Sitting down

What a silly few weeks I've had!  After finishing a challenging commission for a set of four silver boxes I'd rolled up my sleeves up further and spent three days destroying a monstrous to do list culminating in playing at a Mess Dinner with the OTC band and then drinking too many sambucas in Liquid nightclub (I know, I swore I'd never go there), I was looking forward to my Thursday tootling about the flat and taking it easy!  But my day off was ruined by a sore tummy, assuming I had the sickness bug my sister had a few days earlier I just felt incredible sorry for myself and did a lot of writhing.  After a sleepless night my sister made me phone the doctor, I got an emergency appointment and hopped in a taxi in my joggys assuming it would be no worse than a trip to the pharmacy for a big box of laxatives.  But they sent me to the hospital!! A long wait on an uncomfortable gynae trolley (actually at this point even a cloud would be uncomfortable), x-ray, CT scan and not forgetting the disappointing enema later I was told my right bowel was twisted and they'd have to cut a bit out and stitch it up again - a right hemicolectomy for all you doctors out there!

So while I was meant to be spending Saturday night celebrating the first pipe band competition of the year for us mighty Mac Cal's instead I was in surgery, luckily I found the whole thing extremely fasinating!  I spent a few days in hospital when I was 5 with a fractured skull and have pretty clear memories of it (the only day I went to school dinners in Primary School I fell in the playground, it was mince pie, I didn't like mince pie) but I'd never even had stitches, never mind drips, cannulas, catheters and a down my throat.  Fortunately the latter two got removed before I had hit reality, damn morphine's good! But the whole experience, although obviously I wouldn't want to repeat it, was pretty interesting!

I had a couple of days with my PCA morphine feeling dead perky, had lots of visitors, cards, lego and nice messages which I was sneaking a look at on my mobile, read magazines and books, had snoozes and did lots of people watching, a hospital ward is brilliant for this! Some interesting characters indeed! And I was lucky to have some great nurses and doctors, especially my sisters boyfriend Luke who works there as a doctor and popped in to give me the low down everyday and kept my mum informed during my surgery, that actually made a huge difference and totally put me at ease.  It's scary how quickly the simplest things can suddenly become such a challenge, it seems a bit unreal now how pleased I was just to get into the chair myself.  On the Tuesday they took my morphine away and a got my first taste of hospital food, some clear soup and jelly... bleurg!  Bit of a downer that day and started noticing annoying things, like the lack of anywhere to put things down in the toilets and shower rooms - for the want of a shelf!  Staff moving your table away when you've spent so long getting everything within arms reach and being left wandering about dragging your drip trying to find a nurse to hand your piss pot to!  But I was recovering fast and two more days and wards later I was punted oot with a big bag of painkillers and lots of new lego to build!
So overall my hospital experience was pretty good, the nurses all seem to work so hard but it does seem they are short of staff, there's certainly no time for anything but the necessities when it comes to care and if you don't ask you probably don't get.

So now I'm at my parents house getting looked after and doing some convalescing, done a lot of film watching and lego building, some drawing, finally finished my new Kilt Pin website, no wait, that's a lie, the shop is still on hold... arg! Go look anyway! - http://www.islayspalding.co.uk/kiltpins.htm - gave the rest of it a bit of a scrub up to and uploaded loads of new jewellery photos, so that's something productive!  Still got a couple of months accounts to do...(been putting that one off!) and some design drawings I should be getting on with, so plenty of sitting down type activities!  This is one of those times I wish I had an employer to give me sick pay! Aim to ease myself into workshop next week, be ready for ceilidh dancing and a bouncy journey from Rum to Mallaig in a RIB by the 19th, and then paintballing by the first weekend in July, and of course be ready to wear a drum again for the European Pipe Band Championships in Ireland in July!

Right enough about me, sorry about the pure wall of text! Next post will be about JEWELLERY! Yay!

Oh, and moral of the story - Don't go to Liquid Nightclub or school dinners.

Me with my pal the morphine button and copy of Viz