Day 26

It's been a very mixed day today.

I woke up, stood up, and had my usual headache/vomit/unresponsive deep sleep routine which killed the morning.

When I woke up this afternoon, one of the reg's came and told me he thought I was stable enough for medical discharge. As they're words I've been wanting to hear for nearly a month I didn't expect them to terrify me, but they did. For the past couple of weeks I've been determined (or stubborn; I guess it's a matter of perspective!) to go home (Cambridge) from hospital - my mum would live with me for a week to help me get used to things and get to Uni, then she'd go back to work and I'd cope just fine. It'd be grand. I've been so excited by the thought of no longer serving time at the NHS's pleasure that I didn't think about the reality and practicalities.

I can currently walk - with a frame - for about 50 metres. After I've done this I am exhausted: my obs were once taken after I'd done this and my pulse had risen by 70bpm and my systolic BP by 30. I still have almost no sensation in the lower leg and foot on my right hand side, and I can't place my foot flat on the floor. I can use my frame to get myself from my bed to my en suite bathroom and back, but for anything else I'm reliant on my wheelchair. This is before the emotional impacts of having a life threatening illness, sudden disability and a fair amount of hospital institutionalisation are accounted for. When I realised doctors were willing to discharge me and let me see through my overly optimistic plan... I panicked.

I'm not sure what made me think about the logistics of stepping into a bath to have a shower, or getting my chair through the narrow halls and doors of a Victorian mid-terrace house, or trying to reach cupboards and stoves and sinks in a chair to cook, or being able to stand in front of a mirror long enough to do my hair, or getting up and down stairs, or opening heavy fire doors with one hand, or not being able to take a mug of coffee from the kitchen to the living room. And those are just things around the house; the terror went up another notch when I thought about going out of the house. But today I did think about all of those things and it made me realise that no-one was being a pessimistic killjoy by advising I have intensive inpatient rehabilitation, it's what I need (psychologically as well as physically) but so far haven't been able to admit.

Admitting that to myself, and then to the medics, felt like a huge weight had been lifted.

So, I'm now in Kettering for as long as it takes for a space to become available at the rehab centre at Addenbrooke's. I had my breakdown stupidly close to 5pm, so the referral will be made tomorrow. A space could be free on Wednesday, it could take a month, or it could be any day in between. I'm really looking forward to it, and I'm staying hopeful that Jaws will be allowed to come with me :)

Love Emily x