End of Day 9

Brilliant stuff! I just had my last IV injection through my cannula and it has been removed. That means I have no tubes or needles or any kind left poking in to me anywhere, hooray! My plastic bag over the hole where the last drain was has basically only got a few tiny mililetres of liquid - and most of that was from yesterday, so I'm confident they'll remove the bag and just leave a normal dressing fairly soon.

The ward keep trying to bring me lunch and dinner despite the fact I didn't order any, thinking they must have lost the order. I keep sending it away and claiming my friends and family are bringing in food for me. Today this was true actually. Dad and Carole brought a delicious cheese bagel with grapes and a banana for lunch, and then I walked with them all the way to the far corner of the hospital to a costa coffee sat there for a bit and then walked back, including up one flight of stairs. I'll admit it was really hard, but very satisfying!

This evening Jane and Cecile arrived and we had our Singles Valentines Night. After my exertions of earlier they found a wheelchair and pushed me down to the restaurant where, having turned away yet more food from the ward, we had a pleasant meal (inifitely better than ward food), and then came back upstairs for a nice chat.

This evening I watched Harry Potter - Chamber of Secrets while catching up with some friends on email and MSN on my laptop, and until the last antibiotic injection when they agreed to remove the cannula.

In other good news today the doctor agreed that my kidneys basically seemed to be doing fine, so I can stop peeing in bottles for it to be measured, and just use a loo like a normal human being.

So tomorrow I've got a whole load of visitors coming, which is brilliant. Kathy is coming around lunchtime and I'm going to get her to come with me to get a sandwich (again, to avoid ward food), and then I've got several other friends all the way until the evening, when I'm going to persuade some more friends to come with me to the restaurant for food.

If I can keep that up all of Monday as well then I can avoid any more disgustingness - like today's gelatinous MSG'd globules of 'sauce' with incinerated tasteless chicken remenetants and watery-destroyed veg along with thrice-overcooked peas and ultra-dry roast potatoes that I took two mouthfuls from before ringing Dad and Carole to bring a swift alternative!

The only potential cloud on the horizon is if the transplant coordinators don't give me this drug training session on Monday earlyish then I won't be allowed to go home - they have to sign off that I'm capabable of self-medicating before letting me out. I will chase it up tomorrow.

Fingers crossed, but frankly I'm feeling great about life at the moment! It's simple thing like being able to go to the loo, and palatable food, that you never realise how much you'll miss :)

Oh and still (touch wood), the itch is basically gone. I'm just waiting for the last of the jaundice to fade - willing that to happen soon now!