that meant no weekend with the girls. 

And when I got my central line I knew that there would be no way I was going as you can't leave the hospital grounds with one in incase it gets damaged and for fear of infection. But you know me. I don't do rules. So I decided to ask for day release. I knew I couldn't stay out overnight because I needed IV antibiotics morning and night and also I would need to have IV fluids too. But thought it was worth asking because if you don't ask, you don't get. 

And I got it! 

Dr8 said I wasn't allowed to go to the Icebar because the sudden temperature change would be difficult for my body to cope with. But he did say that I could go out on Saturday as long as I covered my central line and was very careful. So I began planning. 

I would need to use a wheelchair as I'm so fatigued at the moment, plus my numb leg is playing up and I just feel generally rotten from the infections and antibiotics. So how was I going to get into London by myself in a wheelchair? The hospital is very close to a tube station but too far for me to walk at the moment. A cab would cost a fortune. Step forward Other Karen. She offered to drive me into London and drop me off/hand me over to my friends. I was so grateful for her offer (she's rapidly becoming my emergency taxi!) but I would still have the problem if how to get home. Um, I mean hospital. I must stop doing that. St Marks is not my home, though at times it feels like it is given that I spend more time here than at my actual home. 

Could the girls bring me back I wonder? But that would mean them travelling back into central London after escorting me back to the hospital and it would be way too late to be doing that so I didn't even ask. 

And then Hubby said he could take me in. Big Fella was at a Beaver event all day and Big Girl goes to gymnastics and to Costa with her friend afterwards. But that still left me with the same problem. How would I get back?

I realised that if I could get the kids looked after then Hubby could bring me back but that would involve having to ask for more favours from friends. But I have the most amazing friends and Bestie was going to have Big Fella because she could pick him up when she picked up her girl from the beavers day and my other friend said she would keep Big Girl after their Costa session. And not only that- they offered to have them overnight too, so Hubby would be able to have a little lie in on Sunday morning. 

Perfect. Thank you ladies. I owe you big time. But then I owe a lot of people a lot after all the favours I've had to ask this last year. 

The girls came to the hospital on Friday afternoon, to see my 'second home' and to make a plan for meeting up on Saturday. We decided that it was best to meet somewhere central so chose covent garden. The idea being that Hibby would drive me in, park up and 'hand me over' to the girls. He would stay in London so the he was close by if I became unwell and needed to go back but it also meant that he got the afternoon to do what he wanted without me or the kids to worry about. 

So that's what we did on Saturday. We were aiming to get into London for 2pm but my 6am antibiotics didn't get started until 11am which then put all my other meds behind so by the time I was disconnected, had a shower and got dresses it was after 2pm. But it didn't really matter. It's just a good job we hadn't got matinee tickets!

We parked in a carpark in covent garden and were astounded to find that for the time we were going to be parked there it was going to cost £40!!! But it's not like we had a lot of choice so we just had to pay it. As we parked up I started to have a wobble. I didn't think I wanted to do it. What if I was ill? What if something happened? Maybe we should just go back to the hospital I told Hubby. 

Bu he knows me so well and knew it was just nerves of being out after being cooped up in the hospital for so long. My friends had text to say that they would head towards the centre of covent garden so we set off. Heading towards the tube station it was absolutely heaving. And when we got there we realised that it wasn't a good idea to try and push the wheelchair through those sorts of crowds. 

But then my friends text to say that they were in a cafe opposite the car park. We must have missed each other as we walked towards covent garden and they walked towards the car park. Relieved to leave the throngs of shoppers and tourists we headed to meet them. 

After hugs and hellos Hubby said that he'd be off and I started to cry. When I'm with him I know I'm safe; I know he will look after me and knows what to look out for when I'm not well. But although they are my oldest friends, sadly they're not my closest, and I was worried anout Hubby leaving me. He reassured me that he wouldn't be far away so we said goodbye and I continued to sit and cry. 

I think I was very overwhelmed. To go from the safe bubble of a hospital ward to central London on a Saturday was a bit of a shock to the system but my friends were great. We decided to stick to the side roads as they would be less busy and so we set off. 

Navigating a wheelchair in London isn't the easiest thing to do. There are not a lot of drop curbs so I was being bumped down and then it was hard to get back onto the pavement once we had crossed the road. On one occasion one of the girls said for me to hold on tight as she thought that if we approached it at speed then it might be better. It wasn't. It just meant that I tipped out out of the chair and lay sprawled across the pavement. 

Passerbys looked at us strangely as I lay laughing and my three friends just stood there laughing at me. 

We went for dinner at Prezzos. I had some clubcard vouchers that would help with the cost of the meal but as we were seated I couldn't find them. They were email codes and I searched through my emails trying to find them and panicking that I couldn't. Eventually I found them, filed into a folder (to make them easier to find- who else does that but then it doesn't work!) and I finally started to relax. 

We had a lovely dinner and we caught up, chatting about babies and weddings, work and families. It's at times like this though that I am reminded of how much this illness has taken from me. I don't work, don't do anything really as I'm either in hospital or at home recovering. So it's hard for me to talk about anything other than being ill and I hate that. I hope I didn't bore them too much by going on about my illness and hospital stays. 

After dinner we headed to the theatre to watch The Bodyguard. 

I was really looking forward to this as I love, love, love the theatre and hadn't been in ages. 

Here we all are outside the theatre

We went in and left the wheelchair in the cloakroom and realised that we had a lot of stairs to climb to get to our seat. Luckily Kitty had lent me a walking stick, so that helped. We made it to our seats after climbing a million stairs- ok slight exaggeration but there were a lot. We decided to do the obligatory selfie but after a number of attempts where either someone's head was half cut off or we weren't all in we gave up and asked someone to take one for us. 

We had even tried to do a panoramic picture with each of us slowly moving the camera and passing it to the person next to us. It didn't work bit we were in fits of laughter doing it. 

And then the show started with a bang- literally. And it was amazing. A-MAZ-ING. Alexandra Burke (from the X factor) played Whitney's part and she was brilliant. The whole show was unbelievable, from the sets, to the costumes and the way they adapted the movie and made it current was nothing short of genius. At the end it was a standing ovation and then a chance to have a bit of a sing and a boogie. We were the last ones to leave, partly because we didn't want to get caught up in the stampede on the stairs but partly because we didn't want it to be over. 

Hubby had said he would come and pick us up from the theatre and while we waited outside one of the doormen offered to take a picture for us. There was a hen do waiting too, presumably for their minibus and so I joked that I wanted their blow up doll to be in the photo. And so the doorman went and asked them if we could borrow it. 

Hubby arrived after taking the scenic route to collect us (aka getting a bit lost) but driving in central London isn't easy and at night with the drunks, the cyclists without lights or helmets and the buses, taxis and those rickshaw things you can get a ride on while someone cycles (I can't think of the name of them) it was a bloody nightmare. 

We dropped the girls off at their hotel with hugs and promises to do it again. And then we headed back to the hospital. I was exhausted but giddy from the fun that I had eventually had. For a few hours I had forgotten about being ill, about the hospital stays, the frequent line infections and problems with my pouch and I had felt normal. And it had felt great. 

NB x