NEVER!!! Underestimate the sheer power of a fry up!

Four weeks, twenty hours and five minutes after going into hospital…. AND I’M OUT!!!!!!!!   I’M AT HOME!!!!

I got out yesterday morning.   I walked through the revolving doors at 11:35am, and straight into my dad’s car.   Amazing.   It was heaven sent, freedom that I have never before experienced.    Actually getting to leave after my consultant told me I would ‘possibly’ be leaving nearly a week ago.    It’s not the first time I was told I could leave and with previous hopes dashed a fortnight ago I kept it in and tried not to believe it until it came….   A lot harder than that sounds when you’ve not got much to do other than sit in bed all day.    Which, by the by, is THE most single hardest thing I have ever done in my life and something would never wish on my worst enemy… or even Inna’s old manager…   Just!

Wow…  “I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home… I’m going home…….” 

That was pretty much what Monday was like for me.   Quite annoying.   I was waiting for a temperature spike or a sudden throw back to post intensive chemo slumps…  every hour was spent anxiously jiggling my feet and washing my hands in that alcohol spirit that has left my them like a pair of stripped, sand like, chicken thighs on the end of my arms.   Even our cats, so normally sleek and soft, feel like tracing paper in my hands.    A by product of over caution I suppose but its worked and IM WRITING THIS AT HOME!!!   WOO HOO!!!

So what was it like coming home then, eh?   Well… I’ll tell you…   very disappointing!    Yup…  you heard!   Weird, cold and grey!   I shall enlighten you.   Please do read on…

Tuesday morning started really well.   I was up at about 6, after a good night’s sleep.   I was obviously restless so I did some music converting on my laptop…  (vinyl to MP3…. my massive labour of love!)    that got me to weetabix and morning time.   The real dangers of getting de-mobbed from hospital are waiting around all day for your home meds from pharmacy or transit or a meeting with a doctor or specialist.    I know, I’ve seen it.   Every single man on my ward bar one, that was in care when I walked in, left before me and I witnessed their sometimes obvious saddening and frustrating occasions at being kept back for different reasons.   One guy complained because he was sent out after 9pm…   THAT’S ALL DAY WAITING!!!  And another bloke was kept in again overnight for an extra gruelling 24 HOURS!!!    He had one nurse showing him how to take a particular set of meds from home for that evening, whilst a second nurse was asking him if she could fit a new line to him to administer the same drug!   What a mess!!!   

My meds were delivered by 10am and by 11 I’d seen my registrar and house doctor’s.   My dad was on his way, I was showered, packed and ready to roll.   Even my specialist nurse, the amazing Kathryn… (hello!) getting caught up in a fire, (alarm!) elsewhere … had wished me all the best and issued my new outpatient instructions for this coming Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.   Then the call from my dad to say he was outside, rang out…. and I was off!!!   Sweet, what a great day thus far!

Rolling a long, through my beloved south London, on one of the most squally and spectacularly miserable days it think the UK could ever muster I could see life around me going on as normal but looking all so very different to me.   The cars….  They were EVERYWHERE… oncoming, behind, left and right.   Red busses towering over me and vans darting in front of our car at the lights.   The black spray washing up from the road tarnished the cars, people and buildings.   Who had taken all the colour away?   And why is everything so cramped and fast?   Whoa… slow down… Easy mate… where’s the fire? (well.. back at the hospital, obviously!)   My god, people are in a  awful hurry these days… and look at the pace we go through a  normal day!!!   Chillax dudes…  its only 12:15….   Where do you all have to be???  And why is there SO MANY OF EVERYBODY HERE???    It was like the whole of north London (BOO!) was over here visiting for the day!!!   G’wan…  bugger off you lot!!!

We got home….  ALIVE… thanks to the amazing exhibit of military spec evasive driving by the pop’s!!!   Now I’m stood in my street and looking at my house.   It’s great to see it but is some of it missing?   Where’s the rest of it?   Why are there 7,000 cars parked in the road and why is Tyson road ¼ of a mile shorter than it should be?   It was teeming down so we got inside.   If only I could…  I fought to get the suitcase through my miniscule front door…  then I plopped it into our living room…   which then instantly filled up…. With a suitcase!   Everything’s shrunk!   Where has it all gone?   It’s so small.   But nothing is missing.   It’s all here in our two bedroom doll’s house!  

Oh my god… what do I do now?   Dad said goodbye and left us to it.   I saw the cats, inspected the upstairs and admired our great garden, by far and away one of my most favourite spots in the world.   Evergreen and capacious… that would NEVER disappoint… AND YET IT DID… in the bleak murk…  what the hell?   It was chewed… bland and washed out in the drizzle…  it looked like a plate of hospital veggies… with the very real possibility of tasting just like said hospital veggies, too!   (it was sometimes like eating different coloured, watery shapes… uuurrkk!)

I was hungry…   and (to myself) fed up.    Why was I feeling so down… I should be hitting the ceiling… I felt physically great… and very alert…  I should be out there in the rain, running around shouting that I’m home and trying to light our bloody Bar-B-Q!!!   Stuff it…  my stomach is empty for the first time in 4 weeks… “shall we go to the café, babe?”

Inside our local “proper” café, the steam rose from the giant urn at the head of the queue.   The noise was deafening…  there was more day glow nylon than wall paper on the walls and if I thought an NHS ward was a subatomic all out personal bacteria assault then this place must be an extremist camp!   Look at THAT GUY’S PLATE…  it’s above his head!!!   And  WHAT is that on there???   An upturned pie swimming in green stuff… with chips!!!   Stroll on pal… do you want some food with your brown sauce???    These people are killing themselves and paying for it!!!   Most of them haven’t even washed their hands…  ooh… a scary loner in the corner… don’t look!!!

This was supposed to be my breakfast treat for the next morning.   A full café fry up… with no stone unturned…  THE LOT!!!    But because the was nothing in the house and my 3 weetabix had already stared to wain at 10:30 there was nothing else for it…   “hello…  I’d like a no1 please for the missus and I’d like to build me own breakfast… eggs, bacon, fried slice, black pud, mushes, (hungry?) bubble, plum tom’s sausage…  on and on and on I went, ticking everything off of the green board above my head…   and 2 round’s of holy ghost, love!   Um bongo… Banjo… Bingo!!!   The job lot!

The Russian and I found the last table (Near the bloody door too!) and squeezed in…   EVERYTHING IS TINY!!!   THE WORLD HAS SHRUNK IN 4 WEEKS!!!   Good Café’s are never quiet but on the other hand always have that magic power to accommodate everyone even if 3 of the 4 space tables are taken up by one grimy looking nutter in a torn Millwall jacket and perusing a well thumbed copy of the racing post!

There was a bit of a wait…  it didn’t help… but my sweet tea did… and some of the banter in the room did too.   I started feeling a little more at home…   the house had been chilly, god knows the streets were too.   But I was warm and comfortable and I caressed my white mug in my hands…   The Russian and I started making plans for the week.   Got chatting and having a laugh.   Eventually, her no1 showed up…   mmmh,  it looked good.    In fact it looked better than good…   I wonder if she’d notice, or mind for that matter, if I ate the lot?   Then from the other side of the shoe box, sorry café, came a woman… no ordinary woman…   she looked strong…struggling with what looked like the rear quarter panel of a 1978 white Ford Cortina… and she was heading our way!!!   There you are, darling…  one purpose built breakfast!!!

It was TINY!!!!  Not really……   IT WAS MASSIVE!!!!   It was bigger than massive… how big?... huge… humungous… vast… expansive… mega.. (thesaurus anyone…?)…  it was big!!!

Holy cow I’m never going to finish that, batman!!!   Holy pig more like….   Lots of dead, holy pig lavishly draped over the side of my white Ford Cortina!!!   Get stuck in Ivin!!!    One of the very few things with being really quite ill, is the freedom of guilt that one can maintain during a 17 minute, fully silenced, disposal of fried dead stuff…. That tastes better than…  anything I have ever tasted before….   I think…   I’m sitting here now…  trying to think of a previously more unconquerable meal, …   occasions do spring to mind but on reflection after what happened to me from that point on, yesterday…  I think this could be it!   I would say I love a fry up and in the past there could be a surmountable case against me possibly having the one to many.   But…   this was outstanding…   in the top 3 meals, I dare say!  

I finished it!!! I did and I never thought I would on its first inspection.    I had a history with this café, too…. Many years ago I’d waddled down the hill after a particularly spectacular night, to order a “load up”, not make a dent, pay, make my excuses and leave.   But this time it was easy!   I felt great!   During the dismantling of my food the room must have slowly resized itself... to how i remebered it used to be…   some of the lesser, umm, shall we say “intense” looking gezzers became less threatening… in fact a couple of  grimy bright orange lads, having a laugh over a received text message made me chuckle.  

Outside, the still grey drab high street, had grown back in size a bit, most of the cars had driven away…   the good people of north London looked to have cleared off back over the water and I was walking back to our car with a slight spring in my step and on the balls of my feet… albeit with a rather congested midriff!!!  

We went out shopping straight away and then returned to fill the house with enough comestibles to turn it back into our home.    The fridge was now full, including enough fresh rib eye steak, rocket and parmigiano reggiano for tonight’s dinner.     (yet another belter!)    Through out the afternoon the house got back to normal size, the central heating worked its magic and by the time it was beddy bye’s the great big slump into our ‘oh so light yet oh so warm’ goose down duvet and feel of the absolute sheer soft touch of the sheets and mattress against me was ecstatic!   

It was down to the efforts of the maximum potential of the 110 horse power of my parent’s family car that got me physically home yesterday, with three of us and all our goods and chattels…  but what really bought me home was the unbridled raw power of 2,000,000 kilowatts of hot, robust food, exquisitely conjured into a supercharged, life freshening square meal!

IT’S GREAT TO BE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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