Behold, the date: 1/1/11
Okay, I know its been a while but I have an excuse this time. An actual bona-fide legitimate reason for my complete silence over livejournal. I was in hospital. AGAIN.
Yeah, remember the mad cold weather that arrived OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE in the middle of November and didn't go away? It weakened me to the point of turning me into a haunted ventriloquist's dummy rattling around my flat coughing and hacking away. That's the joy of Cystic Fibrosis. So I was admitted into the hospital on the 13th of December and spent the entire christmas period banged up under the watchful eye of the NHS. I got out on the 30th and yesterday was my birthday! Hurray! (Holy shit, I'm officially in my mid-twenties now, what the fuck? When did this happen? Make it stop!)
Christmas on the acute respiratory ward wasn't so bad. I had a TV so I spent most of my time either sleeping or watching the crappy movies they stick on at christmas. ITV3 had a Carry On film on EVERY DAY so I enjoyed that. I also managed to escape the second lot of crazy weather, but I could still see it out my window. One morning I had a temperature of 40°C (104°F) and was lying with an electric fan blasting me trying to cool down because I was so fucking warm watching big fat snowflakes trickle slowly down outside my window, it was a weird juxtaposition.
By actual Christmas Day I was well enough to be allowed out on a day pass (or 'Parole' as I called it) so I spent the day at a friend's flat with a hodgepodge of friends who hadn't gone away for the holidays either because they work in retail, or the snow had prevented them from flying. We had Christmas dinner, turkey with all the trimmings served in an enjoyably slapdash way. Not a single relative in sight! In fact for this reason alone it might have been one of the best Christmases I've had since I was a child. Normally I find sitting around with either side of my family incredibly stressful, but this year with actual friends I could relax and actually enjoy myself. It was brilliant. We sat around, had good banter, Watched the Doctor Who christmas special, drank (although it was strictly lemonade for me), ate a mountain of food, laughed. I even got to have all the toffee pennies out the tin of Quality Street because I need to put on weight. I was let out at 10am and I'd booked a taxi to take me back to the hospital at 10pm. It was an incredibly short 12 hours. I arrived back on the ward in time for IV antibiotics and lights-out.
I was released from the hospital on the 30th. New Years Eve (and my birthday) I spent around another friend's flat, just chatting, eating, drinking, having a generally good time, and then watching Jools at midnight and singing our own lyrics to Auld Lang Syne with what was on the screen (And Kylie's there / with a po-lar bear / and a man with a clock for a face!). Again a very enjoyable birthday/hogmanay for the express reason that I wasn't with family. No pressure to live up to their expectations, and no guilt that I was spending time with one side over the other side because I was with NEITHER!. An elegant and brilliant solution.
Overall, despite spending most of it cooped up in a hospital room with tubes hanging out of me like I'm a second-hand Sky set-top box, it was a very enjoyable Christmas period. Here's to 2011!
Yeah, remember the mad cold weather that arrived OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE in the middle of November and didn't go away? It weakened me to the point of turning me into a haunted ventriloquist's dummy rattling around my flat coughing and hacking away. That's the joy of Cystic Fibrosis. So I was admitted into the hospital on the 13th of December and spent the entire christmas period banged up under the watchful eye of the NHS. I got out on the 30th and yesterday was my birthday! Hurray! (Holy shit, I'm officially in my mid-twenties now, what the fuck? When did this happen? Make it stop!)
Christmas on the acute respiratory ward wasn't so bad. I had a TV so I spent most of my time either sleeping or watching the crappy movies they stick on at christmas. ITV3 had a Carry On film on EVERY DAY so I enjoyed that. I also managed to escape the second lot of crazy weather, but I could still see it out my window. One morning I had a temperature of 40°C (104°F) and was lying with an electric fan blasting me trying to cool down because I was so fucking warm watching big fat snowflakes trickle slowly down outside my window, it was a weird juxtaposition.
By actual Christmas Day I was well enough to be allowed out on a day pass (or 'Parole' as I called it) so I spent the day at a friend's flat with a hodgepodge of friends who hadn't gone away for the holidays either because they work in retail, or the snow had prevented them from flying. We had Christmas dinner, turkey with all the trimmings served in an enjoyably slapdash way. Not a single relative in sight! In fact for this reason alone it might have been one of the best Christmases I've had since I was a child. Normally I find sitting around with either side of my family incredibly stressful, but this year with actual friends I could relax and actually enjoy myself. It was brilliant. We sat around, had good banter, Watched the Doctor Who christmas special, drank (although it was strictly lemonade for me), ate a mountain of food, laughed. I even got to have all the toffee pennies out the tin of Quality Street because I need to put on weight. I was let out at 10am and I'd booked a taxi to take me back to the hospital at 10pm. It was an incredibly short 12 hours. I arrived back on the ward in time for IV antibiotics and lights-out.
I was released from the hospital on the 30th. New Years Eve (and my birthday) I spent around another friend's flat, just chatting, eating, drinking, having a generally good time, and then watching Jools at midnight and singing our own lyrics to Auld Lang Syne with what was on the screen (And Kylie's there / with a po-lar bear / and a man with a clock for a face!). Again a very enjoyable birthday/hogmanay for the express reason that I wasn't with family. No pressure to live up to their expectations, and no guilt that I was spending time with one side over the other side because I was with NEITHER!. An elegant and brilliant solution.
Overall, despite spending most of it cooped up in a hospital room with tubes hanging out of me like I'm a second-hand Sky set-top box, it was a very enjoyable Christmas period. Here's to 2011!