Part 3

Anyway intensive care was strange, there were about 2 or 3 other patients in there all were worse than me. I was pretty much awake and with it most of the time here, a male nurse had to bed bath me.....and to my relief he let me do myself.  (phew!)
I was out of intensive care the following day, I have no idea what turned me around...the treatment?the care? Who knows! Maybe it was my determination to beat this?
People often ask me if I had the last rights....but having "no religion" on my details, who was going to bless me? The Fonz? (not a bad idea)

Anyway back on the ward, the nursing staff were pleased to see me back as I'd made friends with quite a lot of them. 
I'd also become part of the furniture and even sat at their station reading "nursing times"...well I was bored.

I was eventually allowed to eat again and was given a bacon sandwich by an auxiliary nurse called May who promised me she'd make me one when I was allowed to eat. The mission now was to fatten me up, my doctor prescribed (I'm not kidding here) a diet of Mars Bars and Big Macs..my mum would regularly nip to the one near Salford Crescent station. I think my friends and family were very important in my recovery, my mum and sister did their best to keep my spirits up, despite theirs was probably hitting rock bottom. Like I said earlier my Uncle came over a lot too and I haven't forgotten this, a credit to my other uncle who cut my hair because it had grown long, his experience? He'd clipped his wire haired terrier called "Bill" on many occasions! And my cousin Adrian who is a legend in my eyes, kept me laughing every time I was miserable and took me for wheel chair rides so we could "check out the talent" and his greatest achievement was making light of that monstrosity of a bag attached to my side.  For example, for the first few days it just inflated with wind, he wanted to see it, I showed him and he suggested that whilst it was Christmas why should we not go into business inflating party balloons with my "windy" bag.

There were various incidents I've missed out before all this, like slipping and spilling a bottle of pee everywhere, the seizure I had whilst playing on a Nintendo game boy lent to me by my mums friend (it was to be her daughters christmas present) . I remembered waking up to the nurse saying I'd had a fit, my  words were "is that game boy ok?"
And way back before I was diagnosed, I'd had an exam and rather than jump on the bus we walked home from Shevington high school to Appley bridge (about 2 miles) we were almost home and I stumbled and rather than find my footing (like you normally do) I fell flat on my face...probably looked funny to other people, but it bloody hurt. My good friend Neil (who is still a good friend) saw I wasn't well and went out of his way to walk me to my door, thats what i call a proper mate!

Back to December 1991, I was allowed out for Christmas, on Christmas eve till the day after boxing day, but I had to go back and even spent new years eve there. It didn't matter because I was let out a couple of days later for good! FREEDOM (as Mel Gibson put it, in a bad Scottish accent)

The only catch was my mum had to drive me back every other day, to get my central line (the tube into my main artery that fed me) cleaned so I wouldn't get an infection. I was let off the hook after 2 weeks and it was finally removed.
I could now start living, and although the bag was a total pain to cope with such as various accidents with it, I coped quite well. I admit I feared the bath with it in case of accidents so I showered for that 6 months instead. My weight went up, my voice broke literally overnight and thank god my height increased...ok I'm not that tall, but it's better than before! This isn't necessarily a bad thing as a the man in the bed next to me (who had lost his leg due to diabetes) said to my dad referring to me "size and age doesn't make the man".

Although I admit I'd had it bad, there's always someone worse off than you, and at this time in hospital there seemed to be just myself that suffered. Since then I've read of and spoken to people who have had it worse than me, so I thank my lucky stars I never had to go through their ordeals.