I started doing this diary in June. If you haven't been following have a look at the Cast of Characters which gives a quick low down on the essential day to day characters who are mentioned here...it will make more sense if you do.

    

Ok, yesterday first since I didn't have a lot to say last night. I'm not quite sure when yesterday started since I never did go to bed. I suppose most days start for me when I'm drinking coffee. But halfway through the first coffee yesterday I remembered I wasn't supposed to be eating or drinking anything since midnight, and that was annoying since I was going to have to lie about it. Lorna was as good as gold, had the dogs in the car and was ready to leave by 6.30am. It was still dark when we set out on what felt like some sort of adventure. The misty dew soon turned into drizzle then full scale very wet rain and by the time we were onto the motorway I had the windscreen wipers going at double speed and overtaking a lorry was like driving through a waterfall. That slowed me down a little bit but we were hardly late at all. The waiting room was already completely full, there were no chairs to sit on but I was very soon called round to a bed and seen by the nurse. Lorna got an estimate of when I would be seen to and ready to leave and went off to collect the musical instruments for the wave from Carmarthen. I was last on the list and due to go down at 11.30am, not that I believed that for a minute. A lot of the morning was hanging around in between seeing the anaesthetist, dental surgeon, getting another x-ray because the last one got lost between there and Carmarthen and seeing the dental surgeon again. I had it totally wrong about which teeth were supposed to be coming out. I thought it was the wisdom tooth and the molar next to it on the left that were being done, and I was busy telling him that there was something up with the ones on the right and maybe he could have a look at them as well. Actually it was the ones on the right that were scheduled for removal anyway, but after the x-ray came back he though he'd probably just take out the left wisdom tooth as well. I'd rather that than just have to come back again.

Eventually I had seen everyone enough times and there was still a bit of time left to go down to the prosthetic clinic. The ward had phoned down and asked them to see me quickly so I hardly had to wait at all. This week they had managed to set up the demo grypher so that it worked properly and had cut two holes into the clear plastic socket through which the electrical contacts could be inserted. This meant I got a fair idea about operating the device as it will feel with a socket on. I've been practicing the different twitches needed to operate it and so the test went really well and I can easily open and close it although I'm still a little confused about transerfing in and out of rotate mode. Last week they told me that once it went into rotate I had to wait 10 seconds before it automatically went back into open/close. Now it seems that I can switch modes both ways by contracting both sets of muscles at the same time, what I couldn't work out was whether one beep or two was into rotate or out. Anyway, I feel confident that I'm going to be able to do this thing and Peter the prosthetist seemed quite chuffed that I was making it work properly. Both he and Lynne the OT have fought quite hard to get this thing for me so I'm sure they would be worried if it didn't work.

I was back on the ward nearly half an hour before I was due to have the surgery but needless to say had to wait quite a lot longer. I had been reading but started to get tired and fall asleep in the chair. It was tempting to get up on the bed and have a snooze but someone came and took it away. I was called at 1.15pm, and that was 15 minutes better than Aberystwyth (19th June) who kept me waiting till 1.30pm. I was quite impressed that the anaesthetist managed to hit a vein first time, although they did have two of them faffing around on my hand for about five minutes first, and that was about five times better than Aberystwyth. After the third lot of stuff went into my hand (the big white injection) I don't remember a thing until somebody was telling me that they really had to get me into a chair. It seems that I was the last one left and they were wanting to shut the ward and go home. I was really being pushed to eat and drink something although I had absoluely no desire to do either. Lorna was there by then and I was thankfull when she said she'd have some toast as it got the nurse off my back. I did have to have a cup of tea though. Somehow I got dressed and out to the car and Lorna got us home. I remember a big traffic jam on the M4 and Tigger wanting to get out and have a wee just outside Carmarthen but that's about all, and by the time we arrived home it was dark again. I was truly grateful that the fire was in and the place was warm. I didn't stay up much longer than that, I tried to eat something but didn't get further than a pathetic three spoonfulls of yoghurt, a quick e-mail check and possibly the shortest diary entry I've ever written and I was in bed by 8.00pm. I can't think when I last went to bed that early.

As a consequence of the early night I was awake, naturally, very early (for me) this morning and out of bed by 9.00am. I would have stayed there longer but I needed to find the painkillers and have something to drink. The coffee didn't taste nearly as good as it normally does and I only managed a quarter of a cupfull and less than half a fag before I was feeling quite sick. Eventually I puked a load of swallowed blood then felt better but had to take another painkiller because I'd just lost the last on. That required waiting to make sure I wasn't going to puke again, having a tea just to make sure and then having the pill with some food (well, another three spoonfulls of yoghurt) like I was supposed to in the first place and after all that I was ready to go back to bed. I got up again about midday after hearing the familiar sound of David's JCB 'walking' itself through the bog, this time with the trailer attatched. Apparently he had come round yesterday with the tractor and trailer and gotten them stuck in the bog and had to give up. I don't know how he got home. It was raining hard and he was out there alone unloading the posts and rails from the trailer. I don't know how I ever thought I was going to be out there doing fencing today. As it was I didn't even have the energy to make it up the steps to the field to see him and by the time I'd asked someone else to aplogise to him he had given up and gone home and I don't blame him.

Well, since I wasn't going to be out in the field I felt I could at least do some sedentary work and carried on with the newsletter - the one that turned out to be loads more work than I thought it would be and slowly worked on that most of the day. Another two jobs came up today and I was starting to feel rather overwhelmed, especially with the fencing needing to be got on with and the weather just getting worse and worse and feeling like shit didn't help too much either. One of the jobs is not in such as rush however and the other one I just had to say no to.... it was by tomorrow or not at all and that was a pity because it was an actual paying one rather than a community service one but I felt like I should do what I committed to do first and that I have to have limits about how many things I can do at once.

The day has just drifted past like that somehow. It's strange when you're not really eating because stopping to eat breaks the day up into sections, otherwise it just becomes one long blur. Anyway, I'm about to have another early night.... and that's one good thing about feeling crap I suppose, at least it gets me in bed early. When I'm going to bed at 4.00am again I'll know I'm better.

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