Now medical-wise things are a bit tricky.  Having had a difficult summer in Milton Keynes hospital. Ha. Not me but my mother. Which made me realise some of my new-found skills on the medical front.  There I was suggesting pain relieving remedies, requesting fluids, mouth lemon thingy and as for my own home made drugs charts at their house…welllll. In the nicest possible way but so determinedly to make things better. A few funny moments of course. Not least my puncture on the way to hospital, my amazing parents gallantly coping in horrible circumstances for them both. Oh the little incident of the canned music in the radiotherapy place. Simon and Garfunkel ‘Homeward Bound’ ..no that just did not work out well at all as the tired, anxious, very ill patients waited and waited and waited…

As for me back pain and UTI’s  just will not shift.  The ever amazing DD has made great efforts to find other consultants to help and in the mean-time has taken to distraction therapy. He says he cannot cure me. ( Tsk) but he can make me laugh.  So in a letter to all sorts of doctors and nurses all of whose names begin with J he signed off…That it looks like ‘Three men in a boat’. He made comment that henceforth he would be known as Jerome.  Good job I remembered the author of said book and ‘not forgetting the dog’.  The distraction therapy continued by text with various references to the story, to the ‘shirt in the river’  and ‘there’s a man in my bed’ .  He even decided that our shaggy dog-like microbiologist could be Montmerency.  Some garbled text followed which was a reminder to me to not use my phone after anaesthetic.  This refers to the last time I was in hospital. Goodness knows what I texted and I cannot check as I swapped phones and deleted the lot. DD suggests I was not entirely clear …eeek.   Anyway back to Three Men in a Boat.  They are debating the logistics of bladder, kidney, allergy and stuff.  As for Montmerency’s involvement,  DD, sorry I mean ‘Jerome’ says : I’ll toss him a bone.  Whatever would anyone think? Here is internationally renowned Consultant Urological surgeon chatting to a patient about throwing bones to highly acclaimed microbiologist. Oh well who cares? I feel jolly, now I understand LOL to my embarassment I found myself laughing out loud on the train home as this went on….good job my children could not see me!

Talking of children, the day job of teaching sixth formers on Tuesday and Home Ed kids on Friday is really working well. I sort of experience an out of body feeling. I am pretending to be a teacher with no pain no issues just an ordinary busy old schooly person.  Its this out-of-body experience that keeps me going. I think I am still the person I was.  But I crawl home pop some pills, lie on the floor and remember who I really am now.

Yesterday was a case in point.  Up at crack of dawn. Dogs, washing and dishwasher. Nip to station. Catch train. Pretend I am a commuter like everyone else. Meet new ‘man-in-the-boat’ J.  Go over the whole medicalness saga, try not to cry at the mention of catheters  and stumble back onto the train home. Then speed to school to drop off some documents which needed to be signed off. Nip home. Pills in. Dogs out. Back to school pick up sixth former who needed chaperoning to Accounting interview in Bedford I had set up for her. Lovely to meet up with old friends there. Take her home. Check she is indoors. Whizz down to pub to the ‘cheer up’ drink for my lovely friend V who has just experienced the loss of her mother-in-law and thus the last parent in their family.  We shared a glass and raised one to all mothers and fathers too.  Goodness it hits home..we must remember these bits. But then off home once more to pop  painkillers and help neighbour’s son with his maths homework. What a pleasure that is. He even laughs at my silly jokes, he corrects my mistakes with relish and we giggle our way through a glorious mathematical puzzle. I shut the front door as I bid him farewell. Lying on the cool kitchen floor, to try to click my back,  I remember Jerome suggested I text him at 19.00 for a quick update. He replies: ‘Just finishing ward-round will ring in 30 mins’ Poor him must have been in the operating theatre all day, then ward round then has to talk to patient J about three men-in-a-boat. I will remember to tell my colleagues at school when there’s a moan about ‘after-school’ meetings (at 2.45pm)!  He did of course ring. He did make me laugh. I made him laugh when I explained my LOL moments on the train down. Ooo note to self there is a free version on kindle.

I did tell him to put the phone down, go home, drink wine. I hope he did..as for me I crawled upstairs…fell into bed popped some more pills…and dreamt of shaggy dogs in microbiology labs…now where did I get that from?