A bit of glitter: answer only with your eyes

Where do you go to, my lovely? Oh, just up the road, very near the big Tesco.

Photo by Tim De Pauw on Unsplash

Here I am again, just barging through like I’ve never been away. I did have all sorts of plans (I’m like a stuck record with this) but life got in the way once again and screwed them all up. I even had blogs ready to go, prepared in advance and scheduled like some kind of Organised Person. And then - SURPRISE - I got ill. I got so unwell that I can’t really quite remember what happened when. In fact my last few blogs were published when I wasn’t well at all and so there was a weird dichotomy where it looked like I was actively chatting away but I was actually either asleep or in the hospice. Or both (like the champion multi-tasker that I am). I didn’t really like it - it was like a ghost version of myself out there - so I think I’ll just manually publish things now so I know it’s me talking. If that makes sense. It might not.

Like I say, things started to go a little awry for me. Having promised the kid that we would have a better Christmas this year than the year before’s Worst Xmas Ever I managed to fall over on Christmas morning at 5am and take the door out with my face. I couldn’t get up, we had to call an ambulance which took a while so we ended up opening the kid’s stocking on the floor which was actually weirdly… fine. The ambulance came, there was a lot of palaver, I was convinced I was actually fine but the ambulance wanted to take me to hospital because (prepare yourself for a surprise) I wasn’t fine - oxygen low, heart rate really high and all over the place. But we begged to be allowed to stay at home because CHRISTMAS DAY and in the end, despite everything, we were allowed to stay home and actually had a lovely day and I ate Christmas dinner in bed which I would highly recommend. I did end up in hospital a few days later, with a suspected blood clot (which can happen when you’re already probe to blood clots and you take a door out with your face) but we got through it.

Except of course we didn’t quite get through it. I got more and more unwell and eventually my GP came to see me (did you know they still do that? Come to your house and see you? It felt like something from Dr Finlay’s Casebook, living in the 1950s and being looked after. Kind of amazing and wonderful and very old fashioned) and decided the best thing to do would be for me to go to our local hospice for a few days and get sorted out there.

I thought I was prepared for the hospice. I knew that it wasn’t some kind of death sentence, that in fact most people just go for a few days respite and then go back home. But I wasn’t prepared. It was a bit more medical than I expected, for a start - some of the rooms are huge and lovely and overlook a pond, ours was very small and pretty much exactly like a little hospital room. I was freaked out by that, and also found it really difficult to move around having gotten used to my bed at home and it was altogether a rather torrid and difficult few first days of feeling very upset and out of time and space and place. There were lots of things going wrong with me, I felt dreadful and I was shocked and scared. Having said that, everyone was so lovely; the food was really good; they have a lovely little old ginger cat who just wanders round being a nice cat; and a volunteer brings in their sweet little dog every Thursday for a stroke and a cuddle. Unfortunately someone else came in to play piano for a few days every week too and they were terrible and I found that - genuinely - distressing. If I’d been able to get out of bed I’d have cheerfully murdered them as they haltingly tried to play the Moonlight Sonata or sang along to bloody Les Miserables standards. Fortunately I couldn’t get out of bed.

What I thought was going to be a few days turned into three weeks; and while, like I say, everyone was wonderful and lovely and helpful and on balance we feel very grateful to be prepared for what it’s actually like in the hospice, it was so good to get home. Unfortunately I was still a bit - a lot, really - unwell and we’ve had a rocky old time. And the kid also got whooping cough in the middle of this, which I wouldn’t recommend - they don’t call it the 100 day cough for nothing - and if I can impart one things to you it’s PLEASE STAY AT HOME IF YOU ARE UNWELL because having the poor thing hacking away for weeks and having to stay off school for ages has pretty much destroyed our mental and physical reserves and I will, again, cheerfully murder anyone bring germs to us if they don’t have to.

Apart from that, though, everything’s fine.

I’ve got a permanent line of anti-sickness drugs being pumped into me 24 hours a day, which is not without its issues but it does mean I can now eat and move and write and read without throwing up, BONUS. I’ve got lots I want to write about and I will, but I just wanted to say hi, here’s what’s happening, please do come and visit or message or whatever you like when you can because I am bored and stuck for what looks like a very long time indeed. But I’m starting to wake up and I want to have some fun. I’m very fortunate to have had great friends be flexible and lovely so I have seen some people and I’m arranging more but I do get tired - but we can work around that! Send me your gossip, bring me your babies to cuddle, tell me silly stories, remember you’re a Womble and I am still me and I want to be daft and serious and happy and sad and talk with you like we are just normal friends in a weird situation.

Speak soon, pals.