Seeing nan, swimming and school

I had a great relaxing weekend. On Saturday my nan came round for the day which was lovely as I get on really well with her. My Japan photos are now on my external hard drive, so I started to show my nan them. We didn't finish though as she asked questions about every photo and I'd taken around 700! So my nan is going to come round again soon to see the remained of the photos! I'm planning to post some of the best photos up on here soon (I promise), but it probably won't be til the weekend as I need to go through them all to select just a few to post up.

On Sunday morning I went swimming with my dad. It was so much easier without having to manage a central line or a stoma :) However I had stomach ache for the rest of the day, which may be related to swimming or may be completely unrelated, so I'm a bit nervous about swimming again. However I'd like to go next weekend to see how it goes. While I was swimming I also had fun attempting to teach my dad to swim properly (he can swim, but not very effectively). I discovered I'm not a very good swimming teacher as although I can swim, I wasn't really sure what my arms and legs were doing!

Monday was back to school. I was very tired all day; I don't think weekends are long enough to recover after a full week at school! I had a Japanese group oral exam at 9.30am, which went ok, but it wasn't brilliant. I've got my final Japanese group oral on Friday, so my group are working on that at the moment. Then my Japanese individual oral will be in about a fortnight, scary!

Then I had an appointment with the hygeinist at the orthodontist in preparation for getting my braces fitted at the end of the month. The hygeinst put blue dye on my teeth (which also made my lips go bright blue!) to see how clean they were. Apparently they like them to be cleaner than mine were when you have braces fitted, so she cleaned my teeth up for me and taught me a better brushing technique. I was also given a special toothbrush with bristles of varying length to use when I have braces.

I went back to school for a couple of lessons, but because I was so tired I almost fell asleep at lunchtime! I did manage to survive til the end of the day though (despite being later than usual due to an after school lesson).

Yesterday evening I packed up a shoebox full of gifts to send to a little girl I know who is in hospital at the moment and very fed up. She's been in since just before Christmas and has just spent her 5th birthday in hospital. She's usually very active, but is confined to her bed at the moment, so is very bored and frustrated. So I packed a shoebox with lots of little bits to amuse her including colouring sheets and pencils, stickers, a book, a cuddly toy... That was posted this morning, so hopefully she'll get it soon.

Tuesdays are the day I weigh myself and email my dietician. So this morning I was quite nervous before I weighed myself as I've had another week without any artificial feeds, but knew I couldn't really afford to lose much more weight. But I gained weight :D 0.8kg in one week with just 'normal' eating! Fantastic. It means it's now very unlikely that I'll need to go back onto overnight enteral feeds, as my weight is now heading towards target without any artificial feeds.

Today at school I had another busy day. I only had 3 lessons, but worked through my 2 free periods and most of lunch too. But I finally feel like I'm on top of my homework. This evening I'm just relaxing, sorting out some emails and watching TV. I'm also planning to finish a really good novel I'm reading this evening. It's called Lottery and is by Patricia Wood. I'd highly recommend it as all of my family have recently read and enjoyed it. And it's Alfie's (my younger brother) 16th birthday today. I can't believe he's 16! He had a very yummy birthday tea this evening - Chinese Crispy Duck - my favourite :)

Towards the end of the month, the hospital I had my transplant at (Hospital B) are holding a study day for professionals all about small bowel transplants. I've been asked to give a 10 - 20 min talk and answer questions as a patient representative. I'm really looking forward to it as I enjoy speaking for things like this, and have done many similar talks before. But I've not even started planning it yet, and it's about 3 weeks away. I'll keep you updated on my progress and preparation.

Tomorrow should be the birthday of a very special little girl I met when I was in hospital after my transplant. But sadly she died almost 2 years ago. I'll be making a post in her memory tomorrow, so have a look.