Wednesday

Got out of Parkside yesterday, pretty freaked about the whole stay. Had a bad final night, nurse walked in to check me at 2am and was so loud I thought it was 6am and time to get up. My bedsheets were as usual soaking wet – because the mattresses are wipe down and the sheets made of god knows what, you are basically sopping wet the whole time and it makes being there just hideous. A long way from our own cotton sheets and nice John Lewis stuff in our house, makes you feel a long way from home. Ended up having a bit of a wobbly about the whole hospital experience and just could not wait to get out of the door. Even took my own cannula out as actually, you can.
Janine delivered me home and set me up post-bath on the sofa with a ham sandwich, hot water bottle, rehydration drink and squash. My minimalist world…. At least Scumpy and Mojo were pleased to see Mummy home and were vying for chest space, in between me having coughing fits still. There's a sharp pain up towards my right shoulder where the epicentre of the infection was and that's now where I'm pressing down in the middle of the bigger coughing fits.
Stayed there for 9 hours with Valentina and Katie replenishing the hottie, bless them – H got home late from work and ordered pizza, I had one slice. That has to be the greatest indicator of how I'm feeling as there's normally a battle between us to see who can scoff the most. Picked up a second one but just couldn't face it.
I am massively worried right now that things won't get better. Hopefully this infection will finally wrap up and bugger off, Charlotte the consultant's parting words were that it could be 3-4 weeks to finally be gone, and I'll see her in 2 weeks for a check up. It's just that having felt so bad for so long I'm starting to lose confidence that I may ever get better. Perhaps this is my life from now on? I'm very much hoping for improvement, even if it's back to how I was before the infection set in, as its so bloody frightening not being able to breathe properly. I had a few occasions when just watching tv yesterday when I suddenly didn't have enough breath doing whatever I was naturally doing (breathing through my nose? Mouth?) and had to consciously suck in more air. Now that's a shit feeling.
Have woken up today feeling slightly better so hoping that is really the case when I get up. Today heralds one activity only – getting to and from Parsons Green for the much needed mani/pedi that I missed last week, and that alone feels like a big deal. I think I'll drive, even though the last time I was in the car I was hallucinating (on my way to Parkside when I then collapsed), but I think I'm ok now to drive again. I have tickets for ELO tonight but there's not a chance I can get there and do that, pretty depressing that everything in my diary is having to come back out sad I let down whoever was meant to be doing things with me, hate it.
There are jobs everywhere in the house and I've got no energy yet to tackle any of them. Again, hopefully some oomph will return in the coming days and weeks. This bloody infection has hit me for six.
Right, time for the first major effort of the day, shower and hair wash, here I come X