Hour by hour

Life in hospital becomes one great big routine. You start off being bored and annoyed by everything that goes on and after a few days you just become accustomed to it all. I can completely see how people because institutionalised, you just get used to everyone doing everything for you.

Every day is the same. And you find yourself waiting for the next thing in the routine to happen. Truth is it's the only thing that keeps you vaguely sane.

I've had loads of stuff to do. My wool and hook is here. My cross stitch stuff is here. My books are here. And I've hardly done any of them. It's bizarre, I thought I would race through books here (I was thinking this month's book review would be a stonker) but I've barely read anything. The granny squares for my blanket are now all complete and I had plenty of time to try and put them together but haven't done it. Only one piece for the Embroidering The Truth exhibition has been done. It's like you become so bored you can't do anything.

So to while away the boredom you count down the hours...

6am - Start of day when the nurses come to take your obs. I hate them every single morning. Why so early?!

7.00 - 7.30am - Breakfast trolley comes round

8.30 - 9.00am - Drugs trolley comes round. Was more interesting when I was on the painkillers but since my pain disappeared I get nothing until the evening. Boring.

9.00 - 10.00am - Sit in chair while bed linen gets changed, talk to the auxiliary nurses

9.30am - Phlebotomist appears to steal your blood. Ward rounds by the Consultant, boring if it's nothing to do with you but fun to earwig in on everyone else's diagnoses. Why do they even bother pulling the curtains round?!

10.00am - Tea and coffee trolley comes round

11.00am - Your tray appears on your table for your lunch

12.00pm - Lunch time. Most likely something completely inedible. Everything you've ever heard about hospital food is true. (At least it is in Hull and East Riding.)

1.00pm - Drug trolley appears again.

2.00pm - 3.00pm - VISITING HOUR. Brilliant. Pure awesomeness, love this part of the day because not only do you get to see people but you know that from now on in the day is going to go a little bit faster.

3.00 - 4.00pm - Usually sleep. Get over-excited seeing visitors and seem to exhaust myself, even though I spend all day doing knack-all.

4.00pm - Tray appears on your table for dinner.

5.00pm - Dinner time. I have never eaten so early in my life and it distresses me every day. I can't eat so early! Also something inedible.

6.00pm - Drug time for me! Happy days. Find out what my INR rating is and hope that it's a good one. Get my rat poison and also get stabbed in the stomach with the Fragmin injection - you should see one of my bruises from one of those injections, it is immense.

7.00pm - 8.00pm - VISITING HOUR. Also very exciting.

8.00pm - Cup of tea time. Everything starts winding down for the day.

9.00pm - Nurses collect your cups and fill your water jug.

10.00pm - Another drug round. Nothing for me still so very uninterested in the whole thing.

And then that's really the end of the day, I pull the curtains round my bed and coccoon myself in for the night, usually end up staying up far too late watching tv and then getting an incredibly unrestful night's sleep due to all the moaning and groaning from the old ladies on the ward and the near constant sound of the buzzer going off for the nurses' attention.

But do you know what?

Tonight is the last night I coccoon myself in and tomorrow I will be counting down the hours, not just checking on the routine but counting down the hours until I get to leave.

Hell yeah. Tomorrow I am being discharged! (All being well barring any huge tragedies.)

This has been a loooooooooooong week and I cannot wait for it to be over.

Thank you so much for your well wishes whilst I've been stuck in here and once I'm home (and back at work!) I will be catching up on all your blogs, can't wait to see what I've missed!