The 26th & 27th; I just want to be able to see again.
The 26th of September.
Ugh this morning was very busy and stressful. Well, it was only stressful until we got to hospital - I was seeing Mr. Kolli at ten, and we left before nine but only just got there on time, because of cones on the road for no perceivable reason, and other drivers who were wankers. Even getting into the car park was a nightmare because they only had two of the three entrances open, but thankfully there were loads of disabled spaces available so I arrived just in time.
When I saw him, I told him about the Rankin shoot (and how we had to compensate for my lazy cataract eye during it) and my fall. He was very excited about the shoot, and immediately got Googling so he can watch the film later. When he actually got round to looking at my eyes, he found that the pressures have gone up again, despite the extra pressure-reducing drop we added. Because of that, he wanted to get some photos of my optic nerve to check they weren't being damaged, and they're not, which is good to know. After that, we went through the options, and the only thing we can do now to reduce the pressures is to reduce the steroid. The plan now is to bring the dexamethasone drops down to three times a day for two weeks, then twice a day for two weeks, plus the chloramphenicol down to twice a day. We just have to hope that bringing the steroid down doesn't make the inflammation worse! I am really crossing my fingers because I just want to be able to see again.
From there, I had to go directly to the plastics clinic, for my twelve o'clock appointment. I was called through there very speedily, where I didn't see Janet, but the nurse I did see was still very good. She took the dressings off, and we found that actually, the right knee is scrabbling over nicely, so now I am to try to leave my knees open to the air and let them heal properly (and more quickly). Obviously if I have to go out we'll have to cover them in some way, but we can manage that. To top it off, she says I don't need to go back so I am discharged from them!
My final stop was at liver to have some bloods done, because I've had really intense abdominal pains three times in a few weeks and we just wanted to check that my liver function tests and infection markers all looked reasonable, so I asked Kirsty to organise those for me. That all went very smoothly, and my five bottles of blood were sent off to the labs.
I had to get Christine a birthday card, so we went to John Lewis for that, then, having discussed how we were going to keep my legs warm while having my knees open to the air, we decided that the best plan was to buy some cheap pyjama bottoms and cut the knees open. To do this, we had to venture into the new giant Primark, but it wasn't too much of a hardship. We went straight up to the lingerie/nightwear area in the lift, where I commiserated with a baby who had an NG tube in each nostril, bless him. We found lots of soft pyjamas up there. I had three pairs I liked, then I found some Christmas ones, which I obviously had to buy, and a very soft long-sleeved top, then I made myself go to the checkout lest I just buy all the pyjamas in sight.
By now, we were both quite hungry, but we still had one job to do! Just to pick up my prescription from the GP. They had also phoned me, but that was to book me in for a smear even though I do not have those done at the GP. I explained this to them and she put a note on my file so hopefully I won't have to go through that again. Anyway, that was a quick one, and we finally got home about half past one.
This afternoon, I put up a blog post, and I spoke to a chap called Rakeem from the Birmingham Mail about doing an interview tomorrow for The Silent Thank You campaign, so that'll be fun. Better brush up on my statistics! We'll have to redo my hair in the morning too, because a photographer will be coming. He also wants a photo of me and Christine. I think there is one in existence. If we can find it.
The 27th of September.
Today has very much revolved around being ready for my very brief session with the Birmingham Mail photographer to go along with the interview afterwards.
This morning, my hair needed washing, which last week I had done at Black Sheep. However, that was going to make the red in it fade again, which is not how I wanted it to look in any photos in the paper. We were going to have to re-dye it, and come up with a way to rinse it without me kneeling on the floor. Thankfully, we have two showers, from when Grandma used to live here, so our downstairs bathroom is a sort of wet room. We used the shower stool, and for the times when it was required, I leaned back as far as I could and Mommy directed the shower head in the right directions. It was not entirely successful, in that my hair looks good, but we both got very wet, so we are going to have to come up with a different way of doing it next week if I still can't kneel down. It will only need washing next week, so we at least won't have to deal with the added complications of dyeing it.
Hair dry and clothes changed, we had lunch while watching last night's Mash Report. Very tricky trying to fit all of this week's insane news into half an hour! There really needs to be a Mash Report Extra in between episodes. At the moment, anyway.
Rakeem and Tim (the photographer) were supposed to be coming at four, so after lunch, Mommy went to Grandma's because there was athletics on, and she wanted to be able to shout at the TV. I went upstairs to take a lot of selfies because I had put some make up, which is very unusual at the moment, so I looked cute and wanted to document it. When I came back downstairs, it was quarter past three, so I put the athletics on and twiddled my thumbs for forty five minutes. Rakeem had let me know that he might be late or have to phone me instead of coming in person, because of a court case he was also working on, so at four, only Tim arrived. It happened to be at a time when the sun was incredibly bright, so we had an interesting time with the light, but he was very happy to work around my photophobia. We also had to do a short video which I will never watch, but it is to make people click on the story. It took a few attempts but hopefully it does the job. He was here for maybe ten minutes maximum, but I looked at some of the photos and I'm pretty happy with them - I'm sure he'll choose a decent one.
Rakeem ended up ringing me at five, and we spoke for just over an hour. I am so very complicated. We had to go through the basic story again, plus what's happened to me since I spoke to the Mail last, which was basically my stint in ICU. I also briefly mentioned the collapsed lung but frankly I'm not sure there's space for that. He wants to talk to Christine, and will probably either ring me again or email me with extra questions, so I think it might be a rather large feature!
