Thursday 12th to Friday 13th November

Just another day spent in the house really. Hoovering I think. That was a bit of a challenge. Especially as I shouldn’t really have been doing too much so that I would be fit enough for my walk 🚶Yes the ladies were back from their holidays. They both had great times, lucky things.

Friday morning and work was busy. I made sure I found time to pay my deposit and choose my food for my work’s Christmas meal though!!

After everyone had finished work Robyn, Leah, Jack and me went along to Julie and Hannah’s to have some healthy nibbles (as Leah, Julie and Hannah are following the Slimming World diet at the minute and are all doing really well on it 😀) and to watch Children in Need with them for a while. Just a lot of silly chatter seemed to be going on though and not much watching of the tv!!

And then we all found out about the terrible things that were going on in Paris.

Tuesday 10th to Wednesday 11th November

Up for work. Seemed to go fine today. On every shift I’m there I seem to meet a few more of my old customers saying that it’s real good to see me back and how I look so well now. Although this is a great thing it can have its disadvantages, because everyone thinks im now completely back to normal when I’m not Everyone is being very kind I know and it is good to see them. I was still very very tired when I got back home though.

Wasn’t much rest for me though as i was reminded at work again that I was supposed to be going out tonight for a meal for one of the girls’ birthdays. So I got ready and off I went. To Bitter & Twisted, a pub in the town. I had a flatbread which I have had from there before with haloumi, sweet potato, red onion etc on it. I always enjoy that.

Wednesday was a day at home doing jobs as I haven’t been around much over the last few days again. Think this is how my week is going to plan out now, rather boring and I get fed up with doing it all at times but I think that’s just the same as everybody does.

I did stop at 11am for the two minute silence.

I don’t seem to be feeling in a great mood at the moment. I feel quite stressed at times. I know that because I never feel 100% that’s probably having an effect on me and as I have just gone back to work that is another big change in my life which is quite hard and is maybe affecting me more mentally than I realise. It’s so different from what has happened to me and what I have been used to over the last 12 months. It’s made me realise even more that we really don’t know what is going on in other peoples’ lives. Some people can’t wait to talk about their own experiences and over the last few years, when my customers at work have seen me looking quite ill, we have talked about how their feeling, their medication, hospital visits etc. But otherwise we just all seem to go about our business, rushing from one thing to another until, maybe, if your unlucky enough, something hits you or a member of your family or a close friend or work colleague. And thats when things all change.

So, sometimes, when I’m at work and have no customers at my till, I sit and watch people wandering about just doing their shopping, and I wonder …

Monday 9th November

Time to go to Birmingham for clinic again today. When you go to clinic they always take your blood and for this reason you are not supposed to take your anti-rejection tablets in the morning so they can check the tacrolimus levels in your blood. As I’m trying so hard at the minute to try not to forget my tablets because I’m out of my routine with going back to work, I completely forgot that I shouldn’t and actually took mine this morning. The doctors don’t mind too much, they make allowances for the results they get, but it did actually make me feel quite frustrated with myself for getting it wrong and I got a bit of a telling off from Robyn 😦 so not a good start to the day.

Can you believe someone else was sat on our ‘picnic bench’!! So we had to sit opposite it today Robyn had her organised pack lunch, I had a latte and an orange and cranberry muffin from Costa, which actually wasn’t particularly that nice 😦

After being weighed and having my blood pressure taken, eventually it was time to see my consultant. I told him I was still suffering with joint pain after taking the extra vitamins for a month, so they obviously weren’t causing the problem. Now he says it might be a side effect of the anti-rejection medication so he’s now reduced that by 1mg a day. Have to wait another month now to see if that does anything. I told him that my Reynauds had also come back (this is when the blood flow doesn’t get to your fingers, toes etc. when it’s cold). And it’s not just because the winter is now coming, last year when I was very ill I didn’t actually have any problems with Reynauds! In my humble opinion I think I may have got all these problems because I have stopped taking my steroids after being on them for many years and I told him this, but at the minute he doesn’t agree with me. Or maybe it’s because of the aziathioprine which was also suddenly stopped when all my white blood cells disappeared back in the summer. I don’t know. And I don’t think he does either! At one point he just sat there looking at me, saying nothing He also says the reason why I still don’t feel great might be because I have a small infection which my body isn’t getting rid of. But mainly they still seem to put it down to the fact that it’s still early days, I had two transplants not one and I didn’t have an ‘easy ride’. So I’ve now come to the conclusion that this is how I’m going to be. I’m obviously feeling much much better than I did but I probably will never feel 100%. I will have good and bad days, both physically and mentally. It will be hard at times but I will be okay 😀

We were a long time in clinic today, the doctors were running behind again. So we didn’t have time to pop and visit my hospital friend Marina, who is still in hospital but has improved a little thankfully, and is back on the transplant list, at the minute. Fingers crossed.

Amazingly we didn’t get caught up in any traffic on our way back this time. So I think that cheered Robyn up a bit.

We stopped off in Banbury and did a bit of food shopping 🍏🍌🍞 which is never a fun thing to do with Robyn! but it was reasonably okay this time.

Finally made it back home.

Friday 6th to Sunday 8th November

A man from the HR department was waiting to see me when I got into work. We went through what hours had been agreed for me to work and he said that it would be a bit flexible as long as I was showing signs of being able to increase my hours and that it fitted in with Adam (my boss).  If I get to a stage where I feel like I cant increase any more then I would have to probably reduce my contracted hours. He said to make sure that I tell Adam if I am struggling at any time or don’t feel well. This is the bit I’m not very good at though, I tend to just get on with things and then suffer after. This is one of the reasons why my GP was a bit apprehensive about me returning to work, because he knows what I’m like.

I then went straight onto the tills this morning. It was busy too but I always used to like it that way. 

I was very very tired when I got home. I sat on the sofa yawning my head off.

When I woke up Saturday morning I wasn’t very well. I had a terrible headache and just didn’t feel well at all. (As a result of having a busy shift back at work? Really don’t know )

Gary had arranged for us to have lunch with his daughter Emma in a nearby garden centre where her boyfriend Jamie works as the chef. So I made the effort and went along. Gary and Emma had the chicken pie that Jamie had made and I ordered a jacket potato with cheese and beans (which eventually arrived after the others had almost finished eating as the girl had lost my ticket!) I managed to eat some of it. We had a bit of a walk around afterwards but I found it really hard work, I just wanted to go home really 😦

Which we eventually did. Emma needed to get back to get ready to go out later. So then we decided to pop in to Banbury. I didn’t really feel like going but I was trying to take my mind off of how I felt and I also needed to get some new trousers for work as the ones I had been wearing were awful! 

I didn’t find out until too late that Robyn and Leah were going to a local fireworks display before going out later. If I had known I probably would have made another effort to go there with them, as I normally do. Unusually I haven’t been to watch any fireworks this year 😦

I just sat at Garys and watched tv in the evening. I hadn’t picked my iPad up all day and had hardly been on my phone. Now that shows you just how ill I was feeling!!

I felt a bit better on Sunday. My headache seemed to have got a bit better too. Thank goodness. I wouldn’t have been too happy if my whole weekend had been ruined. One day was bad enough

I was even able to eat a very delicious breakfast baguette. Bacon, scrambled egg, sausage, mushrooms. Hard to eat, but I think one of the best things I’ve ever tasted! Thank you 😋

At teatime me and Gary went down to the Blue Boar to watch a band we like, Palmerstone. They were really good. Then we called in to another pub on our way home that we used to go in quite regularly. It has been closed for a while, been completely renovated, and recently reopened. What a difference. It’s been really opened out and is now really quite posh! They have a lovely room now which they are calling the snug, with leather chairs and sofas with like animal hide seats. It’s a perfect place and I can’t wait to go back there, get myself comfy with a nice mug of coffee and blog 🙂

Wednesday 4th to Thursday 5th November

I was tired when I woke up this morning and my body was aching just a bit more than normal, I’m guessing as a result of work yesterday. But I had a lot of jobs that had mounted up over the last couple of days, so I just got on with doing those.

In the evening I watched the last in the series of Gift of Life. This week it was a young man that had a heart transplant and a woman that had a double lung transplant. I’ve enjoyed watching that. I find all this kind of thing very interesting now. I would have definitely agreed to have had my story followed and filmed if I had the chance. And imagine being able to watch back your own transplant operation. A great thing in my opinion to be able to look back on.

I did manage to get a photo of my actual liver though! We asked before my transplants that if it was possible please could they take a photo. They can’t promise anything, as obviously it depends on how everything goes when they are taking it out I guess, but they managed to do it for me😃 And here it is.

Looks very solid to me and black!! No wonder I felt so ill before they took it out   

I hope my new liver now looks a bit more like this one.

Oh it’s weird when you think about it all isn’t it? I now haven’t got the liver I was born with and that grew inside me for many years because something went wrong inside my body and that turned it into this black thing and stopped it from working. So then some very clever people had a dig about inside my body and replaced it with another one that I am very lucky and extremely grateful to have received. Twice …

On Thursday I decided I was going to give the bathroom a bit of a spring clean. This actually really hurt my back but I had decided that’s what I was going to do and I wanted to finish it.

No evening walk for me this week as two of the ladies I go with were on holiday. I don’t think I could have managed it anyway after spending most of the day, on and off, in the bathroom! And I need to be fit enough for work again in the morning! I did miss my walk though 😦

Tuesday 3rd November

The day has come. A year since I was last fit enough to work, on the tills in our local Co-op store. And I’m back. I made it through 😃 

This made me think back a bit. Blimey I did struggle during those last few months when I was still working. It was such an effort to get myself to work, then serve my customers and be pleasant to them when I was feeling so awful. Many of them used to say to me ‘what on earth are you doing here, you should be at home’

Then when I got home after my shift was over I was fit for nothing but still had all the normal jobs to do, washing, cooking meals, tidying etc. It was very hard. When I sat down in the evenings I just couldn’t stay awake. The tiredness was one of the hardest things to live with. It made everything such hard work (it’s one of those things that no one will ever understand unless they’ve suffered it themselves). I think maybe sometimes people didn’t believe me, both in general life and at work.

I’m not trying to make myself out to be amazing or anything like that at all because I’m not, but I just didn’t want to give up. Then eventually, last November, my GP told me enough was enough, I wasn’t doing myself any favours, and I shouldn’t work any more. I knew at that time that I had to take his advice.

So here I am, a year later, having had two liver transplants and all the troubles that came with them, and I’m back on my till! I know I’m only doing two shifts a week, each of four hours, but I’m back. I’m doing these hours for a month to see how I get on with it, then adding another shift of four hours for another month and then it will all be reviewed and will go on from there. I had to go through Occupational Health to kind of get these hours agreed, as my boss seemed to want me to get back up to my normal contract of 24 hours a week within 6 weeks, and I’m not sure I can do that See how I get on I guess. 

I wasn’t at all worried about going back. I thought I was going to be a bit nervous but I wasn’t  at all. I was looking forward to it. And thankfully I was feeling well today so I think that helped too. I think it will all be very different again when I have to go on a day I’m not feeling quite 100% 

I had to catch up with some things on the computer first, that all staff have to do regularly anyway, and then I went onto the shop floor and just stood behind one of the other ladies to refresh my memory. I did this for about half an hour and then it was my turn. I was glad I had the chance to watch first because I had forgotten a lot of it (though amazingly earlier I had remembered my 6 digit clocking in number) My very first customer was another lady who works in the shop who had just finished her shift!!

My time to feel weird about it all was when I got home! I kind of felt like ‘what on earth was I doing sat here, I should still be working’ and I didn’t know what to do with myself at first. I was completely out of my routine. I made myself have a bit of lunch but as it was now the middle of the afternoon, I then wasn’t really that hungry in the evening So I guess I need to sort that problem out!

I was lucky enough to get a little present from Robyn for my first day back at work too 😃😃😃

Monday 2nd November

When I woke up this morning I felt a bit breathless and my chest felt quite tight. I was a bit surprised at this as my cold had seemed to be getting a tiny bit better. After a bit of nagging from Robyn (it had come round to her day off again already!) I made an appointment at the doctors just to check my chest for any signs of infection. I couldn’t go until 5pm though.

Robyn went off to the gym and I decided to make an apple cake as I had been given some windfall apples. When Robyn returned from the gym she decided to make some pumpkin soup. 

  
So we had a busy day in the kitchen, with lots of extra washing up for me to do!  

I decided I would take some of the apple cake to Robin (the man who gave me the apples) and his wife, who live on a farm just along the road from me. He always used to come to my till to have a chat when I was working. I also took some to Gary. I hung it on his door so it was there for him when he got back from work! I took a bag of things I had been sorting out recently to the charity shop in the town and then picked up a prescription of mine. Thanks Robyn for giving me a lift so I could get all these little odd jobs done 😙

Time for my doctors appointment then. No chest infection, thank goodness, I try to avoid antibiotics now at all costs. So I pick up my note that Dr Fisher has left for me at reception, saying I can go back to work as long as I’m doing shorter hours than my normal shift for a while.

Roll on the morning …

Saturday 31st October to Sunday 1st November

On Saturday me and Gary went into Banbury shopping.

Later I popped home to see Robyn. She was going to a Halloween party and was getting dressed up as her version of a pumpkin! This was before she went to her friend’s house to get her face painted.

But still a very skinny and pretty pumpkin!!!

Leah and Jack had been very busy too, sorting out and tidying their bedroom. It was a bit of a state and definitely needed doing. They BOTH have too many clothes that’s the main problem. Looks much better now. How long will it stay this way though? That’s what we are all wondering 😜

Then I went back to Garys as it was going to be another curry Saturday. YAY 😀 While he was cooking I watched the final of the Rugby World Cup, role reversal?! Since the start of the competition I have quite got into watching the game, it fascinates me. Can’t think why 😜

Anyway, chicken, cauliflower and mushroom curry with a tomato and coriander garnish and my favourite side dish, green beans in mustard seeds and this time also with sweet potato added. Absolutely delicious 😋

Nothing much happened on Sunday. It was a lovely sunny day and I really should have been at a car boot sale, as I have sorted some things out to sell, and when I do I’m going to give the proceeds to charity. But I know Robyn would want to help and maybe do something to help promote her challenge at the same time (http://bit.ly/DunbarsDonors) and as she was out at a Halloween party last night, I didn’t think she would be up to it this week!! She was also supposed to be going to visit Tom’s family too. Will try for another Sunday.

Today was #dayoftheliving A day to celebrate donors. So I wore orange today in memory of my donors and lit orange candles for them in the evening. Eternal thanks.

I did a bit of work on my blog and spent some time on Twitter and Facebook also promoting my blog! Watched the results of X Factor and I think that was about it.

PS Just to keep you up to date with my garden path saga, it is still looking the same. No soil or shingle has been put down either side. I haven’t seen or heard from either the builder or my landlord, so I really don’t know what is going on there. I guess they think as I now have slabs all the way down instead of grass and mud, it will be fine!!!

Friday 30th October

After my phone call with my GP yesterday evening about getting a note saying I was able to go back to work but for reduced hours, I had to ring Birmingham today just to check if I was allowed to have a flu jab, as my doctor really wants me to have one before I go back to work. I could only get hold of the secretary and she said she would try to get hold of my consultant, ask him and then ring me back. I’m not going to be able to have it at the moment anyway because of my bad cold.

Had a quiz to go to tonight in a nearby village. Leah took Robyn, Hannah and Julie, then me and Gary picked up George (my brother) and should have been Jackie but she couldn’t make it in the end. So off the 3 of us went to meet up with the others. And this was how the teams were worked out, by the people that had travelled together! But oh dear, none of us seemed to be very successful. 

This team finished last out of everybody! but were rewarded with a Mars bar 😋

This team were third from last!!!
  
Ha ha 😃

I kind of drifted between the two teams as I wanted to hear the gossip from both teams! I promise I didn’t cheat though 😜 I didn’t tell either of them what the others were writing down. I didn’t know many of the answers anyway The questions were quite hard. We had a good time though.