Peter’s Hospital Diary

A good few days since the last post! After the chilly trip home, I spent Saturday doing some of my coursework, and then out to “The Anvil” Theatre in Basingstoke for a Concert given by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra – excellent. Sunday saw the conclusion of the coursework module, and that was submitted on Sunday evening – one more piece to do for this phase of the course!

Yesterday saw me travelling up to London for another couple of days of ECP. The team were on good form after the Christmas break. All was pretty routine, although I seemed to bleed more than usual when the canula was removed – but nothing serious! At least the accommodation was a bit warmer this time – I was in a different flat, with a much larger room, quite pleasant but a bit spartan!

After the ECP finished this morning I jumped on the staff bus – with my notes – for the trip over to Guy’s for the haemotolgy check-up. I was the last patient and met the new specialist Registrar – Dr Andy Retter. We had a quick debate about whether more blood samples were needed, and decided that as the ECP team had taken some the day before, it seemed a bit unnecessary, which was fine by me. While I was waiting, Dr Raj stopped by and we had a chat, and then it was in for the ‘main’ chat with Dr Retter. As we hadn’t met before, we had a long chat, but the bottom line was that there doesn’t appear to be any change, no lumps, and blood results unchanged from last time, so everything seems stable.

I was delighted to see fellow transplant patient Jean (one of the original three!) and her husband, john. Jean looked really well, although she has had one of the many coldy/’flu bugs floating round and had lost some weight. She said that Mark (the other one of the trio) had been in earlier – so I was sorry to have missed him.

Finally I saw Rachel – the dietician – who I haven’t seen for a while. I did her ‘strength test’ – not quite as good a result as before, possibly as a result of the infection and losing a bit of muscle tone. However she was please to see that I had put on a bit of weight (still about 63Kg) and we had a long chat about diets and so on (and her MSc thesis) before leaving to catch the train home.

Tomorrow morning I shall be up early to drive back to work – home again on Friday!

But a good start – Onwards and Upwards!

Tags: ECP