Peter’s Hospital Diary

Well not quite, but I will be setting off for home again soon.

I drove home on Monday afternoon ready to travel to London for my check up and ECP on Tuesday and Wednesday, but before that we had a trip to the Ringwood brewery as part of a birthday present for friend Ian. The tour was interesting, but sampling the products afterwards was even better! A good evening (and I still think the forty-niner is the best!)

The check up and ECP went well, although the trip to London was a bit tedious. We had heavy rain overnight on Monday, and when I went to out local railway station, trains had been cancelled “because of flooding on the line”. This happens every time there is heavy rain, so one might have thought that the cause had been identified (as a simple sailor, I would have said poor drainage) and the problem fixed (better drains) – but no – trains still stopped because of rain!

I eventually caught a train at Winchester and arrived for the check up. Nothing unexpected – my blood counts were good, and the the various subsets of my lymphocytes are showing a welcome improvement. The creatinine levels are still up, but had shown a small reduction, but still outside the normal range (must have been the beer the night before!). We also did an object assessment of the GvHd (a numerical score) and concluded that it is moderate – but probably tending towards mild.

I saw Rachel (dietician) briefly, but escaped without a severe telling off about my weight!. (I have a theory about the weight loss – working in a large open plan office means I walk a lot during the day – to and from the printer, kitchen and so on – so I am more active!)

I was also delighted to see Orla (who used to run the day unit) in the clinic – and we had a long chat about things. Orla, along with Vikki – the specialist nurse, has great source of support in the past.

ECP was uneventful over the two days, and I travelled home on Wednesday on normally running trains (I guess someone had pulled the plug out of the plug hole!)

I drove up to work yesterday – Salisbury plain looking very pretty with some remaining snow and some light mists in the early morning light – and sunrise now at 7:30 – and last night was the first time I have returned to the hotel in daylight!

We were out in Bath again in the evening for a leaving ‘do’ – and very pleasant it was too!

So in all respects… Onwards and Upwards!

Tags: ECP