Hope

Another quick one unfortunly/hopefully. I have to be up at 5 am and the only reason I am writing now is because I am running treatments before bed. Plus I have a migraine so more reason to sleep.

I was a little delayed getting out of hospital. By little I mean I mean about a day and half. I felt like crap the day I was supposed to come home and though I knew I could make it home and then sleep, pharmacy messed my prescription up. So by the time that came, I was a little wound up, it was getting dark and I was tired.

Actually, at one point I did leave the ward for an hour to hide and wrote a kinda depressive entry on my phone. I will see if I can get it to post in a bit. Things were just winding me up. I was in with a person who has a similer issue as me, but with a better outlook. She was last in hospital 3 months ago. And well, as this is public I wont write much, but you know how you can try so hard to keep your health going and then other people who are polar oppossites end  up just irritating you. Well yeh.

So anyway, I stayed an extra night to refresh and such, but that of course meant less time sorting things once I was home for going away. So I am a little stressed out right now and kinda functioning on auto pilot. Hoping that the time away with plenty of rest will do me good. Though still feeling a little ill, but I have paid a lot of travel insurance.

So whats next. Well, on an up note, my surgeon and I have made a new plan and I am fairly hopeful for it.

About 2 years ago one of the first operations my surgeon performed on me, was called a tracheal resection. Bascially what they do for the resection, is they take a piece of cartilage from between your rib bones and shape it. They then insert this into the trachea to open up the airway more and cover it in skin grafts. Right now, that bit of cartilage is still in my airway and doing a ok job.

Now the problem is, if you feel between your rib bones there really isnt much cartilage there. It is very painful to take and has a purpose of allowing your rib cage to move. This means they can not take too much of it. This is were the complex bit is going to come in this time.

The plan is, to take the cartilage  as much as he thinks he can safely get away with. He is then going to bury it into my my left arm and attach it to a blood supply. The hope of this, is that once the cartilege is in my arm, it is safe from infection, but it will have room to grow bigger, allowing him to open my trachea up more. Its complex. It obviously involves multiple areas of surgery and a heck of a lot of pain. But pain can be managed and hopefully, with the extra cartilage  my airway can be better supported and I can breathe and talk again.

Thats the plan anyway. I am not sure how long my arm will need to house the cartillege, but hopfully it will go in to place at the start of December. That gives me time to do my 2 holidays.

And it is of course hope. I may just get through this and if not, perhaps it will buy me a little more time until transplant becomes an option.

Its big, im not saying it not, but it is worth the shot.

I dont think I will ever be able to express my full gratitude to the team in charing cross. From the surgeons, to the anesthtics the nurses, the assistants. They all keep me strong. And I have confided a lot in them this week. This week was a tough one. I was honest about a lot of things with some of the staff, before I dont think they realised where things were heading. There are some staff that go way beyong there duty, be mugs of hot chocolate at midnight, hugs when you look down or even a text. On one of my rough days, one of the nurses had exchanged phone numbers with me, I often talk to her and visit the ward to see her if I am in clinic. She told me that her and some of the other staff were always blown away by my bravery on the ward. How I face everything head on, make the most of it and manage my symptoms the best I can. It probably sounds cheesy and silly, but right that night, it was what I needed to hear. It helped me face the long night ahead. As I say, I dont think I will ever be able to fully tell the staff how much they have all meant to me.

So a plan is in place.
Things feel good at the moment.
I am looking forward to some time away from everything.
And to add to boot, mum finished chemo last week and today she got the all clear from her bone scans as there had been a worry that she had some secondaries. But its all good.

And for now, see you next week.