Cancer 32

I am happily settling in at home. Having been away not for a holiday or a work trip but because I was seriously ill (ok, am seriously ill) in hospital it does make me appreciate home and how settling it is. I have my own chair, far more comfortable than anything in hospital, I have home cooking, far nicer than anything in hospital, and my own loved ones caring for me rather than the wonderful but not emotionally attached people in the hospital. It makes such a big difference.

A graph can be drawn regarding the effectiveness of home and hospital. At the stage of acute illness requiring serious medical care the line for the hospital is high while that of home is low. As time passes and the illness recedes or becomes manageable the hospital line gets lower and the home line gets higher. There reaches a point where the lines cross. The hospital has done what it can but now the patient needs to be cared for at home. Once home then hopefully the rate of recovery increases. I have seen this happen in myself and in several of my fellow inmates. There is generally patience among patients while the hospital line is higher, but then an increasing frustration once the home line takes over.

I am still on around 40,000 tablets a day, from my heart tablets to my painkillers to my co-amoxiclav, along with the drugs for gout (I used to think gout was a really serious problem, but contexts change), and occasionally it can be difficult remembering what to take and when. At least in hospital the nurse would come round at the right times and feed me the right drugs. Now I have to think for myself, or have someone think for me.

My stoma has been playing games. My biggest fear is that I will have a repeat of what sent me back into hospital last time, a build up of (blood, bile, food) gunk in my abdomen that causes sepsis. I really do not want to go back into hospital for the same problem. What saved me was throwing up everywhere, but it was complicated by the various things that were done to me in the name of medical science, some of which I now believe were unnecessary. Still, it is not a precise science, I was very ill, and someone needed to do something. In the end though, a good vomit is a cure for many ills.

For the first 24 hours at home the stoma was not playing; there was very little going through what remains of my system, but this morning it seems to have got a little better. With my anxiety regarding hospital I am striking a balance between fear of eating food that will clog up my abdomen and fear of the stoma not working, though obviously the stoma is not going to work if there is nothing in there to process. Perhaps I should get on and eat some bacon sandwiches, roast dinners, chocolate pudding and the like. Except that I am never that hungry. I will carry on with the balancing act.

Sleep is difficult. I am sleeping a little at the start of the night, a little at the end, and dozing occasionally during the day. Last night I woke up and the central heating had stopped working. It is one of those silly Hive systems, reliant on unreliable elements such as the internet. I was trying to get it going myself, but fortunately Sue heard me banging around and I could sit, be clever and instruct her what to do. Eventually we got it working. I was wondering what would happen if we phoned British Gas and said we needed an engineer urgently because we have a dying chap in the house who is getting a little cold. Would they send someone out the same day? Yes, I doubt it too.

I am also looking longingly outside. I opened the back door to get a sniff of fresh air. It was wonderful. I think later I might get Jack to take me for a walk down the drive and back, if I can make the effort to put some shoes on, not an easy task, you know.