Tuesday 2nd February 2010

My hospital bed is still pleasing me. It's definitely more comfortable than my original bed and is doing a good job of relieving the inevitable pressure sores!

The padded loo seat is generally a success too, but the other devices less so, so far. I'm fighting a battle of wills with the inflatable bath seat. It is a substantial inflatable cubewhich fills the bath from side to side and has suckers on the bottom to keep it in place. The idea is that you inflate it, climb into the bath and sit on it, then let it down. You have your bath lying on the deflated cube, then when you are ready, you reinflate it and you end up sitting upright on the inflated cube and it's easy to get out of the bath again.

All good in theory!

Trouble with mine is that while I'm in the bath, the suckers always slip roundso when I inflate the cube to get out, the device partly raises me up and partly forces me into the other side of the bath, thus trapping me beneath the fitted bath handles. Not sure who's going to win this battle yet!

I've decided that a stairlift is a good idea. The comfort of the bed is meaning that I'm not getting up much at all, and adding the stailift would at least take away any trepidaion with going up and down the stairs so I might do it more routinely.

For those who are intrested, I missed the Tax Return deadline and I am now waiting for the riders in big black cloaks, boots and swords to arrive to cart me off to debtors prison in a dark and damp cell, hung up by my ankles next to Dick Turpin or someone like that ....

How am I generally?

Well I'm still feeling ok, although my lack of strength and ability is definitely deteriorating by the week and this is really having an impact. After the trip to the Hospice last Thursday I really struggled to get up the steps at the front of the house - it was literally one at a time with a rest in between - the worst its ever been. The did give me a walking stick though which has helped.

My voice quite often drifts into huskiness, as some of you may have noticed. Apparently this is quite likely to be caused by the lung cancer, as the voice tubes get quite close to some of the lung mets and can get squeezed. Odd that it doesn't happen all the time though, sometimes my voice is still quite strong - seems as though it's probably not caused by tiredness though.

Anyway, that's quite a mammoth posting, so time for a kip methinks!

C x