Saturday 25 October 2008

Recovery and Trauma

So I've been home for two weeks and the good news is that I've even managed to avoid being re-admitted to any hospital. However, the frustration remains and was brought home to me on the first Monday that I was home. I had to go to the surgery to have a blood test. The surgery is just over half a mile from home, and the first day that I walked it, it took 15 minutes and when I arrived I was wheezing like an an asthmatic at a burlesque show. However, that has gradually improved and I can now do it in 5 minutes and I wheeze a lot less.

The sleep pattern is also settling down. Initially I was finding that no matter what time I went to bed, I was wide awake between 4 and 6.30am. I am not a morning person, and until recently had always believed that there was only one 7 o'clock in a twenty-four hour period, so these early morning awakenings were not well received. Often it was as a result of discomfort (pain would be too strong a word), although again there is now pain which will be investigated when I have an x-ray next week.

I have had regular phone calls from Stan, who always manages to cheer me up, among others and I am slowly getting back to 'normal'. I even took a trip into Tunbridge Wells yesterday to meet m'Julie from work.

But the thing that has had the biggest effect on my recovery was last weekend, when Maggie and Drew came to stay for the weekend. Obviously, I'm still not allowed to drive, and m'Julie doesn't drive, so she had to negotiate with my ex about the children being dropped off, which she did on the Saturday, collecting them again on the Sunday. Oddly, my ex now refuses to communicate with me at all, and has even told the children that she doesn't have my telephone number, although until recently she seemed to be able to send me text messages. Personally, I find this quite amusing and completely pathetic, but then she is very unstable.

It was quite a surprise for me. Drew, who had been quite upset when he saw me in hospital, seemed much less concerned and carried on as normal, but Maggie, who had been completely the opposite when she had seen me in hospital, was clearly very affected by everything that had happened and was very cuddly all weekend, not that I'm complaining. However, it was still very difficult to say goodbye to them on the Sunday and allow them to return to their mother.

However, they are being dropped off again tomorrow and going back Tuesday as its half term and will be here again next weekend.

So now its a case of just taking each day as it comes. I still need to have an afternoon sleep on some days, but not every day, I'm able to walk greater distances (even if I did have to stop once on the hill up from the station in Tunbridge Wells yesterday) and people tell me that I'm looking much better, so I 'must' be.
I also now have a date to start my cardiac rehab (10th November) by which stage I'll be driving again and have been to Dover to the Old Boys reunion.

And the trauma? The evening before I was discharged from the London hospital I decided to watch a bit of television. Imagine the trauma I experienced when I saw this



Who'd have thought it? Sell out perhaps? I thought that I'd had to many drugs at first, and nearly had a relapse!

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