Day 10 post tx

Day 10 Saturday:

I got up about 7 and did my morning drugs to be checked by Julie the ward sister. I then spent a lot of time pottering about feeling bad for myself and my tummy and being a bit of a crap bag in all honesty. I sat in bed and had a wee cry and tried to stop myself crying whilst Julie hooked me up to the machine. I’ not used to the basics in my mechanics i.e. doing a poo, not to be working. I got hooked up to my iv about 9am which meant I’d be hooked up till about 12, I watched corrie Norrie and Emerdale and felt a bit shittier. Mum phoned and I did the worst thing ever to my poor wee mum, I cried down the phone about feeling so rubbish with my tummy, I was seriously bloated and felt like I was being stretched, I told her not to tell Julie but she said her face gave it away. Julie said to ask the doc if I could get gastro in the front and back end. And mum told me to speak to the nurse about my worries. I went to see the nurses and the doc was there at the same time (Ben) he said that they would be a lot more worried if they hadn’t seen this many times before. Julie said she had one girl who took over two weeks, so I’ll probably be about three.

I did feel much better after that and phoned mum and dad – OH MY GOD I JUST DID MY FIRST FART AS I SAT TYPING THIS!!!! AHHHHH THAT HAS TO BE A GOOD THING (its Saturday night 00.11am) I had to go share that news with the nurses there.

I decided to do something instead of sitting on my tod and feeling rubbish, so I wondered about getting on the bike, then as if it was meant to be the cleaner moved it up as she was going to clean the floor of the room it sits in so I just jumped onto it in front of my cubicle (another fart there) so I got on at 10.05am thinking that it would be nice for Doug’s to walk into the door and me to be sitting on the bike peddling away. Then it got to 10.10 and the 10.20 and I was listening to Julies iPod shuffle and finding some great tracks so I just carried on cycling. The cleaner was talking about how she wouldn’t last a minute on the thing then I began to sing a wee bit and Julie said she should call Simon cowell, of course I was wearing earphones so I thought I was only singing in my head. I kept on cycling, sore legs, kept on cycling, sore bum, Dougie still hadn’t arrived, kept on cycling, heartbreaker by will I am and Cheryl Cole came on and made me laugh cos Doug’s and I make fun of will I am appearance on GMTV doing that song half asleep.

Then I knew I had been on for some time, Julie went to make my bed and then gave me a wee pat on the shoulder when she was done as a wee reassurance that I was doing well and then Search for the hero by M people came on which reminds me of Julie G doing my parachute jump when I had to bail out due to ill health, so I carried on until that song was over. And I did 50 minutes!!!! I got off the bike steadily and took my time to get to my room but my legs weren’t nearly as shaky as they had been previously and I thought I would check to see what my sats were at.

Before my oxygen sats would sit around 85-87% with 2-2.5l of oxygen, once I had climber dougies stairs and checked them and they sat at 64%, but as I put the finger measure on the TV read 97% and after exercise!! I started to cry again from joy and amazement. What a gift, what a gift indeed.

Dougie as sods law would have it then arrived 2 minutes later as he had slept in and had sent me a text to tell me, I phoned mum, then dad neither answered so then I phoned Julie who I told about my fifty minute bike ride and my 97% o2 levels who then told me to tell missi as she must have been out walking her. She said missi was so excited she tried to steal the phone in her mouth. HA ha.

Julie told Dougie time keeping was very important if he was mu nurse, he was obviously very impressed by my amazing feat ;) I think he was a bit sad he missed it but he made up with it by taking Julies role for a weekend and doing my exercises with me which consist of twenty squats, twenty heel raises, ten sit to stands without using hands(bloody hard work for me and keeps Julie amused at my feeble attempts- though I do complete them just spectacularly pathetically). And now we have some arm weights to incorporate our triceps dips and curls.

Dougie came in and we sat looking at wallpaper for the house. I was meant to be getting my wallpapering done this weekend but due to this amazing surprise I never got to pick the stuff, I had tried this week to pick paint and mum would get Bobby the decorator to paint for me and do the walls and other time but after mum spent three hours with cavity in B&Q and homebase I had to tell her to let Bobby know I couldn’t pick my paint I felt horrible as she had been standing phoning me loads and trying to sort out which stuff to get. She said she was surprised the B&Q staff hadn’t reported her and her sidekick. Poor Caitlin.

A bit later the surgeons came to see me, had to get Doug’s to nip through to the other room. They had a wee feel of my tummy, I was in a much better frame of mind and told them that this was really tight and big for me but that I know I shouldn’t moan about it as I had been given such a wonderful gift, he had a feel and said that it didn’t feel nearly so bad to him, obviously because he has seen many very distended tummy’s. He said the best course of action would be enemas with me getting slanted right up the bed head down so that gravity could take effect. I asked him what his next plan would be if that didn’t work and he said he would hold out, there was no immediate need for me to undergo anything. He said he would keep an eye on me. He asked what age I was and I said 25 before correcting myself to say 26 and that my birthday had been the day before my call and what an amazing present it had been. He said I was clearly a very positive girl and that I was looking amazing having had a transplant just over a week ago. He said the lungs were doing fabulous and Julie told her I had been on the bike. As he left he said it would happen and I said when it would it would be the second greatest day of my life, the first being my transplant day.