Adapting to Home 🏡 Day 2 = grumpy (mostly)

Day 2 – Thursday

I could not get comfortable and had a very disrupted nights sleep… ☹️

… Which did lead to grumpy Leanne this morning! Sorry Lana, Sorry Mother. Sorry Lisa, Sorry Kerry 😬

Lisa calls to see how I am and instantly regrets it. We talk about her little people, Millie is on the bed in a Minnie Mouse outfit 🥰 and all the stuff.

Eventually we end up on my mood. I am having a shit day and it is only a 10:00 am …

We go full circle and it ends with me getting pissy at ‘how well i look’ and ‘how well I am doing’. I do not look well and I do not feel well.

I don’t remember the bad bad bits. Everyone else remembers me super sick, dangerously ill but I don’t, or I don’t remember it like that. More so, I was not mobile so didn’t see myself in any mirrors or anything like that.

Now I look in the mirror and see a sick person looking back at me. Bones in my chest and shoulders poking out, arms so skinny no wonder I have no strength, lashes and brows way overdue, nails like a bear and then the hair … The hair makes me so sad, the hair makes me look sick, it is my constant reminder that the old me is gone. Which is fine but if you are gonna leave, fuck off and go and stop dragging it out!

After getting off the phone from me, Lisa phones cousin Kerry. Kerry is coming to do something with my hair on Sunday morning. We make a plan to move this to tonight after she gets home from work ✂️✂️

This makes me so happy. At the moment people are popping in to see me and I don’t feel good. I can’t put my clothes on because of my VAC pump and my hair looks like Bill Bailey. I don’t feel like any variation of myself that I want to keep around. I need to find something in the way I look that I don’t hate. Just one thing!

The community nurse arrived to change my dressings etc at around 10:30am, she did all the expected things, blood pressure, temperature, pulse etc … all good. Checked my coccyx or bum bone as I articulately referred to it 😊 I have been laid/sat on my arse for 7 weeks and the fact that it is uncomfortable seems reasonable. According the nurse, I literally have no fat on my body which means I am sitting on bone 🦴 … so to update my recovery instructions –

• Eat everything, the more calories the better, KFC and McDonald’s are encouraged
• Don’t lift any thing heavy for 2 months
• Rest
• Don’t sit on your butt until you have some fat on your but – see instruction one 😂☺️

Easy 🤸‍♀️

Within half an hour of the community nurse leaving, Vera Junior starts shouting … the seal on my dressing is not complete so the vacuum is not working. The machine sounds an alarm every 2 minutes … I finish eating my cheese toastie (YUM!) then take a look. I see what I think is the obvious gap in the dressing so try to patch it myself to save calling the nurse back. In 10 mins it is clear this is not working so I call the 24/7 community nurse number and ask for assistance. This is around 12:15.

I am slightly less grumpy when the door bell goes. Twice within an hour with flowers 🥰 One from an incredible Video creation agency that I work with regularly- VIEW – highly recommended BTW and the other from Kelly B. She is literally the sweetest thing.

I decide to get a photo of all of my current flowers together but realise that a video would be better 🥰

This made me feel massively less grumpy … so I recruited the legs of others to run around and get all of the lovely things that people have sent to me over the past 7 or so weeks. So many lovely, kind, thoughtful gifts … note if it could be eaten it is looooooong gone 😂

So this has made me very not grumpy and back into thank you mode … however I know I have visitors shortly so decide to try for a nap before they come as New Leanne is very much like a 3 year old and needs an afternoon nap otherwise she will get overtired and cry 😂 Spoiler, I did nap but I still cried anyway.

*Recovery is so much fun for all involved 😂*

About 16:30 – My cousin James has been trying to visit at the hospital for the last couple of weeks and it has not worked out so far so today he and his sister, little cousin Lauren come round with a smarties McFlurry 🥰 Super lovely to see them both. Their sister Stacey came to see me in the hospital on Sunday with Uncle Mark so it has been a strong week in McConnachie bonding 🥰, topped of with McCousin Kerry Hairdresser and her Mum Dawny and Dad Papa O being my on call Stoma consultants 😂

My wider family is awesome but we do not see each other anywhere near enough, especially the McC side, sadly it’s funerals mainly really 😬 – but when needed they will mostly appear in force 🤗

James and Lauren say their goodbyes. We will all have to make more effort to get together more, there is a lot of awesome on the McConnachie cousinhood 😂.

But the time has finally come … the moment I have been waiting for … the moment I have day dreamed about when ever a microwaved hospital ‘dinner’ was brought to me … Mums roast 😁

Please note this is a restricted roast and a weekday roast as mother refers to it, we are working our way through things that I can and cannot eat and trying and make sense of it all (mostly vegetable confusions) and there was a minor falling out over the lack of cocktail sausages as we all know that there is a stash of them in the freezer at all times in case of emergency. But it was a banger and the gravy alone was enough to make my mouth water!!!

The problems lay after the meal.

What is it that regular people do when they finish eating?

I tap, tap on the table … mum subtly goes to ‘water the garden’ with Cassie.

Dad makes tea. Tap, tap, tap … 🤨

I need a something!

I deploy dad to find me a ‘cigarette’ 😂 and ‘smoke it’ in the garden! 👇

I always call myself a bookend smoker 😂 I smoke to start and finish something. So having an ice lolly or something after dinner will hopefully help. It isn’t a craving, I think I am way past that, it is the habit of that’s what I do after dinner and the want not the need.

My want, I suppose is to feel normal. Smoking to me is normal. I am also very aware that it will make my Crohn’s more difficult, make recoveries longer etc and generally I have heard that it’s not good for you and quite expensive.

But still … just one would be great 🚬

I said to the nurse yesterday, when asked if I smoke – I have not smoked since Ambulance day. I would love one. I am choosing not to have one. If I decide to have one, whatever, if I decide not to, whatever. Regardless, I will be honest about it. The end goal is to not smoke, I already have half a plan in mind as to where that money will go 🥰 Will this be the beginning of the end of my smoking days? Unsure. Will the cigarette I had on ambulance day be my last cigarette? Who knows 🤷‍♀️ Time is the answer to pretty much all of my questions.

It is now around 18:15 cousin Kerry can look at the hair situation after 19:00ish when she gets home.

But the nurse has not been to fix the Vac pump so I can’t go anywhere 😬 I call the Community nurses number and leave a message. It has been a long time but I don’t know what timescales look like, I just know that they are busy! Look at ambulance waiting times! I am going to do a post specifically on my experience of the below 👇 😡 Remembering my early post about ‘Ambulance Day’.

I am also tired and sore … the Vacuum by its very nature holds the wound together in a special way that means I don’t feel it so much. Before I could feel every staple 😖 and now it is not working, I can feel every staple once more and every movement … just hurts!!! I message Kerry and she calls me. She can hear I am getting upset. I just want my hair less sick person. That is all. But the world is against me! The nurse has not been, I am tired and in pain. She says to chill and see what is going down in an hour nurses/pain etc. So I head up to bed for a while, pain killers popped, eyes shut and hope for a sleep.

I snooze for a while. The sleep helps but I am so uncomfortable 😣 Kerry calls, nothing to tell you, no nurses yet 🤷‍♀️

I call the Community Nurse again. Answered in the second ring. I explain that I called earlier, I explain why and ask for an ETA … I know they are busy! She explains that there is nothing outstanding for me but then realises what has happened … the nurse that saw me in the morning had questions to ask the hospital regarding a few random stitches I have amongst staples and human error has allowed for my earlier call to be accidentally being marked as complete. A million apologies and the nurse will be with me within the hour.

Two nurses appear within 30mins and fix my dressing and the machine. All sorted. We say our goodbyes at around 22:45!

I pop on an Adam Sandler movie 🍿 grab a few snacks, sit very uncomfortably and try to relax … another less than ideal night follows trying to find my sleeping groove. Maybe tomorrow will be the night sleeping feels easy again … 💤