R is for Retro, retro, retro

So much has been happening the last two weeks and I haven't had access to my blog to update it. Fear not, I have been scribbling silly little notes and observations that you may or may not want to read, but here are a few more diary-style entries. Still not quite up to date... I am still in hospital in theory, but have escaped for a few hours again today. This is an un update until the end of last week.

Saturday 10th June

My pain had been kind of under control during of the days, but the night times were still a bit random… I was awake for a few hours again on Thursday night. Because of that, they were not keen to release me on Friday or Saturday. I understood and I did feel really reassured and agreed with them, but on the other hand, we had changed mum’s flight (again) to Saturday evening, assuming that I would have been out by then! Oops! Well, I asked if it would be ok to get a pass to leave the building for the day on Saturday so I could spend the last few hours my mum was here, with her, and not in a hospital, and it was no problem. They said that as long as I had enough pain medication for the day, and I took it easy, and promised to call them/go back in if I felt unwell. then they didn’t have any issue with it. Yippee! So I got my get out jail free card. One of the older trolley dollies, was not taking no for an answer when she was offering my lunch. She had made two sandwiches; one with cheese and one with sausage. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow, I managed to lose the sausage sandwiches almost immediately.

Got sent off with my two packed lunches, one of which was an envelope of painkillers, and that was it; so strange to be walking out of the door knowing I’d be back for bedtime. We didn’t do anything super exciting, - had lunch sitting in the garden, that wore me out, so I had a nap I my comfy garden chair and then Ed gave us a lift into town and we had a short wander around town, it was amazing weather, so really great to be out and not stuck in a hospital ward listening to other patients’ noises.

We drove mum to Schiphol and on the way back, Ed dropped me back at ‘home’. When we got back to the ward it was all very festive and busy, the ‘lady-man’ was celebrating her birthday the following day and all her giant family had dropped in to make the rest of us feel small.

The rumours are that I would be allowed home the following day, but it wasn’t certain yet. Depended on the pain I had that night.

Monday 12th June

I had two private lessons planned in for Monday which I wanted to do, despite still having a bit of pain. My first lesson went well, then I had the second one, late afternoon (asking for trouble if you are already tired!). It was good, I didn’t want to cancel because I hadn’t seen her for a few weeks but I am sure that my eyes closed, very briefly, at least once during the lesson!! I think the student did notice once or twice, but she didn’t say anything. It’s really unprofessional so I felt really bad, but didn’t know what to do. It’s not really something I have control over, but I was quite embarrassed about.

Although when we were discharged from hospital yesterday, we went via the pharmacy to collect the cacophony of medication, we didn’t check what we had at home and it appeared that we had assumed (and you know what happens when you assume!) that I already had some of the tablets I needed at home. Apparently not! We only discovered this at night, when I had pain…. mmm. I managed to cobble together an alternative from my medicine cabinet (don’t worry, I’m not melting down medication and mixing it together) but before I made my own medical discovery, I had a hot bath to help reduce the pain. It’s amazing how well a bath can eliminate pain; of course the heat also makes you relax and feel sleepy…which is always good. Well, it’s not good when you are sending apps and messages on your phone and it goes for an unexpected dip!...oops. It’s not the first time I’ve let it drop, but this time was full immersion and seemed to go quite deep! I was pleasantly surprised at my reaction time actually, I threw it out of the water immediately onto the towel and took it apart, drying the battery and phone itself separately… I left it a few minutes then put the battery back in to test it. It worked- I was very surprised… and relieved! I am still very tentative every time it goes a bit slow – think it is protesting about being thrown in at the deep end without swimming lessons!!

Tuesday 13th June

Got chauffeur driven to Nieuewegein in the morning for my Samarium injection by the lovely Hanneke. The injection was very straightforward, like it had been last week and I was in and out within 15 minutes. We drove back to Utrecht and went to a funky café ‘De Snor Fabriek’ for a coffee. It’s a place about 5 mins bike ride from our place and I only found out about it a couple of months ago when Hanneke mentioned it! It was fab weather so we sat outside.

Now this is weird; the pain was bad again, so I took two pain killers and was waiting for them to work and for my bowl of yogurt and fruit from the nurse who had come to check how I was doing. She was downstairs getting my food. After waiting for about 20 mins with no improvement in pain and no yogurt, I went downstairs to find her sending WhatsApp’s in the kitchen. She asked how I was feeling and we joked about me not getting my yogurt on time and what kind of service was it!? I explained that I was examining in Zeist the next day but that would mean no-one would be here for when Hattie got home from school (!?) and that Hanneke had offered to come over and be here for an hour while I was getting back from exams. We had a conversation about her always losing keys and then she had left. Now all of the above, I was completely aware was absolute rubbish and unreal, but what was worrying was the fact that I then spent about 5 mins searching for her keys! Another oddity side-effect of the myriad of drugs I am on. I would never have put myself in the same category as some famous musician or artist in terms of the level of drug use.

This was all being bumbled over in my brain at around 3 a.m. on the day that I was examining in Zeist the whole day – nice!

Wednesday 14th June – Exam day!

Had to get a blood test before having a discussion with Femke over the phone in the afternoon, that meant I needed to get the blood test done and be in Zeist by 9 a.m. A Challenge to say the least. I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say that, for a pair of teachers, there wasn’t much patience to be seen in the car on the way to the school that morning. Well anyway, I managed to make it only 10 mins late which was fine. Aren’t you glad you weren’t sitting in the back of the car for that journey.. It was only the last few

So lovely to be examining again, yes it was tiring, and going up and down the huge old staircases for every break and for lunch, was quite painful, but it was worth it. Apart from that pain, I didn’t think about it at all. I worked with two different people, neither of which knew about the cancer (I’m whispering that) so then it wasn’t a topic of conversation. A couple of people said I looked a bit under the weather, to which I agreed, just saying I hadn’t been well lately, then a few more ailments came out of the woodwork. It’s funny how we all feel the need to do that isn’t it? I’m sure I probably did it as well at some points, not sure what about but anyway.

I was really lucky because the lovely Hanneke had offered to pick me up from school and take me home, so I got chauffeur driven (again) back home in the afternoon, very spoilt.

Was pretty tired in the evening so just had a bath, (leaving the phone as far out of reach as possible).. but what about the iPad! Just went back to basics and read my book, and feel asleep doing that as well, but luckily didn’t submerge that – good job too, cause it’s not mine.

Thursday 15th June

Ed was out all day in Haarlem teaching so he left really early. I got up and was pottering around, luckily had had a shower, when I got the call to go in for a blood transfusion at 11.00, so I got my shit together (quite quickly!) and got a taxi there. I was there until about 16.00 and Bernd came up to get me, he commandeered the ward (comfy) wheelchair and rode me right to the car door, what service!! I remember the evening very clearly, from about 18.00 the pain was increasing in steps that were no longer manageable. I tried watching TV but that didn’t distract. I had a bath, had all the doses of pain meds I could and it still didn’t go down, so around midnight Ed called the hospital and they told us to just come in. I cannot tell you the sheer relief I felt when Ed wheeled me in and the doctor on call said that they were bringing a ward bed straight down for me so that I didn’t need to lie on the uncomfortable skinny ER beds! Bless her, I could have snogged her.. except that I couldn’t get up! The got me onto the comfy bed and also said they weren’t going to do all the normal checks downstairs, the only thing they were going to do was get the cannula in for the IV so they could give me a massive dose of morphine. In my moaning, pained state, I still managed to say that it was difficult to get needles and that nurses in 5B usually did it best. This lady was really nice and said she would try once and if that didn’t work, she would send me upstairs. She was very good and did it first time! I had a huge shot of morphine and was then wheeled up to a private room in 5B. And that is where I still am.

More to come in the next few days!