Peter's Hospital Diary

Although looking at the sleet falling earlier it is hard to imagine it! But the clocks going forward at the weekend is always welcome!

So another busyish ten days. I enjoyed my Birthday last week, with a trip over for dinner with my sister and her family (thank you Anne!). After that, on Friday, I went up to see my parents where I was joined by Felicity and had a bit of present opening before we set off for the wedding of the daughter of Tom, one of my University flatmates.

We had booked a B&B up the Dales (near Burnsall) in Lower Wharfedale, an area I had frequented in student days. However the passage of time meant that while I recognised various places as mental snapshots, I found it hard to remember the geographical relationship of them to each other!. No matter, I had my trusty Satnav – but unfrtunately that relies on the correct post code to be entered so we ended up (initially) in Skipton.

To cut a long story short, we discovered that there were two villages with the same name, and we went to the wrong one, 17 miles up Wharfedale before we discovered our mistake (with the post code) !7 miles back and we discovered we had been within 3 miles of our destination. Still, spectacular countryside – a pity it was dark!

But next morning as we threw back the curtains in the converted barn that formed part of the B&B – wow – what a view! The wedding itself was lovely, but although the weather was dry and sunny, there was a very cold wind; but despite that, we had a lovely day.

We stayed over on Saturday night, and left on Sunday morning after a great weekend, and after writing a note to ourselves “must go back”. All seemed far more familiar in daylight, although the tourist side seemed far more developed that it was when I was a student.

Other news is that my contract, which finished today, has been renewed, so I shall be in gainful employment for a few more months. I am off home tomorrow, and taking a bit of holiday, but all in all, Onwards and Upwards!

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Just realised that it is two weeks since the last post – and I suppose that is an indication that there is nothing much to report, either healthwise, or anything else!

On the health front, the coldy cough has lingered, but the improvement in the weather seems to be seeing it off – not before time! It is something I will mention at the next check up in May.

On the ‘other’ front, things have ticked on pretty much as normal. My parents came down for the weekend, and although I was out for some of the time (another little job) we went out for a meal on Saturday evening. Next weekend we are away for a wedding, and then we are into Easter. I am still waiting to hear that the contract extension has been approved – I am reasonably confident (and I have kept the flat on for at least another month) but I think I might have a little break over Easter week.

So really things are continuing “Onwards and Upwards”!

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My hope that Friday’s ECP would be equally uneventful was not entirely fulfilled! The kits come in two versions, one, the 125 ml kit takes 125 ml of blood , centrifuges it, stores the lymphocytes and returns the centrifuged blood back. This happens over 6 cycles. The large kit takes 250ml of blood, does the same, but takes only 3 cycles. The end result is that 750ml of blood is processed, but the large kit is slightly faster.

The machines are prepped in advance (they take about 25 minutes to set up, and I generally have a small kit. However on Friday, the machine had been set up with a large one. Not a problem, had that before… but on Friday morning my blood pressure was slightly lower than normal (it always is a bit low anyway).

This caused great consternation, with frequent blood pressure checks, a saline infusion (to increase BP) which meant the saline bag emptied during the procedure, and constant checking to see if I felt OK (I did!). So it was all a bit of a faff, and took a bit longer than expected. However I can’t fault the nursing staff, who were only being careful!

The entrance to St Thomas’s has been re-vamped, with quite a good shopping/food area – including an M “This is not just (hospital) food” & S Simply food outlet. Unfortunately the staff wouldn’t let me nip down (while the lymphocytes were being irradiated with UV light) but the wife of another patient very kindly went and got my BLT for me! The entrance does look very good – I hope the same effort is going into re-furbishing the treatment areas and wards!

After the session finished, I nipped over to Waterloo to get the train down to Bournemouth where I was met by the rest of the family. A browse round Christchurch (lovely town) and then a meal in a restaurant on Bournemouth sea front (near Boscombe Pier).

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful, apart from a vist by an old school friend, Ian, and his wife, Carolyn. Good to see you both!

So – onwards and upwards!

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I’m writing this from my little room in Gassiot House, the hostel for patients staying for consecutive days of treatment – and it is a bit warmer than I have known it in the past! So this afternoon was the first of the two sessions of the ECP – and as usual, it passed uneventfully. The second session is tomorrow morning, so I hope that will go uneventfully too.

My cold seems to be getting better, and I don’t feel quite as breathless as I did. I still have a bit of a cough, but nowhere near as bad as it was.

I had a good week last week, with the final push to complete the coursework. Once I had got into the correct mindset’ it seemed to flow well – and the program (or – to be strictly accurate – script) ran as I hoped it would and did what was required of it. The weekend was spent writing up the reports on the design, and it was submitted electronically on Sunday, with the hard copy in the post on Monday!

So with spring round the corner, and the clocks going forward in two weeks, very much a case of “Onwards and Upwards”!

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