I made a conscious decision before going to bed on Sunday night - I'm not going to set the alarm to wake me up. For me, this is out of character, because even if I feel off colour when I go to bed, I'll still set the alarm and make a decision based on how I feel then.
The weekend had been nothing short of horrific for me and while I looked to have finally overcome the majority of the pain and discomfort issues, I was totally exhausted. Waking up at normal time wasn't going to be an option. This time it would be let my body decide when it was time to wake up and then let's see how I feel.
As it turned out, the cats had somewhat of the final word on when I got up. They hounded me out around 7:30 which equates to something like an extra hour and a half sleep for me.
Having feed the little darlings, it was quite clear that I was still in no fit state to take on the commute, so Monday would be a stay at home day. Great, can finally get into that budget stuff I need to do. Not so fast.
Having logged in to work and started to deal to the way too many emails that greeted me, it quickly became evident that my concentration span was rather impeded by my low energy levels. I just couldn't sit in front of the screen for more than a few minutes without feeling the need to walk away. Eyes would start to feel strained and had to re-read so much stuff. OK, this was going to be another largely recovery day, with some work slipped in as and when I felt up to it.
As it turned out, it was exactly what I needed. Kylie rang to see how I was and asked if I was up to visitors - she and David would be up in an hour. Now, I've said this before, bit I'm going to say it again. My employer is being absolutely amazing about all of this. David is the Managing Director and Kylie is his minder effectively. For there guys to make the time to come and visit is something really special as I see it.
They arrived just before I was about to give Jake his breakfast and ended up staying for a couple of hours. For me, it was like therapy. We talked about work and all sorts of other weird and wonderful things and at the end of it, I felt normal again. Of late, a lot of my conversations have tended to be pretty focused on what is going on with TC, so it was nice to have that to some extent pushed to the back.
Had a similar experience on Sunday with some of the visitors that came and went during the day. Need to reset the topic(s) of conversation going forward me thinks. One thing that Wendie said on Friday that I don't think I mentioned before, is that the biggest hindrance in the fight is often the social disconnection / isolation that occurs. While I can understand people have a genuine interest to know what is going on and how I'm feeling, to let this dominate conversation is unhealthy for all. This blog was meant to be the medium for people to know/understand and by doing that, people could be in my corner supporting me. I think I've fallen back into somewhat of a bad place and if I don't rectify the imbalance, I run the risk of alienating myself from my support crew by only ever talking about the fight against TC. The other side of the disconnection / isolation is obviously me withdrawing into myself, so I have to be very conscious of striking the right balance in all of this regardless.
Anyhow, by the end of Monday, I'm starting to feel a little more energised - and hungry. At last my appetite seems to be coming back and I had a small pork roast meal for dinner. Yummm. No after affects and body seems to be behaving quite normally.
Things seem to have settled down so much, that when I go to bed, it is back to normal pillow (as opposed to elevated sleeping position). Alarm clock is set as Tuesday is Hospital day.
When the alarm went off this morning, I was ready for it to go off. I felt like I'd had enough sleep and crawling out of bed wasn't a chore, although I was naughty and lied in for an extra 10 minutes. Today was the test run for me giving Jake breakfast and it actually took a lot longer than I'd thought it would. By the time the extra cleaning (Jake isn't totally house trained) in the shower is taken into account and the careful choice of clothing to ensure he isn't going to get tugged at etc is made, I'm regretting that extra 10 minutes under the blankets. And that's before I go through the flush/feed/flush routine. All of a sudden, getting to Wellington Hospital by 8:45 on a nasty rainy day seemed like it was going to be a challenge.
Long story short, I got there about 8:47 (new parking facility is a joke) and Magda duly led me into the imaging room. Today was all about testing how my kidneys deal with radioactive material. In fact the information pamphlet even said I should avoid contact with pregnant women and young children for the rest of the day.
First stage of today involved then injecting the radioactive stuff into me and imaging how the kidneys handle it. Was quite cool to watch, but as it took 30 odd minutes, decided to snooze through most of it. Magda explained what the images meant - basically the kidneys start out looking like, well a kidney bean, and when they detect the foreign gunk, they absorb it (changing shape as they do) and then make little funnel type things where they squirt it down into the bladder. Magda was quite happy with what she saw, so hopefully a full analysis/review doesn't change that.
The rest of the day revolved around hourly blood test that will enable them to confirm/calculate how quickly the toxin is moved out of the blood. They put in a cannula for ease and every hour for four hours I would go to reception so the computer would know I was there, go through to the waiting room and then get two samples of blood taken. They also flushed back in some saline and anti-blood thinner after each time.
I'd gone prepared to do some work during these hourly bits of downtime, but bugger me the broadband stick didn't work, so best laid plans and all that. This meant boredom was going to be an issue. Fear not though, the cavalry is coming - Kylie and David are going to bring me lunch and keep me company for a while. Lunch ends up being McDonalds- aah, the pleasure of plastic food again - and it was quite funny as we sat in the main entrance of the hospital eating junk food.
Sanity restored with some more really good discussions, the time eventually passed, but I was exhausted for having done nothing all day.
Tomorrow I have an 8:20 appointment to remove the stitches in my mouth and, believe it or not, that is the only medical appointment I have for the rest of this week. I hope I haven't tempted fate
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