Thoughts from the frontline - 30

What a difference a day makes. But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. Sunday was another day of rest as much as possible after the busy Saturday. A day of taking it easy and limited visitors so I spent the day being chilled, thoughtful and generally a happy little bunny. Still having problems sleeping at night but the restful days normally include a session of falling asleep on the sofa. Three Sunday papers bought this morning so the day zipped by as the marathon reading session evolved and filled any blank spaces of the day. Roast chicken for a late Sunday lunch was prepared by T amongst all the other jobs she tries to squeeze into a single day with my only contribution being to explain the "cooking on the wing" technique so ensure that the meat stays beautifully moist. Served up with wonderful fresh veg it was a perfect bank holiday Sunday at our little cottage. And so it was that I went to bed on Sunday night with a smile on my face. And surprisingly tiered so it wasn't too much of a surprise that I fell asleep soon after T and I had had our normal "end of the day" chat as we snuggled up in bed. Now, I have to admit that "snuggled" is probably not the correct term as we have yet to be comfortable enough with my stoma bag and night bag to do too much "snuggling". Hey ho, it wont be too much longer I hope. But it was another short night in bed before I woke up again. I think it was about 1 am so after a failed attempt to get back to sleep I took myself off downstairs to set myself up on the sofa, take a couple more painkillers and settle down with the TV remote until my brain decided to turn itself off and I could catch a few more zeds. I know that it will get better but it sure aint much fun! Now I did fall asleep on the sofa sometime after 5 and I awoke to see that it was now about 8 o'clock on Bank Holiday Monday morning. A day that was to be very busy. Firstly I needed to wake up T as she had to take our photos over to the showground that we were entering into the annual village "flower & produce" show. Luckily for us the show included photography an numeral arts and crafts sections as I'm sure that they would ban me from entering fruits or veg that we had bought that week from the shops! I have a severe shortage of green fingers and whilst I love flowers and veg in a garden they have to be cultivated and looked after by someone else! T's dad and other half were coming round for lunch and then going to visit the show with us in the afternoon so I jumped in the shower and then changed my stoma bag for the day. But something went wrong and the bag leaked. Ah well I thought, never mind, this has to happen some days and I was just being unlucky in the recent frequency of the failures. All down to the fact that the swelling around my wound was now going down but this was leaving a decidedly unflat surface for my bag to stick to. Bag sorted our visitors arrived and we all sat in the kitchen ready for lunch when I felt that telltale warm dribble feeling on my stomach. "How long before lunch is ready" I ask T. "About ten minutes" she replied. "That's ok then because I need to change my bag again". And so it was with some trepidation that I went off to the show in the afternoon as I didn't want to have a leakage problem whilst out. Fingers crossed I made sure every movement was as gentle as possible. I'm sure that my resultant "nervous walk" not only looked strange but I'm sure didn't actually help to prevent stoma bag leakage. But all was forgotten when we entered the show tent to find that I had won first prize in the portrait section of the competition and a third prize in the "picture of flower or produce" section. Woopee! Not bad for first time entry! :-) We stayed at the show for a couple of hours but by then I knew it was time to leave before I got too knackered but I took a quick trip to the portaloos to empty my bag before the journey home. But bum, bum, bum. The bag had started to leak again! Hey ho, what an eventful day I was having! Surprisingly I was still Mr Cheerful. I was having a great bank holiday weekend and nothing was going to make my glass half empty! A quiet evening of just T and me was simply heaven and a chat before we fell asleep was about good things. However a mistake was about to be made as I fell asleep before checking that there wasn't an air lock in the night bag set up. And so it was just after 1am that I was woken by a damp feeling half way down my body. Shit, bum, pooh and many other expletives were silently said as I had to wake T up to help me. Bed sorted I took myself off downstairs to restart the battle of the stoma bag leaks. Now say after me... I will crack this, I will crack this, I will sort this out so that it can just become a simple normal process without frequent problems. It was all still very new. I know that I will sort it. It will not stop me jumping in puddles or sucking jelly through a straw. And it certainly not stop me from "snuggling" up with my T. A knackered but still smiley A settled down to wait the arrival of Tuesday morning. Fingers crossed folks! Andrew xxx