DVT DAY 23
So this time last year I was being flown out of Jamaica with a bladder catheter and a set of blood drain valves in my neck.
I woke with this thought and new it was a day that I needed to keep busy. My partner had already been for her walk and returned with some odds and ends so I made my breakfast and retreated to the garden shed. My first thought was to write my letter for the day and to do the crosswords in the paper that my partner had brought in. It came to self-stab time and I got myself ready to do it. The problem is I am very sore from yesterdays 28 day injection and it makes it difficult to bend. More to the point it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a suitable place to inject myself. I resemble a pin cushion and I am considering researching whether I can use other sites on my body. Today I find a spot and self stab. I am now much kinder to myself and ease the needle into my flesh slowly and as gently as I can. Gone is the old darts approach which aimed to get the needle in as quickly as possible. I always rest a moment after having done the deed and got the bent needle in to the sharps bin. I now take my temperature every morning to give me a moment to gather myself after the injection. Fortunately to date I have always come up green and normal.
I return to the shed and finish my letter and begin to plan the rest of the day. I decide to build the new raised vegetable bed so gathered up my tools, changed in to my work kit and got to building the frame. All went well and the new bed was ready quickly. What takes the time is the varnishing or staining of the wood. It took a fair time to get this done and when it was there was time to tidy up the garden while it dried.
So having put out the bins for tomorrow the raised bed was ready to be lined and filed with compost. By the end of the afternoon I was knackered, every time I moved or bent over my stomach pulled and I felt the soreness of my belly. I started to clear away during which my eldest daughter arrived and offered to be my Hogwarts owl and take my letters to the post box. She returned quite quickly full of smiles as she had found a prized DVD and to my surprise a pack of 9 toilet rolls. It seems our strategy of little and regular with the addition of new online suppliers is keeping us ticking over. We have resisted bulk buying or panic buying. So far so good and it means I have not been out of the house apart from a visit to the GP surgery. It would appear that we are fortunate to be living in a village that is being sensible and our three general stores are being able to cope with demand. The emergence of toilet rolls again seems to validate this.
I finish in the garden and pack away my kit and settle in for the evening, which will include a bath to try and soothe my soreness. For me it will be doing the blog and trying not to dwell on where I was last year. It feels like a cruel April fool’s joke as tomorrow is the anniversary of landing back in England and being put into an isolation room for three days. Sound familiar?
The rest of the journey is history and the subject and reason for this blog. As the Jamaican nurses used to say, ” See you on the other side”.
