It never rains, but it pours .....

Aren't these stunning? They smell heavenly too. The lovely Victoria sent them to me a couple of weeks ago

They say bad news comes in threes; I seem to be living proof of that at the moment! Some of you will recall that I went for a Barium enema recently to get to the bottom (excuse the pun) of why my innards were making their presence known to me. I got the results back for this, and am told that I have an 'abnormality in the Caecum' that will require an urgent Colonoscopy. Good old NHS rang today, and I am booked in for this delightful procedure this coming Saturday; I am once again to experience the pleasure that is fasting and strong laxatives in preparation. I must have been very very bad in a previous life!

After the Barium enema, my breast decided to get in on the act, and despite already being on antibiotics, flared up and had me hospital bound again. My GP decided to go back to square one and I had blood tests to screen all my organs to try and find out why I kept having this problem with recurrent infection. The verdict is that I am Diabetic; I had pretty spectacular blood sugar counts, and am now on medication to try and control it. Diabetes is known to interfere with healing, so the hope is that once the Diabetes is managed, my problems with recurrent infection will be too. This may take a few weeks, and to that end I came home with another 6 weeks worth of antibiotics.

Things have been going wrong for my family too. On the 5th February, my Mum went in to Hospital to have major surgery to try and replace a massive titanium bone and elbow replacement she had done 15 years ago. As a 19 year old she had a serious accident, that left her without the proper use of her right arm as the elbow had fused. The original implant 15 years ago extends from her wrist to her shoulder, including an elbow, and gave her freedom of movement she hadn't had in over 35 years. It had begun to give a lot of pain last year, so the surgeons decided to replace it, having done CT scans and the like to assess it. She went in for this surgery knowing it was going to be a difficult and painful process, and aware that she already had a bone infection that would complicate matters even more.

The surgeons got stuck. They started the operation, and removed the old implant, but couldn't put the new implant in. Apparently her remaining bone is so black and necrotic, it wasn't possible for them to complete and connect the implant to her remaining bones. Thankfully they didn't amputate immediately, although this still might happen.

The most bonkers part about this is they sent her home because they are terrified of her contracting an infection in the Hospital before they get a chance to rectify her missing implant. She is at home with a make shift cast that causes her arm to jut out awkwardly at 90 degrees to her body. The Hospital have been contacting all the UK orthopaedics experts and professors to come up with a solution, and Mum will go back to the Hospital tomorrow to find out if a her now boneless arm is salvageable.

This is made harder for me, because I am not allowed to visit her, or go and help care for her at home because I have bugs that could harm her, although I am hoping after a screening on Friday that these results will mean I can go and help if they don't discover any antibiotic resistant bugs.