Recovery from Hospital and our 40th Anniversary

Week of 16th to 22nd April 2007

I spent this week getting myself back into the swing of home life as opposed to being institutionalised in hospital. Having said that, I had to go back Monday and Thursday for blood tests in Haematology Outpatients. I won’t hear anything about the CMV samples unless something crops up but otherwise my results were excellent: Wbc: 3.9 and 4.4; Hbn: 12.3 and 12.5; PLT: 177 and 206; Neut: 3.3 and 3.6; Lymph: 0.1 and 0.2; and CRP both >5.
Jim took me down to Brighton on Thursday, which was good. We had a pint at the Bull at Ditchling on the way home just to show how much back in the swing I feel. On Wednesday evening we had decided on a short pre-dinner walk but only got as far as Sue and Richard Cattell’s when we were hailed in for a glass of wine. We spent the next hour enjoying a chat, sitting on their terrace with a gorgeous view across to the downs and hearing about their trip to the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon Rain Forest. It doesn’t get much better than that! People are saying that I look well. I don’t think they are just trying to be polite. Perhaps I have caught a bit of this glorious sun we are having.

My medication – both liquid and tablet – is still giving me a nasty taste in the mouth at various times of the day, which doesn’t help when I am supposed to keep up the calorific intake. But at least I am having a break from my treatment and I am not having anti-biotics and anti-virals pumped into me any more! One thing I have not mentioned before is the discolouring of my tongue, which first came to notice while I was in hospital. It has turned a rather nasty black colour, but the black looks more like a fungal growth on the surface of the tongue and I can scrape it off both with a tooth brush and my finger nail. No one has said what is causing it, but I suspect that it might be the Corsodyl mouthwash. I had been supplied with a pink coloured version in RSCH, as opposed to the clear mint flavoured one I had before, when I did not have this happening. Whatever is causing it, it looks awful, but I don’t think it is affecting my tastebuds. Anyway I shall be reverting to the mint version soon as that is what I will get from the chemists. To show willing as an escapee from treatment for a few weeks, I cut the front grass and even went for a short cycle ride to check out how fit I am – or not. I have to confess my legs wobbled a bit when I got off the bike! Anna and co. drove down from Mull on Thursday. The timing has been perfect as Saturday is Anna Swallow’s wedding in London, Sunday is our 40th anniversary and they are off to Athens on Tuesday for their photo assignment – probably four weeks in all including driving there and back.

I have now eventually driven our new car, albeit it took me to Saturday to do it. It is rather good! I have also applied for Incapacity Benefit via a very helpful Jobcentre Plus organisation. I received guidance from my local office, then called the national call centre from where a clerk called me back and we completed the electronic form over the telephone. They will send me the form to sign and return with some items of validation, such as a sick note or letter from my GP. What a good service! As I have been self-employed since last May, I receive no employer’s sick pay, so the £81 per week I think I will get will be very useful. It will be retrospective to 29th January, when I stopped working and it is not means-tested. We have also had good news from Greek Islands Club, the company with which we booked our big celebration holiday in July on Kefalonia. Having pleaded our case to the company boss, particularly the bit about my not having holiday insurance, we are going to be able to rollover our deposit to next year. This is really great as we thought we could well have forfeited the £900 deposit!

We had a lovely day on Sunday celebrating our 40 years - with beautiful weather. We had drinks in the New Inn garden, Anna and Matthew cooked lunch and then we had friends in for champagne and cake about 4pm. Paul Wehrle did a surprise CD of the event. I gave Tina a
ring and she gave me a smart new laptop computer. I am feeling good and have done since coming out of hospital. Although sometimes the tastebuds are a bit funny, I am enjoying beer, wine and food. But then it is six weeks since the end of my last lot of steroids.