There's no place like home

As I'm being wheeled out of the hospital doors, I know that whilst it's not the last time I will be here (I'll still be coming back for clinics) I will not see a lot of the staff here again. They have been coming in and saying their goodbyes for several days. These people who everyday fight to save your life and then, when there is no more they can do, help you to plan your final months with the upmost care.

To every last member of the team who has helped me this admission – the Doctors, Nurses, Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Porters, I do not think I can ever thank you enough. Helping someone to plan their last months must be the most difficult job for any health professional. They are there, firstly to save lives and when this changes to end of life care I understand it must go against every natural instinct. But helping someone die with grace, dignity, comfort and without suffering is a very important flip side of the coin.

Arriving home was actually a lot more relaxed then I thought it would be, usually I struggle with the stresses of coming home from hospital with all the re-arrangements that are needed, especially when all I could really do was sit there and boss people around! But as I was saying, this time around, I actually just felt really happy and relaxed.

Since being home I have had my home carers come in and surprisingly I have slipped back into this old familiarity with ease. This has been made easier with it being the same company I had before my first transplant. The carers are people who really do care. I have to say that caring for people is a hard job and one that has to be within you as a person. What I mean is that it takes something special to help people and enable them to carry on living their lives, or in my case help them to live their lives whilst they die.

I’ve been making sure that I’m not just watching the world go by though and have ben arranging lots of special things to do;

-        A lodge break with my family for Christmas, there's a spa pool which I just want to float in while my oxygen tank sits in a rubber floating device.
-        A night in a treetop hotel which is on Port Lympne Reserve.
-        A trip to Glasgow with my sister to see my friend, Victoria, and our friend, Charlotte, is coming too. We have lots of fun things organised whilst we’re there.
-        Anthony Joshua fight which is something I wanted to do for my husband… I'm also super excited about as I’ve never been to a boxing fight.

These things run from now until January. In between all this I'm resting and spending time with friends and family whilst being snuggled up on the sofa or camped out up on my bed with my loyal companion, Kia. I feel reluctant to organise anything else past then at the moment as I don't know how long I’ve got, so I'm trying to just take one thing at a time and live every minute – creating memories that will last forever.