Today, the weekend and bits of thread

Hello again!

Well, the weekend was pretty good. My wife and I got away for the day, to belatedly celebrate our anniversary. The kids were taken by their aunty to see Kung Fu Panda and then stayed the night with the grandparents. So it was cool, we got to go out, lounge around, eat and be merry (didn't mention drink, as I have been told not to have more than 2 units a day, due to the evil clot. Boo!).

I was still a bit vague on Saturday but so much better than Thursday and Friday when I was in my drink/pee repeat cycle of fun.

Friday I had to attend the jolly anti-coagulation clinic. This involved: going to hospital (late, because trying to get kids ready and them not complying, also we had no working shower as it had been ripped out to fit new one), trying to park at hospital, being unsuccessful trying to park for ages, finally parking, joining the queue to have blood taken (big queue but anti-coag clinic people get priority, but there were a fair few of them anyway. Glad I wasn't a normal blood letting punter, they must've queued for ages), get called in and have a needle stuck in and rummaged about a bit to find a working vein that isn't made of leather, go away and wait for 40 minutes while the blood is tested (sit down and eat cake. Yay!), hang around main reception until a quietly spoken nurse mumbles your name which you just catch before she wanders off, follow mumbling nurse, join clinic queue, wait, get called into an office, get told your blood is not behaving and you need more daily injections, get told to come in again Monday for more blood testing, go home. So not too bad.

Saturday, we needed to go out, but the nurse had not arrived to give me my injection, so I got brave. I had been shown how to self-inject but wasn't especially enamoured by the idea. But, we needed to get moving or we'd be late, so I got the Fragmin syringe (called a pen for some reason. Nasty spiker would be a better name. Pen sounds so innocuous, perhaps that's the idea), stared at it for a while and then with shaking cowardly hands stuck it in. I did a double take as I looked at it sat there buried in me. Strangely it didn't hurt and was quite straight forward to do. So, I pressed the plunger and grinned at myself for not being such a chicken.

Sunday, the nurse came over to give me my other injection (GCSF). I can do this myself too, but it's a bit more involved and needs mixing and messing about with but the nurse is going to teach me how to do it, then I don't need to wait around for them to call.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. When the nurse gave me an injection the other day, something bizarre happened. The needle went in, the plunger was pressed, but when she tried to take it out, it was stuck. She had to pull and tug on it, looking bemused and somewhat unnerved. Finally it came out. It looked like it was stuck on a hair, but on closer examination, it looked more like a piece of thread. I pulled it out later and it was some sort of thread, about an inch long. How it got under my skin, I have no idea. Kind of worrying. Perhaps the tumour has set up a sweat shop in there, knocking out cheap T-shirts and stuff. Anyway, it freaked me out somewhat!