To blog or not to blog

Hello. I’m Adrian. It’s been a week since my last blog. (Oh God, I already sound like the start of an AA meeting, and I don’t mean the AA that take 3 hours to tell you they can’t fix your car at the roadside and you can wave goodbye to that little bit of spare cash you’d been saving for a holiday ‘cos this isn’t going to be cheap. There are some circumstances in which you really don’t want your head end blown and covered in oil! I mean, of course, the AA that help people who like a little tipple now and then, which considering I have had one glass of wine in the last year, is probably not an organization I need to join just yet).

Some of you will know the reason for my absence, and as much as I would like to claim alien abduction or an Agatha Christie-style ‘missing week’ I’m afraid the reality is somewhat less enthralling. Not long after completing my blog last Friday I was hit by the most awful stomach pains which got progressively worse as the day wore on until about 2pm when I ended up having to make my second ever 999 call. (The first was when I came across a road accident – a drunk driver had plowed his car into a telegraph pole and was unconscious at the wheel with a an empty bottle of scotch in his hand and half the steering wheel smashed into his nose!)

So, ambulance on its way, front door unlocked, curled up in agony on sofa and an absolute pig of an ambulance man turns up and gives me a load of abuse for having phoned 999 without first having ‘self medicated pain relief’. I knew what was wrong with me – it was a return of the pancreatitis I had a year ago. That’s not a pain you forget or fail to recognise. It’s a BIG pain, it laughs in the face of paracetamol, it kicks sand in the eyes of ibuprofen, it gives a wedgie to panadol and tweaks the ear of asprin. So I told the pigamedic that I was having an attack of pancreatitis and he gave me a ‘couldn’t care less’ look and hurried me out to the ambulance. When I say ambulance… I’d have been more comfortable in a wheelbarrow! It might have had suspension once, but those days were a dim and distant memory. We have quite a few (too many) speed bumps between our house and the main road, and it seems, ambulances with poorly people in them have to take these bumps as a challenge, seeing if they can actually get either the vehicle or the patient airborne. I begged the paramedpig to let me lie on the bed but he insisted I should remain in the seat, which was the most uncomfortable position for me, but obviously my own fault for not taking a lemsip earlier! I asked again, “Please, each time we go over a bump I’m in agony. Can I lie down, please?” “We’re nearly there now, he said, and I could see out of the window that we were only just down the bottom of our road with about another 5 miles to go! Bastard.

Thankfully they A&E people were a bit more reasonable and pumped me full of morphine. That said, they put a line in my arm to deliver the drugs then whisked me off for an x-ray and in the process managed to knock the needle straight out again, about which I was none too chuffed. I’m not the easiest person to get needles into or blood out of – after a year of being a pin cushion my veins are starting to get wise to the process and like to have a bit of fun with any approaching needle, playing hide-and-seek or dodging out of the way at the last minute. We can play for hours.

So I was admitted to the local hospital. I find it strangely disturbing that anyone would call a hospital ‘Hope’ – it’s one step up from ‘Fingers Crossed’ or ‘If You’re Lucky’. But Hope hospital it was, and thankfully they put me in a room of my own. It was almost a year ago that I had pancreatitis before, which led to the discovery of lymphoma, and indeed it was to Hope that I was admitted that time, but put on an open ward which consisted entirely of old men and wind. Seriously, they had competitions at night to see who could fart the loudest. “Good one Bob, but I’m brewing a tornado”. Belching and farting to the point that was some sort of meld between the sulphurous pits of hell and the Frog Chorus.

On the plus side, I had four days nil-by-mouth which was actually a kind of relief because at least I didn’t feel like vomiting for the first time in about six months! And David, who shall remain depicted as my knight in shining armour, and rightly so, did everything possible to look after me and cheer me up. Everyone should have a David, but he’s mine and I’m not sharing! The pancreas sorted itself out and they granted me parole, on condition that I went to see my consultant at my usual Hospital, North Manchester General, later in the week. Yesterday I did indeed have an appointment with him and we have juggled some of my medication so that hopefully now the sickness will stop and things can start to move forward again. Wish me luck!