Misery and Miracles

I made it!! for those of you who don't follow me on twitter, it's taken me all day to negotiate the endless journey to out-patients so that I can blog on one of the public access computers.

I'm afraid I've rather taken a turn for the worse. It seems I was in denial and in fact, my crohn's has been playing up all along. Perhaps I got so used to saying "fine" when anyone asked, so used to not eating when it might cause embarrassing symptoms or unbearable pain that I didn't notice the Sickie-Jinx sneaking up on me again.

Well, he has now. I'm sitting here, in mis-matched pyjamas, in a public lobby with hair like a slightly radical brillo pad. I've got a feeding tube in my nose, and tomorrow I will be hooked up to a pain pump until I wait for surgery.

Yep, surgery. Because my obnoxious bowel has decided to get all blocked up again. This is what made the journey from bed to PC so arduous. I couldn't even sit up until about 2.30 this afternoon and I had to negotiate the endless coridors in small chunks. So why today? Why did I have to write today?

Yesterday morning, my world decided to implode. Or rather, the few remaining bits that worked.

I'd woken up that morning to find that the liquid feed, that should have been drip-dripping into me all night, had in fact, been drip dripping on the floor, forming a sticky, sugary, gloopy puddle around my laptop. The poor thing didn't stand a chance. It was death by drowning.

I do everything on my laptop in hospital - watch tv, DVDs, blog, Skype, tweet and listen to music. Faced with an endless hospital stay without it and no money to replace it, I was desolate. At almost the same moment, Dave rang. He had been on the way to visit me to snatch a few precious hours with my boys before they had to go home again. The car had broken down on the M11, spewing oil everywhere in what sounded like a fairly terminal tantrum.

With no money at all for repair bills, I faced the rest of my stay with no visitors at all. I wouldn't see my babies for weeks - it was unimaginable.

In misery, I splurged my disasters all over twitter, then set to making calls and searching websites to help Dave get the car sorted out.

They got here in the end, in time to spend a few hours with me.

When I checked twitter a bit later, the amazing @fionajnicholson and some other friends had set up a fund to buy me a new laptop and help with the petrol and repair costs to the car!!! By the time I found out about it there was over £500 in the account and this morning it had reached a thousand!!!

I'm amazed and humbled that so many people wanted to help me. Dave and I were in desperate straits, already borrowing money from family to afford the visists to Cambridge and unsure how on earth we were going to manage.

Last night, for the first time, I went to bed without worrying and this morning, my first thought was relief. That's worth all the money in the world. More than that though, it reminded me how amazing people can be, how kind and generous. In a world where everyone and everything seems corrupt and rotten, it was a beautiful thing

This won't be the most eloquent post I've ever written, my hands are shaky and I think my blood is about 80% opiates, but even if the rest makes no sense at all, I just wanted to say "Thank You" from the bottom of my heart.