January the 29th - One month in.

So, it seems that the dog has settled in very well. She has already found her new favourite spot in the house. --- On my bedroom windowsill. It's a big bay window, almost ideal for a reading spot, or in Rosie's case. The perfect area to sit/lie and wait to see who walks past, spy on the neighbors and keep an eye out for any intruders - including cats. The perfect Rosie spot, something tells me that my window shall always be the dogs from now on!!! To be honest, the windowsill is pretty high up and it's a fair distance away from my bed, so I am not sure how she actually does get up there and it'll be interesting to watch and try and find out her secret!

January the 16th - Pudsey in the making.

My dog starting dog dancing lessons today.

I felt that moving to a new area meant that I had to start at least one new interest and bonding with my dog seemed to be the perfect new way to do that.

"you put your left leg in, you put your left leg out"....   ok, so dog dancing isn't really like that, nor doing the waltz. Today being the first lesson was only really showing the teacher what my dog already knows  so that she knows where to progress from. The trainer is a lovely lady herself with a poodle. In-fact there are a couple of poodles in the class, so Rosie isn't alone on that side of things.

The dogs in the "advanced" class were doing some trotting, so I had a little go at that. It appears that Rosie is a dog who can trot well, however, being a big dog, she likes to have a fast pace, which I am not able to manage myself that well.

We will be going every Friday (providing both me and Rosie are well enough). I am sure this will be great fun and can't wait to learn lots of new moves and tricks with my lovely dog. 

January 10th. - Pain in the A*se.

Pain in the a*se --- a phrase commonly used amongst siblings and others. To many of my friends and myself, the phrase has a completely different and more real meaning. We know that phrase very well and just wish it would go and do one! Right now I have a great big pain in the a*se. I have been to the hospital since my surgery and have been informed that there is no reason of why I should still be in pain. Time will tell. I am mincing a lot as finding it pretty painful to walk. Maybe it is just the surgical operation healing itself, fingers crossed it heals pretty quickly as this is not a nice experience! I am also struggling to go to the toilet still.

January the 5th - Birds. Gardening.

Mum brought me some bird seed, nuts and fat balls for Christmas, so I put them out for the birds. Decided that the birds may as well get some food as it's pretty rough weather out there and no doubt they are hungry. Within a few seconds of putting the food out, a flock of birds came --- just shamefully, not the sort of birds I had expected, but instead what must have been at least 20 seaguls.

All I can say, is sometimes having a dog is a blessing, Rosie soon saw them off for me! Why on earth are there seagulls around here??? Crazy birds.... where are the cute little blue tits or robins?  I am NOT impressed with the birds here!!! Anyone would think that I lived near the sea. The fact is I am probably the furthest away from the sea that you can get!

I have spent a fair amount of time out in the garden, despite the winter weather. My mum has been helping me and we have removed a fair amount of weeds, it is looking a lot better then it did already, but still it looks like a mass of weeds to me! So much to do, will there ever be light at the end of the tunnel?

December the 29th - Move in day at long last.

So, today I am moving in to my bungalow. I have already unpacked a few boxes, dad has put in new floorboards and put a wardrobe in.

The garden is nothing but weeds and brambles! I kid you not! It will be a huge job to get the garden to look anything near nice, but that will be part of the fun of it!

December 19th - Exchanging house deeds.

I now officially own a new house - Swindon of all places.

A bungalow actually, 3 bedrooms, a short bus ride from the town center. A quiet part of Swindon with a few local good dog walks and not too far from my hospital! (Just in case).

Not much to say apart from the place is now officially mine. A lot of work to be done before I can actually move in because we have found out that the "damp patch" which the surveyor picked up on, is actually "damp - floorboards need to be totally ripped out" sort of issue! So lots of work to be done, then I can move in!

December the 9th / 16th - 2014 - Surgery, my biggest fear.

So following a week of constipation, yes great fun and a stomach ache which progressivly got worse, I made a trip to our local small hospital and told the on-call dr my symptoms and how I was not feeling well. She did what every single person does when you go to hospital and check the urine sample. As always when my crohns is bad, my urine sample came back testing positive for infection (for 4 different tests) So I was sent home with some antibiotics despite the pain being my back passage not my front passage which I had very clearly told her! You'd think with her having asked my medical history therefore knowing I had crohn's would have realised that it was not Urine related!

A trip to the G.P (who is also a surgeon) the following evening resulted in him putting his fingers where the sun doesn't shine and being anal probed. My G.P is the sort of G.P who actually does listen, he's great to be honest. He phoned up the hospital and told me that I'd need to go in now for emergency surgery as he had felt a "bigger than a tennis ball" sized peri-anal abcess.

As mentioned in a previous blog, surgery has always been my biggest fear. So when my G.P mentioned the word surgery, it was more than enough to break me down into tears. I've never had surgery before so was extremely terrified.

Upon arrival to hospital surgical ward (severe worst pain ever) I had to wait for 2 hours for any pain relief due to the fact that it was the doctors switch over time! Those were the most unbearable 2 hours in my life! I could not sit nor stand and actually ended up taking over the pre-admission examination bed! There should have been at least one doctor on who could have given pain relief, even mild like a paracetamol?


The following day, 6th of December I had my first ever surgical procedure.

 22 hours after my surgery (tennis ball sized perianal abcess) I was sent to discharge unit... Luckily the surgeon who operated was outside the ward and saw me with packed bags and asked what was happening. I told him how I was still in agony, had not been to the toilet. My G.P (who is also a surgeon) had told me it'd be suitable for me to be in for at least 4-5 days with relation to my heart condition and no knowledge on how a General Anaesthetic would affect me. So after huge discussion with the ward sister nurse and the surgeon I was kept in for further 5 days.

The following day they were sure I needed further surgery, so had me nil by mouth (fair enough), however a trauma happened so surgery was postponed (yes, fine with that). The following day, nil by mouth, then told no surgery actually needed, no examination etc needed either - so 2 days of no fluids/food for no reason - obvious with my heart condition where I need to maintain 7 liters and excess salt I was blacking out left right and center - therefore causing havoc for the nurses with me being unconscious on the floor!

I was never told anything about what to expect after the surgery, so when it came to the fact I passed a LOT of blood out of my backside, I had no idea that this was "normal" after the type of surgery I had just had!!! You think they'd tell you what had happened and what you would expect from such surgery. As a result of this amount of blood which I had no idea that it was actually normal, I was absolutely scared. Why hadn't I been told that blood following abcess removal was normal?

There have also been numerous confusions with my medications, my gastroenterologist says for me to go back onto the azathioprine now home and the infliximab.... yet the surgeon has told me to stay off them until my sugical review in 5 weeks time! The immunosuppresants caused the abcess in the first place! However, without the immunosuppresants I go into a flare. The Surgeon and the Gastroenterologist just don't seem to talk between themselves and I have no idea which one I am supposed to actually go with and listen to!!!

What chaos.... hmm my first ever surgery incident (been lucky so far) and now I seem to be even more worried about any further surgical procedures that may happen in the future.

Letter received on the 16th December from the doctor following my surgery -  so it appears it was my mother who had surgery and not myself? Weird...