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Hot, hot, hot

I love summer. I love the sun, wearing sandals instead of Ugg boots and having an excuse to eat ice cream. My body however, does not. When it gets hot I dehydrate easily because my bowel does not absorb fluids well. One of the main jobs of the large bowel is to absorb fluids from your poo and the fact that I don't have one of those anymore (a large bowel I mean, not a poo!) means that my small intestine is trying to do a job it wasn't designed to do. And that is the reason I need to have fluids through my Hickman line. 

When it gets hot everyone is advised to drink more to stop them from getting dehydrated. But that doesn't work for me. If I drink more, the extra fluids don't get absorbed so they just pass out through my bottom. So I just end up having more trips to the toilet. To keep hydrated I have to make sure I have all my feeds and sometimes I need to have extra saline fluids aswell to keep me topped up. 

The other problem I suffer with in the hear is swollen feet. When I woke up this morning I had lost my ankles. 


See. They were gone! I struggled to even get my sandals on because my feet were so huge. So I've sat this afternoon soaking my big, fat, tired feet in the paddling pool in an attempt to try and reduce the swelling. After that I had to have a nap because I get extra tired in the heat. I need to have at least 2 hours sleep in the afternoon on a normal day so when you add in the sun and dehydration then I'm well and truely exhausted. 

I was lying on the bed, in my underwear and with the fan going and it brought back memories of being in hospital 2 years ago. I was in from June to October (with only 2 weeks at home at the end of June as I was transferred between the Listed hospital and St Marks) and it was HOT HOT HOT! I used to lie on my bed just as I was now, in my underwear with the curtains pulled round. Hubby had to bring in a fan from home as they didn't have enough on the ward for everybody to have one. And having had major surgery, being in pain and being so hot was really no fun. So I counted my blessings that tonight as I lay on my bed it wasn't a bed in hospital and although I still get pain it's nothing compared to that post surgery pain. I've come so far in the last two years. Imagine where I might be in another two? 

NB x
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