This is Me

For anyone who has not seen The Greatest Showman, the above title means nothing, sorry about that!

I'm in England! There was discussion around the table tonight to find out exactly where I am in England, but it appears somewhere on the border between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire , with a Sheffield postcode.

A small village called Oldcoates apparently, that is the beauty of being so well looked after, I just had to get myself on and off the plane and all the rest was taken care of.

I have to say , despite the coughing, ( makes laughing hard, ditto crying) and lack of oxygen it's fantastic to be here and I feel not only very lucky but also cocooned in a huge embrace of love.

Thursday at the hospital was a bit of a trial, but again, fortunately Sue was on hand ( literally ) to help out.

We arrived around 9:30am, and was seen by Dr KG and her friendly helpful doctor who was going to take an oxygen sample from my blood. Simple surely?

So the idea is that in order to get a true reading of the level of oxygen in the blood you need to take it straight out of the artery, I did briefly have a vision of the young doctor lunging at my neck with a large hypodermic needle, ridiculous .

I had already been on the stats machine and was coming out at 93/94% , that is quite good just above borderline, and so they needed a blood oxygen sample to match it.

The best place to obtain a sample is in the wrist, and so being right handed we began with the left wrist.The doctor knelt down at my feet and took my hand, my heart did flutter as no man has ever done that before , (no, not even my husband!) and I was briefly caught up in the moment, a split second later reality struck as he said those infamous four words ... " Just a little scratch".

Within a second I felt a searing pain deep in my hand and up my arm to the shoulder, it was excruciating , in fact although the poor doctor was saying " I'm sorry", and I wanted to reply, "it's fine" I actually couldn't speak. All the poor man could see was a river of tears flowing down my face.

Meanwhile Sue was making light conversation whilst I crushed her hands to the bone. After what seemed an eternity ( a minute?) I said through gritted teeth, " can you take it out?" To which they replied it's been out ages, the pain was still as intense. It seemed we'd hit a nerve.

Two paracetamol, and a little lie down was needed, ( that was me not the doctor) before the realisation dawned that we still needed the sample.

Onto the right wrist, same kneeling down stance , but this time I had my guard up, I wasn't going to be caught out a second time. Sue was in the ready position , and we began again. Far less painful ( for Sue anyway) and palatable relief for the doctor.

Off he went with a decent sample to test, a short time later he was back with a sad faced KG, apparently the sample reading was 78% , not corresponding with the original test. So the chances are that some blood was taken from a vein as well as an artery. Whilst veins do carry oxygen around the body it's a a diluted form compared to arteries .

I'm sorry if this is not totally accurate and true, it's just a lay mans understanding of how the body works, and explains why we just couldn't get a sample straight from Port. ( we asked ).

We still needed a sample.

They were going to try a third time in right wrist, and if it didn't work another young handsome doctor , was on hand ( whoops) to look at it with fresh eyes, and have a go... Is it me?

It didn't work, and neither did the fourth attempt with Dr Fresh Eyes, but I said he'd made Doctor Proposal feel a lot better about himself, and it wasn't just him.

By this stage I needed a coffee, as did Sue who also had to run around outside and move cars before we had tickets, that would have finished the morning off!

Remember that lovely respiratory consultant from last week ? She was also summoned and quietly sat beside me in the day room and said she could have a go if I was up to it , or we could take it from my ear capillary ( told you they wanted to stab my neck ) .

Boosted by the caffeine kick I said gamely , go for it in the wrist, positively blasé about the whole procedure by now.

Thirty seconds later, slightly painful, but completed sample, rushed off down to the Lab, and within five minutes had come back up as showing a reading of 94%.

I wouldn't be given oxygen at that level anyway, and the more we had talked about the logistics of travelling with it on planes plus up hills and down dales around the country, it would have been a bit of a logistical nightmare . I shall just have to manage, and hope the steroids do their bit to help.

The steroids do stop me from sleeping though, but making good use of time writing blogs...

Lastly, a very big thank you to JP for my bouquet of flowers , also the two J's of St Martin for theirs . As if she hasn't had enough going on deep in the radiotherapy suite of Southampton ( I do mean that literally) thank you to PE, for your flowers.

Finally, it was jolly nice to arrive home on Thursday and find a "get well balloon " and supper for 8 freshly delivered . Thank you CJ , and watch out now I'm on steroids .....

Shame I can't post photos , but don't worry I'm taking plenty !!!

KBO Xx









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