Getting up to date with April - part 4 (more day to day stuff)

Here's some more about what I've been up to recently :)

On Fri 16th April I got up earlier than usual and me and mum went to Catherine's house to see Catherine and her mum while she was back from uni for Easter. We had loads to catch up on so chatted for a while and mum, Catherine and her mum talked about knitting because they're all keen knitters. After lunch Catherine drove us into their local town for a look round the shops. We went into lots of charity shops (I think there were 7!), 3 knitting shops and a couple of other shops. Me and mum bought a lovely doll for Mia's (Lizzy's daughter) 4th birthday which is on Thur. We also bought Mia a card, I bought some Paracetamol and I bought a DVD called Kramer vs Kramer from a charity shop. Mum spotted a very exciting sock knitting book in a charity shop, but Catherine's mum got it first which disappointed my mum :( We stopped in a cafe for drinks and then headed back to Catherine's house. Before we left I lent Catherine a DS game and we played a card game called Slam together that we used to play at sixth form.

That evening I had a look at the cinema times because I was hoping to go to see a film called Whip It! (starring Ellen Page from Juno) but it had already gone from our local cinema after just being there for a week! So I'll have to wait for it to come out on DVD instead.

On Sat 17th April me and my parents went to a regional PINNT meet-up at Hosp A. I've been a member of PINNT since I first went onto TPN at 6 months old and they've been a great help and support to me and my parents over the years. We've not been to many local meet-ups but I was keen to go to this one in case my transplant experience could help anyone else. When we got there we had a buffet lunch. They didn't have any Marmite sandwiches so I tried some new sandwich fillings and found some nice biscuits and some petit filous. At this point people were just chatting to each other but I felt quite awkward because I didn't know many people. Most of the people there seemed a lot older than me but then I spotted someone across the room who looked a bit younger than everyone else, so I went over to say hello. I soon got chatting to J and found that she was really easy to talk to. When the structured activities started (quizzes, notices etc), me and J tried to carry on chatting. Later in the session there was a question and answer session so I asked anyone if they'd got any questions for me. I answered a few questions but then someone completely changed the topic so that was the end of that. There was a lady there who I got quite frustrated with because she kept talking all about her. How boring! So my experience of the day was a bit mixed, but I was glad I went. Me and J swapped details and are now keeping in touch on Facebook and via email. She lives nearby so we're hoping to meet-up again soon.

When we left the meet-up we went to the hosp concourse because mum remembered that she needed to buy a couple of birthday presents for people (a friend and her boss) as their birthdays were the following Mon. There was a Body Shop in the concourse so mum picked some nice gifts from there. While she was doing that dad tried out all the free samples in the shop, so came out v perfumed!

On Sun 18th April we went to the local carboot sale. The weather was very hot and so I felt quite lethargic at points. I bought 8 DVDs for £6 - Billy Elliot, Catch Me If You Can, Dreamgirls, Elf, Save the Last Dance, The Sixth Sense, The Spiderwick Chronicles and Stranger than Fiction. After the carboot sale we went to visit my nan in hospital. She'd not had any visitors so far that weekend but she said that we really cheered her up :) At this point the doctors had decided that she didn't have a chest infection (that had been suspected a few days before because apparently an xray had suggested that, but she never had any symptoms of a chest infection). When we visited she had a pain in her chest so she'd had some ECGs earlier that day because of that. As far as we knew they'd been fine though. While we were there a doctor visited her about the pain she was getting and decided it was probably muscular so gave her some more painkillers.

On Mon 19th April my Outnumbered DVD (series 1) arrived in the post :)

That morn me and mum headed into the city. I felt quite ill while we were out which I suspect was at least partly related to the heat. My heels and the balls of my feet were sore, I felt like I'd got a carpet burn on one foot, I struggled with overheating as had lots of layers on, I had a bad headache coming and going, I had bad tummy pains and I seemed extra sensitive to noise (like hand dryers). Me and mum looked round some shops and some charity shops. I bought a DVD (Speed and Speed 2) for £1, a PS2 game (Rachet and Clank) for £6 and a magazine (Games TM) to try for £4.50. I also bought mum 2 cassette tapes (Wet Wet Wet greatest hits and Rod Stewart) for her to listen to in her car because it has a cassette player rather than a CD player.

Then we headed to Hosp A for my hygienist appt. That went ok. My teeth were not quite as clean as last time (16% dirty rather than 12%), but not too bad. I said to my hygienist that that might be because I'm eating more now (and I'd just eaten my sandwiches and brushed my teeth in the hosp toilet, but I didn't tell her that!) as I thought she knew about my medical history. However she didn't so I had to explain to her. I didn't mind though as she's very nice and easy to talk to. She told me that my notes said that my braces would be removed in July (which was news to me!) but she thought that it would probably actually be after that because my gaps wouldn't be closed by July. I booked another appt for 3 months.

That eve dad went to visit nan so he let us know the latest news. There wasn't a discharge date yet but hopefully she would be discharged later in the week. She would have a chest xray the next day because they now suspected that she might have a broken rib (she has osteoporosis).

On the morn of Tue 20th April I went to the shop for the Radio Times and also went to the surgery. At the surgery I collected my high calorie puddings and gave in a repeat prescription. I mentioned my reaction to the suncream to a pharmacist so she said she'd ask the specialist skin doctor about it for me. All I really wanted to know was whether they could prescribe me a different sun cream (I get it on presc because the steroids I take to prevent rejection mean I have to be more careful in the sun).

That afternoon I tried to phone Lizzy to find out if her and Mia were still going to come round the following weekend, but she wasn't in so I left a message on the answer machine. Our neighbour who is also mum's friend called round so mum could help her out with her knitting. A friend of hers is thinking about setting up an arts and crafts group (probably starting in Sept) for under 4s and Mary had heard that she might need a helper, so wondered if I would be interested. I said that if her friend did want a helper then I'd be willing to give it a try. Not sure if I'd be able to manage it, but I'd give it a go. However Mary's friend might find someone else to help her out, so I'm waiting to hear more.

I moved my DVDs around because I'd run out of space for them in my storage units. So I moved my boxsets to a space on one of my shelves, leaving just my full length films in my storage units. There wasn't much spare room though and I knew my DVD collection would keep growing so I spoke to dad about it and he said he'd be happy to put another shelf up for me. I think I've decided where I want it, but am not completely sure yet. I'm sure it'll take dad a while to get round to it but I'd like it ASAP because now I don't have room for any more DVDs.

That evening I attended the teenage discussion group in the village. Again there was just me, V, K and the 2 leaders - A and B. There was lots of discussion at the start about politics and I was pleased to find that most of them agreed with my political views :) I'll be voting Lib Dems on Thur. V and K are currently in their A Level year so were talking about their exams. The main discussion was about identity and we had some interesting points of view to share about it. At the end we got onto talking about music and I mentioned my love of Mika. B said that she thinks Mika's great but always sings slightly out of tune! I didn't agree with that! :P Before we left it was agreed that we'd now meet fortnightly rather than monthly. Although I enjoy the discussion group I think I'd have preferred the sessions to stay monthly rather than fortnightly, but never mind.

To be continued...