Qhiarlwarop rouea

Did you know that if you type "Whistlestop tours" with your left hand just one key out of line, you get "Qhiarlwarop rouea"? No, neither did I. But we do know now!

Lily

Scarlett

After a mad dash around the motorways of England and Wales, we're home safe. Wales was cold... but not as cold as it has been in the past. The new additions to my daughter's family are gorgeous, albeit sharp... and it was soooo good to see them all after what seems like a million years. Northamptonshire was cold too - and M's daughters are pretty cheerful considering that their central heating boiler packed in just before Christmas.A roaring fire in the stove was atmospheric, and kept the worst of the cold at bay, but it was a reminder of how life was before central heating... like back in the old days when I were a lass...

Then what I thought would be a short visit to the hospital to see my poorly friend James, which actually accounted for most of the day. He's come on in leaps and bounds over the last few days - while I was there he was visibly improving as I watched, which was pretty miraculous. They swapped his oxygen mask for the little nasal cannulae, which are much easier to wear. They brought him a meal - the first food he's been able to eat in nearly a fortnight. Predictably, the first mouthful reminded him that he was STARVING, and he wolfed down substantially more than I thought possible, including extra jelly and ice-cream! They promised him that he'd be moved from ITU onto HDU - a step down in the level of support, and a sign that he's more stable. This happened after I left, and since then he's moved from HDU onto an ordinary ward, where he's been attacked by people he's describing as "physioterrorists"... who dragged him out of bed and had him standing up yesterday evening. It's a far cry from where he was a week ago, when the picture was very bleak indeed. He still has a long journey ahead of him - his kidneys are still not working, and he's seen off four dialysis machines while he's been in there! But although he's still pretty ill, he doesn't seem to be in immediate danger, and is making steady progress.

The big challenge he's facing at the moment is not quite so physical. He's a solid, down-to-earth chap, the sort you'd like to have around you in a crisis. He doesn't ever have the crisis himself, he is the one who looks after everyone else when things go pear-shaped, and he's emphatically not used to being the one in need of help. Being helped to eat is actually quite difficult for most people to take, along with all the other assaults on one's dignity that happen during a serious illness. And then there is the dawning realisation of what has happened to him, and just how close a shave he's had. When I was talking to him early in the visit, he was blithely saying that there had been a possibility that he'd shuffle off this mortal coil - but every time he said it, there was a slightly bigger tremor about the words - and as I left I could see that the enormity of the situation was starting to become visible. In the last 24 hours, he's obviously been thinking a lot about how close he's come to leaving us, and it's having a profound effect. I know what it's like to be told bad news - there is a shock that goes through you when they say those four little words "I'm afraid it's cancer" - but I was never allowed to believe that things would go badly, and my progress through the disease was steady and always upwards. There were some awful days, but they came one at a time, and I dealt with them as they arrived. James has to deal with something very different, and in many ways more difficult. He went into hospital feeling pretty rotten - then woke up in ITU to find that he'd been at death's door for several days, that his partner and close family had been told to prepare for the worst. That's a pretty shocking picture to face, and I can't imagine how difficult it must be to deal with that.

On the flip side, he's getting messages and visits from people he hasn't seen for ages, now he's on a ward he is being buried in a deluge of get-well cards. He's slightly embarrassed but rather chuffed that he's had a whole raft of people praying quietly and in some cases rather noisily for him, and rather pleased to think of witches casting a magic circle on his behalf!  I was feeling slightly guilty that the last text message I had sent him before he got really ill consisted of the words "are there no lengths to which you will not go in your quest for sympathy!" - but the amount and quality of abuse that's been flying his way the last couple of days has made that seem quite mild! Safe in the knowledge that he can't see this blog at the moment, I can reveal that there is a plan to create stickers with a picture of a dialysis machine with a big red X through the middle, a la WW1 flying ace, to be affixed to his bed to commemorate the four machines that he's destroyed so far...
If nothing else, he's learning that he has a lot of folks around who care a lot!