Can I go home now? Spoiler – I am home now 🥳

Updated throughout the day of discharge …

Tuesday 26th July ~ 6 weeks and 6 days after admission

05:09am Just got up went to the toilet … too early … not yet works.

6am Lara comes in to do Obs, all good. I love Lara – she is every thing a good Health Care Assistant should be and there are a number of them of this wall who are exceptional ❤️ Lara will always be special to me, some nights were so scary, pain killers pains, sounds, lights, movements – I remember nights where I thought I wouldn’t make it through and I was so scared … but then I met Lara. My nighttime angel. I felt like she just fixed it all. There was one night that was so loud and so short staffed, I was waiting for my pain killers that were due around 11pm and did not receive until close to 2am, I literally felt like I was in a war zone and the HCA on my bay had taken a patient out for a cigarette so literally all the buzzers were going off and no one was coming. Until 🦸‍♀️ Lara came to see what was going on and just sorted everything. ❤️ I have multiple night time stories of Lara or Shirley or Karen saving the day … in my view. I will do a separate post on the ward at nighttime and maybe just one post dedicated to the antics of Maurice 😂

8:00am start to wake up, breakfast will be round soon …

9.15am Nav the stoma nurse pops in and finishes cutting the templates she ran out of time for yesterday. She answers some last minute random questions from me. I will have a Stoma nurse visit me in the next 7 days and I have telephone numbers and an email address, an uncle, a friend and a whole bunch of people who have messaged me on FB, Insta and Linked In to say they have been through similar situations so i feel more supported than anything I have ever done in my life ☺️ The power of reaching out to the world kids!

09:20am Overlap with Nav the Stoma nurse. Dr Saga pops in, we talk about the pain medication question, he agrees that going from current levels to zero will not work.

09:25am I continue my conversation with Nav.

09:30am A doctor lady who I saw yesterday … who wasn’t part of the regular Dr squad that does the rounds. Again she agrees with the general consensus on the painkillers and she is the one to fix so off she goes but stops in the doorway … do you remember me? I honestly answer that I remembered the headscarf she had on yesterday, it was beautiful and seemed familiar. Apparently I told her how beautiful it was before I went into Emergency Surgery – all those weeks ago! Isn’t it funny what you remember so easily and what you forget without even knowing … ☺️ What a lovely full circle we have come in ⭕️

09:35am I finish my conversation with Nav 😂 In all the interruptions I kept thinking of new questions! Lucky the stoma team are so relaxed and as busy as they are, they have plenty of time for their patients ❤️

09:45am Caroline Occupational Therapist/Superhero pops in to say hi and that she will try to pop back before I go home … There are so many diamonds in the NHS and in the world, so much beauty and kindness that through frustrations of financing and politics and bureaucracy we miss them, pay attention for these diamonds, you will be a richer person just to spot one and if you do spot one, make sure to let them know … 💎

10:00am I decide to get dressed in a minute …

10:56am Dad sends me a screen shot from the Doorbell. Just caught this fella in the garden, one of yours? This is Ian from Axis, just passing so he thought he would drop some flowers in 💐 … see, another diamond 💎 I am lucky enough to work with a whole sea of diamonds. I think my company/colleagues are going to need their own post! *adds to my list*

11:00am I actually get washed and dressed

11:50am The snacking has started

12:25pm Everytime a nurse comes into my room I am like a kid waiting for Christmas to be told it is July …

13:05pm Jacket potato for lunch … a positive out of all this if I may 😊 I am casually chatting with people on WhatsApp/Facebook whatever, that I love the bones of but don’t talk to that often … example cousin James, lovely Jena, amazing Kay to name a few ❤️ The best of the eggs. Life happens and you don’t talk so much. Not any more though – I am going to fix it all 🥰

13:15pm The snacking has continued. They have told me to get my weight up and listen to Doctor Saga who is all about a McDonald’s Chocolate Milkshake 😂 He did say he wished he could give me them on prescription ! Me too mate! 🤣

13:20pm My room is undergoing a deep clean, with me still in it. I have suggested they come back in a hour or two when hopefully I am gone but 🤷‍♀️ By the end of the day it had been cleaned and inspected 4 times … Go away! I’m sulking here until I go home 😂

14:15pm Snooze

15:00pm Wake up angry that I woke up here

15:10pm Made Tea

15:15pm I now have biscuits too

16:21pm I am seriously grumpy

16:30pm More snacking

16:33pm Call Lisa for distraction times, Jaxon has turned into Jason (If you know, you know 😂) and even the novelty of Auntie Leanne’s random hospital tales aren’t a distraction.

I just chat with Lisa and Millie – Lisa is such a great Mummy to those two ❤️

Last night while on the phone to Jaxon I decided to explain my Vera pump to him 😂 He is so accepting of the weird shit I fire at him!! ‘So Jaxon,’ I say using my, isn’t this world bonkers voice. ‘You know when you get a cold and loads of snot comes out of your nose and it’s gross?’

Quickly he replies, ‘Yes and mummy gives me medicine and pillows like that’ shows me pillows piled into sitting position.

‘Cool, that’s right. Well my belly is kind of doing the same at the moment but the snot goes into this tube and into this machine’ I say with a laugh ‘isn’t that funny?!’

Jaxon is like whaaaaaaaaat!?! 🤣 I show him (video call obviously) the machine and where the snot goes, he thinks it’s hilarious and then becomes distracted by something else for a while. Just as I am saying bye to leave he asks to see my snot machine once more 🤣 Sure kid, such a boy 😂.

Myself and Lisa regularly talk about how much we should tell him about my being ill. You don’t want to lie but you done want to scare. He is 4.5 years old, going on 15. That boy is so smart, he knows what is going down and is just looking for verification. The questions he has asked already, ‘did Auntie Leanne go in an ambulance?’ At the time the answer was no, but if he asks again, the answer is yes because that’s what you do if you need to see a Doctor very quickly in an emergency and you cannot wait with everyone else. Lisa video called a few weeks back and I answered forgetting I had a nose tube in and a cannula into my neck. Jaxon, didn’t spot the neck one (or maybe he did and didn’t mention it) but quickly saw the nose one. Again using the world is bonkers tone, ‘sometimes they give me medicine in my nose’ 🤣 Jaxon finds this hilarious and there starts the where are they going to give Auntie Leanne her medicine today game? ‘In the knee’ he cracks up laughing for a while. This nurses happily get involved with this game 😂

I am going to chat with him about my stoma. Yes it is temporary but it is here now and if he hugs me he will feel it. Plus he starts big school in September and this is another example of all people being different and that being ok. Surely that will just make him a better human in the world. 🤷‍♀️

Time for Lisa to start dinner and for me to check in at nurses station for operation go home updates.

17:25pm Check back to nurses station, they have just received medication and are writing up documents …

17:46pm I have everything but my sick note for work … 😣

19:08 Got everything? Let’s get outta here! Lovely student nurse Erika helps us make the escape!

I had a little cry to myself as the car was driving along, breeze on my face, real world outside 🥲 I am such an emotional person. But now rather than just been hit by a wave of bad, I feel like I am really in tune with the good stuff too and feeling the positive waves just as strongly. It is a beautiful thing and makes you understand how you cannot have one with out the other. (04:35am thoughts 😂)

19:25 Absolute hilarity that we won’t find out about for another hour!!

19:36pm HOME!!! Mum and Dad decided to keep it super low key … 🥰🥳

19:37 Cuddles with Cassie dog 🐾🐾

19:40pm Snooze 😴

20:15pm Dad nosing on the camera alerts from while they were out, alerts are usually foxes giving my mother a fox type middle finger as they shit on her roses 😂 but not today …

This lady came from the woods and returned to the woods, taking two triangles of bunting with her. The only logical explanation is that lady decided to have a poo in the woods?! Right?!

PLEASE if any body has an alternative scenario that could have led to this, I would love to hear it! 🤣

20:20pm Cheer for the Lionesses 🦁🦁🦁🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Love the womens football is getting the attention it deserves and each year this grows. 💪⚽️

22:15pm More Cuddles with Cassie dog before bed 🐾🐾 I knew she wouldn’t jump on me as such but this little girl is sooo calm! She is clearly excited but she remembers the rules of engagement and is sitting beautifully for cuddles. She just keeps rearranging herself so she a different part of her is touching me and I am stroking a different part so I have touched her all over. She is sniffing like mad at my slippers trying to figure out what that smell that she doesn’t recognise is – hospital. ❤️ So proud of this little doggo xx

23:21pm Bed time ❤️

03:55am Wakes up to go to the toilet. Has this bed always been this comfortable? I am so happy 🥰🥰

04;23am Blogging with a cup of tea from the flask Dad insisted I bring to bed 🥰 Whenever tea is wasted in the world. a unicorn looses its magic … it’s true 🦄

05:23am Back to snoozeville 🥰

07:30am Awake after the best nights sleep I have had in my life.

I am so happy to be home 🏡 ❤️ Thank you all for your messages!