A bump in the road

Well, things went slightly down hill for me after my last rather cheerful post. We had to call an ambulance in the evening when my breathing deteriorated, the infection got much worse and my temperature shot up. After three nebulisers, oxygen, a chest x-ray and starting me on a massive dose of steroids and two courses of antibiotics, they let us go home again, for which I was pathetically grateful as I have a fear of hospitals. I’m now on a new exciting drug regime of 28 tablets a day, and as has been pointed out by a friend, I will, if shook, rattle. Although please don’t try.

I don’t have much of an appetite although I have at least managed a couple of spoons of rice and some veg in the last two days. I’m suffering bad nausea from the steroids and still coughing as if it was going out of fashion. It has been a bit of a rough time. But my partner is being a fabulous nurse and bought me Jam and Jerusalem (the first series) on DVD, and Hot Fuzz, which we really enjoyed when we went to see it at the cinema, and two beautiful bunches of daffodils. I’m downloading anything and everything on BBC iplayer – we don’t have a TV in the bedroom – because I don’t have the energy to read and until the night before last I had only been getting 3 – 4 hours of sleep a night. Which left a lot of time to fill! But on Saturday night, I turned some kind of corner, because although I woke up a lot through the night I slept well. I then fell back asleep around 7am and woke at midday and then slept again in afternoon!

The dog is a bit nonplussed. Dogs are very sensitive to illness, not just because of the patient’s mood or inactivity but because of changes in smell due to the chemical changes in the body. Pluto however, had kept his support practical, not for him pining away at my bedside. Instead, he tries to lick my face when he thinks I need it and brings toys to me (to save me getting out of bed!). He makes me laugh by gruffling at me for minutes at a time, he pulls tissues from the box and instead of handing them to me, eats them. And perhaps sweetest of all, he wanders in and watches me intently to make sure I really am OK before leaving again and coming back in later to do the same thing again. A combination of my partner and his boarding mum has meant he has at least continued to get plenty of exercise and fresh air, because let’s face, invalids are boring...

Anyway, I need to get ready for the first onslaught of chemicals and then I want to download Lark Rise to Candleford. Really, s’all go!