The Alien Within: 16 – Splinters & Kinks

Date August 9, 2015 Author By RLG Category Journal

A cracking Summer day!

Three S’s out of the way, injections administered, and feeling better than I have been in days, I ordered one of my favourite breakfasts from the kitchen; Jilly makes the best strangled eggs on toast ever.  Although it was a bit dubious to start with – the very first egg cracked was, well, rotten!  The stink from a rotten egg, once inhaled, is never to be forgotten.  In fact, it immediately evoked that classic Stink Bomb pong I remember so well from my childhood…

But, it did not put us off and, thankfully, the rest of the chukkie eggs were fine and a hearty breakfast was had.

After a short rest, I had promised myself I would plant an orphaned Red Hot Poker plant into one of the front beds.  So off I trotted and did just that.  Needed a bit of a longer rest after that major exertion though!  It seems I am unable to spend the best part of a day doing garden stuff right now, so it will have to be little and often for a little while.

It was not too long before I was able to do a bit more out in the garden, it was such a great day for it.  Really, just sort of random tidying and dead heading really, it needed doing and was not too physical.  For any normal healthy physically fit being anyway.

I am still experiencing some discomfort, although some regularity has returned and I am still using Movicol twice a day, jic you understand.  So when the discomfort flared up a little in the early afternoon, I had to go lie down on my tummy to try and ease it.

Three hours later, only because an iMessage alert disturbed me, I stirred!  I have always disliked day time naps.  I rarely, if ever, feel better for it.  In fact, I have always, without fail, felt worse than having no nap at all.  Today was no exception, with my normal lethargy (normal only very recently since!) made worse by a short siesta.  But it was time to shake it off and walk Benson, somewhat more leisurely than even I have of late.

And that was today in a nutshell, oh except for the excitement caused by a splinter…

Somehow, or other, I appear to have picked up a small splinter in one of the digits of my right hand.  Of course, this is not a particularly good thing when my immune system is supposed to be at its lowest and my blood is running thinner.  The naughty thing had also reddened the area around it, usual signs of a wee bit of infection going on.  So, as one might imagine, Nurse Jill was a little less than pleased when I showed her!

I have Bloods tomorrow morning and was planning to mention the splinter to the Day Unit nurses.  However, just before retiring, Jilly wanted to check the splinter situation.  On closer inspection, with two of her well honed nails surrounding it, she squeezed, rather harder than necessary, and out it popped.  Job done, splinter sorted and Jilly a happy bunny once again.

Talking of bloods tomorrow, the nurse who took the last samples decided to finish off the job with a slight variation on e placement of the ‘flying lead’ exiting the PICC line.  This has resulted in the tube becoming kinked, which to me is not a good thing!  I hope it will unkink when they release it tomorrow and no lasting damage has been caused to the tube – I could do without needing to have a new PICC inserted…

NEXT: Week 3 – Day 15