I was supposed to meet my lovely TwitterMum Heidi Stephens for lunch at Café Rouge with my mum, then go back to Bad Apple at 15:15 to get my hair dyed. That was the plan. Here is what actually happened: I woke up with a pain in my liver that I recognised but was tolerable. I texted my mum to request she bring tramadol upstairs to try and ease it but it didn't work. Somehow, I managed to force myself to get dressed and made up because in my head we were still going to lunch and Bad Apple. I had a crumpet and some juice to see if my body needed food, but that made no difference. I ended up ringing Bad Apple and explaining my pathetic circumstances to them and how I needed to cancel my appointment, and Heidi was very amenable to driving to our house instead of The Mailbox.
She brought me a wonderful box of delights - deliciously squishy-looking brownies (I haven't been able to eat one yet but my parents say they're scrummy), nail varnishes, bath goodies (for when I finally get to have mine) and some cute notebooks. Plus her boyfriend fashioned a label with wood and twine which was very impressive! So we had tea and talked, and my mum made omelettes. We talked about Twitter and liveblogging and hospitals, along with Bake Off etc. I was terrible company - for the majority of our time together, I was bent double with a blanket over me. By about a quarter to two, the pain was becoming unbearable, so Heidi took her leave, and my mum rang Jane who is one the specialist adolescent transition nurses for the liver team. By some strike of pure good luck, my bed on ward 726 was still available, so my mum threw overnight stuff in a bag and we came in. I spent the following five hours howling in agony while various nurses looked at me and bleeped doctors. They gave me a single tramadol, two paracetamol and 10mls of oramorph, none of which even touched the sides (as I expected). When the doctors finally came in I said "And where the bloody hell have you been?", and I don't know what they said in response. The reg came up to my end of the bed and just said "Hi" which I was thrown by as you'd think he would've had some concern about the way I was jerking around and softly screaming but apparently not. He asked how I was and I said "it's just like the pain when I had stones before and all that worked then was IV fentanyl". He then said "have you had this pain before?" to which I replied "YES OH MY GOD WERE YOU NOT LISTENING TO WHAT I JUST SAID" then they all scuttled away, muttering something about getting a senior doctor. I was then left in further torment while the doctors had to deal with an emergency, which my logical brain understood but my instinctive brain did not. Another doctor did appear in the end - Ella, who is sensible and knows me so we trust and like her. I went to a serene sort of place while I lay flat to let her examine and cannulate me. Then when she was gone I was back to rocking back and forth and whimpering while we waiting for the fentanyl that was promised. After an hour or so, I sent my mum out to find out what was going on and it turned out that they're not allowed to give fentanyl on the ward as it's not safe and doesn't last long enough to have any real impact. Then a pain nurse came along and she was able to sort me out a shot of morphine, then a PCA of morphine was organised so I could give myself a bolus when I felt the need.
I don't remember much more of Wednesday - I was pretty doped up. I know it took me an hour and a half to write a barely coherent account of it in my diary. I think some zopiclone and lorazepam may have been involved in aiding my sleep. Thursday and Friday are an interesting blur that require a separate entry.