Friday was the day for the removal of the PICC line. Tracey's arm had been feeling a little strange for a few days and was red around the entry sight. I don't want to go in to too many details as I am sure Tracey will do that but by the time we got to the chemo ward it was red and tracking up her arm. The tube was duly removed (ouch!) and after a very wet behind the ears doctor had had a look Tracey was given some anti-biotics. She also drew a line in Biro around the red and told us to go to A&E if the redness crept passed the line.
As the evening wore on the redness became worse, we didn't want to go to A&E but by 10:00 the redness had crept at least 1 inch passed the line on all sides. So after a quick call to the cancer ward it was in the car at 10:30 and off to Bath, all close relatives duly informed. We were expecting A&E to be full of drunks but it was actually really quiet.
We had the usual 5 minutes of attention followed by 30 minutes of nothing. I gave Tracey her Happy Christmas kiss at 12:05. Our nurse was a funny man, Irish and gay (I think). He seemed to be under the impression that we ought to know him. "Oi'm very well known around Bath". Well we didn't know him and he seemed a bit miffed that we didn't recognise him. He then proceeded to tell us about his thesis for some sort of exam, it was to do with using social media to self diagnose. He was lucky, I had my MSc thesis ready and on the tip of my tongue, how he would have loved 20 minutes on filing. But I decided it would be too exciting for him and let him witter on.
The high points of the visit were a rendering of happy birthday to a nurse just after midnight and the police escorting a young man in. He didn't seem to be drunk but was kept under close surveillance whenever he came in to view. We were cleared to leave at about 01:00.
So we left, but one last thing, as we went to the car there was a fox walking past it and he looked at us, slowly walking to a safe distance away to watch us go. He may even have waved. Somebody was looking over us?
So it was late to bed and late up. Of course we hadn't wrapped any presents and didn't until we woke up(obviously). On Christmas morning it was wrap, wrap, wrap only punctuated by Adam frantically texting us to see if we were ready yet. So then it was presents and all the thing people do on Christmas day. I won't bore you with the details partly because I expect we all had similar days. I have got a lot of reading to do now and a DVD to watch (I nearly put video, how old am I). The sloe gin I made tastes wonderful, that will soon go. Vaughan took a photo of our table settings, very artistic.
I was a bit disappointed with Dr Who, not the great fun and frightening Christmas special I expected, but was more than happy with a lot of other TV, the Royles were back on form. To round of the day I gave Adam a hammering at chess. I am sure he will soon beat me.
So that's it Christmas in a big spice and snowball filled nutshell. Can't wait to do the new year update.
Chris x
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