Life is full of ups & downs

This is probably the shortest update since I started publishing this blog. Not a whole lot has happened in the past 7 days of any interest. With decreasing energy levels I haven’t really felt like doing anything of interest either. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I’ll be back to sky diving, zip wiring & bungee jumping.

Week 8

As you can see from the above photo’s the weekend was a truly joyous time spent with cuddly kittens & cute puppies. Believe that & you’ll believe anything. It was god awful, the lowest of a lot of low times of late. Friday was spent mainly asleep on the sofa, Saturday was spent in bed until around 6pm when I made a guest appearance on the sofa downstairs to doze the evening away. Sunday wasn’t much better & my plans to go and watch Max play over at Chinnor were scuppered. The only upside to the whole weekend was having Anna home for the weekend, even if I didn’t get to spend much time with her, & Big Pete & Matt dropping in for a cuppa whilst bringing Max back, good to see your mates when you’re feeling like pants.

When I started my treatment Carol decided to take some time off work to look after me. At the time I thought this to be a total waste of time, I’d be fine looking after myself & by this point of treatment I’d be riding 10km per day in my “Get Clarky Fit” campaign. Well what a twat I am. Without Carol being here this past 10 days I would have fallen apart. She’s making sure I’m taking my drugs when I need to, she’s making sure that I’m drinking enough & she’s not pushing me too much if I say I can’t face eating. She is holding me when I break down & cry. Basically she’s kept me alive.

Monday 7^th > Friday 11^th  

Monday started off as a slightly better day. I slept until 8.30am & managed a cup of tea & half a bowl of porridge. Luckily my thirst has returned with a vengeance. I’ve been knocking back tonic water like it’s going out of fashion. Hopefully this will be enough to placate CNS Jo when she calls tomorrow. I don’t want to go back into hospital. I’ll be honest with her & explain that the weekend was pants, but I’m able to control my intake of fluids to decent levels. We’d planned to go off into Tilehurst for a coffee today, but the afternoon took a bit of a dip for me so we’ve committed to getting out of the house tomorrow, come rain or shine.

Now this might sound stupid, or even a bit distasteful, but on Monday, for the first time in about 10 days I managed to have a pee whilst standing up. Whilst I’d had my bowel infection the only way I could pass water was by sitting on the loo for up to 40 minutes & massaging my bladder until something happened. This is great news as it was possible I’d have to have had a catheter fitted if the situation didn’t improve. Now I’ve never had one, but I’d imagine it would be bloody painful J

Tuesday was another decent night’s sleep, waking up around 9am. I felt pretty good so Carol & I went off to the local coffee shop in Tilehurst. The place was packed with Yummy Mummy’s & their offspring, but the Yummiest Mummy was with me J (Ok, I’ve had a bit of morphine!). Even being out of the house for 40 minutes seemed like a bonus for me, this was the first time since last Thursday that I’d been outside. A fairly long call with Jo from the hospital at lunchtime was all positive. Whilst my kidney function is a little bit knackered at the moment I’m drinking plenty of fluids so they’ll resist the temptation to stick a tube up my willy.

The afternoon was spent fast asleep on the sofa, well I had had a busy morning. The evening was spent dozing on the sofa, well it had been a busy day.

Wednesday was a strange one. A decent night’s sleep with only one lot of drugs needed. In the morning I went into town to stock up on vape juice, but on the way home I felt really weird, almost “Out of body”. I was also extremely thirsty but couldn’t find anything to quench the thirst. I’ve managed to stick 4 Ensure Protein drinks down my throat today along with a soft boiled egg & some toast, it’s not enough, but it’s more than I’ve been eating for probably the last two weeks. I need to get my body back into some sort of shape for our summer holiday.

Carol took Max up to training in the evening, as I was feeling a little bit knackered so stayed at home & cooked them something tasty for their return. I know when I started this blog that I said I’d continue to go to OBR, I’d continue to take photo’s & I’d continue to do all the things I used to do. What a poor deluded fool I was not to listen to folk who’ve already been through treatment or know people who have.

I’ve a date in my diary to look forward to. On 30^th March I’m meeting up with my boss from work & a colleague for breakfast at Carluccio’s on Reading. My aim is to be able to eat a decent amount of food, even if I can’t actually taste it.

Wednesday night was even better, no drugs at all & slept through the entire night, probably for the first time since December. Is this really the start of the long road back to normality? God I hope so. Carol went into work for a few hours this morning, she’ll be going back to work next week, so I’ll have to get used to being on my own again. My appetite is slowly returning, two poached eggs for lunch. Jacket potato & asparagus for dinner. Plenty of fluids too.

Another good sign that the corner may have been turned is that this time last week I was taking upwards of 30ml of morphine a day, & that was to just keep the lid on the pain from my throat. Today (Thursday) I’ve taken just 5ml & that was probably not entirely necessary. My plan is to be totally off the stuff by the time I see Scary Surgeon again on 23^rd March.

Carol went to the school this evening for Max’s parents evening. Probably the best feed back we’ve had in a number of years about his performance. As previously mentioned, I’ve been worried that my illness will have an adverse effect on his upcoming exams. Well it seems he’s confounding my worries by buckling down & getting on with it. He’s still a muppet, but he’s my muppet J

Friday’s highlight was a trip to see my GP, the chap who first put me on the 2 Week Pathway before Christmas. Whilst I’m not using much Morphine at the moment I have just about run out. He’s prescribed me enough now to get me through to the end on needing it.

After the last two weekends being total disasters I’m not going to make any predictions about what I want to do this weekend (Other than watch England sending the Welsh back over the bridge with their tails between their legs!) If I get to see any live rugby that’ll be a bonus. Max is out tonight, so it’s just Carol & I by ourselves. There’s some rather nice looking trout sitting in the outside fridge, I think that cooked with pasta & spinach may well be on the menu this evening. A chilled bottle of Chablis would go down well, but I think I’m a few months off that pleasure yet.

As always, thanks for reading this & thanks for the continuing messages of support.

To be continued………………….

#shouldertoshoulder