Last night was an awful one for me. I slept really, really badly. I kept waking up, realising Andrew wasn’t in bed, and starting to have a panic attack. At one point I thought that I was going to have to call the out-of-hours GP service as I couldn’t breathe. However, eventually I got some sleep, and woke up to the news that he was being discharged today.

On arrival at home, my energy left me. Obviously the adrenalin that had me raring to go and get him, and to visit had drained away. Now it is time to organise getting some food for dinner… no idea what we will have… and start getting on with the rest of our life.

It’s quite the role reversal for the two of us: me visiting him in hospital and not the other way about. For nearly all of our life together it has been me that has been the one who has needed much care and attention. Now, I get to give back some of what I have received. I don’t do this because he has cared for me. No, I do it because I love him. Yes, he has helped me. But this is what marriage is all about, although I suspect that some of the peers in the House of Lords may not agree with me.

I will update the blog later with further news later.

A cure for HIV?

In other news, I have been in communication with a number of people who have contacted me in recent weeks saying that they have a ‘cure for HIV and AIDS’. To say that I am more than a little sceptical is somewhat the understatement of the century (millennium?) but I hope to hear back from them, and let my readers be the judge.

Related articles

• The tables have turned… (hivblogger.me.uk)

As many of us living with HIV know, it can be very frustrating to say that you are not well and then not be believed. Or to tick the ‘disabled’ box on a job application form only to have this questioned if you manage to get an interview. Andrew has been suffering pain for many months now. He has been taking painkillers almost like sweeties but this has been under the close supervision of his GP. It looks like the end of the waiting has come. It’ll be up to me to look after him this time. And of course, I’ll do my best to do so.

The next few posts on here may be telling what is happening with him but – as I have said before – without Andrew I doubt that I would be here to be able to tell it.

Perhaps in the summer he and I will be able to get out into the countryside and enjoy some walks together.

The Ulster Hospital in Dundonald reported a 29% increase of patients from Monday to Tuesday visiting A&E compared to this time last year.

According to the South Eastern Health Trust the increase meant that on Tuesday 13 patients were left on hospital trolleys for up to 12 hours before being treated.

The Belfast Trust has also confirmed that both the Mater and the Royal hospitals have been receiving a higher number of patients than usual in the Emergency Departments, with a total of 371 patients visiting A&E, along with 100 ambulance patients.

According to the BBC

 at one stage on Monday night up to six emergency vehicles were queued at the doors of the Royal waiting to deliver patients and four had to sit for more than an hour-and-a-half.

Taken from BBC NI website,  read more  at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20319615

Mary Hinds from the Public Health agency has explained that this weekend has been busier than normal, but hospitals are doing their best to avoid 12 hour waits in the emergency departments.

Your views…

So what have your experiences been like with Accident and Emergency departments recently? Have you been left waiting for hours? Fed up with the NHS? Leave it all in the comments below, or by tweeting me @RyanM1406 (clicking on my twitter name will take you directly to my twitter account in a new window – niffty, I know).

Ryan

He was very worried about me – and after another fainting in his front room, which had been preceded by me not being able to speak, which was quite awkward when I was attempting to make a ‘honey drink’ (and had fainted – and Andrew was being instructed by me in this art) – he telephoned the Ambulance service.

The very nice Paul and Anne-Marie arrived quite promptly, and took me to the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald. I was very well looked after there – although I was on a trolley in A&E for about 24 hours.

During this time I was sent to CT for a scan – but it came back with no abnormalities – but at least we can confirm that there appears to be a brain in my head.

It was late on Saturday before I was admitted and moved to Ward 19 for observation.

After an extremely hearty breakfast which reminded me of RSCM chorister courses, I had another good meal at lunch time, and then Andrew reappeared as I was being discharged.

And what was wrong?

The diagnosis was that it was a migraine. Good thing that they gave me Sumitriptan 100mg then on Saturday evening. If only I had known, I could have taken one of the tablets that Andrew has in his flat….

My wife went to the Ulster Hospital at Dundonald last week to see if it was possible to move the baby round into the correct position using External Cephalic Version (ECV) technique which apparently can be quite painful.

They scanned her and decided they weren’t able to do the ECV because the baby’s umbilical cord was in the way and it would have been too risky.

Because this is our first baby, the hospital does not allow vaginal breech delivery – so she’s going to the hospital this week again to get an appointment for a Caesarean Section instead.

We are kind of hoping that it will be this Friday, mostly because my wife is just so uncomfortable now, struggling to get any sleep. As well as that, the anticipation and excitement is now killing us!!!

In the meantime, we have spent yesterday and today (Easter holidays) catching up on lost sleep and resting up as much as possible in bed. Chances are that once the little one arrives we mightn’t get too much more sleep for many many months… thought we’d take the chance to get rest while it was going!

Aside from this, we are all ready to go. Bags are packed. Got clean miniDV tape in the camcorder and digital camera is charged. I have put nursing area together in our bedroom including crib, nursing chair, night-light, room thermometer, and have also started putting nursery together including changing table and place to store baby’s clothes and toys and stuff, and have new car seat and buggy bought.

Will wait and see what date the section is going to be. They usually schedule it to be about one week before the official due date – so chances are pretty good that by this time next week we should have a baby!

As far as we can see baby is healthy – all OK.

But she’s not in the right position, she’s breech. We’re 35 weeks pregnant now and baby is meant to be head down. She’s about 4-5 lbs now, and there’s not so much room for he to move around. At this stage, the position she’s meant to be in is head down.

Helen’s GP had been feeling around her tummy and had thought all was OK, and so did the midwife, but whenever they scanned they found baby was still head up in breech position.

This has potentially scuppered the birth plan a bit!

We’ve to go back in two weeks time to see whether or not baby has shifted into the correct position for labour. If not we’re faced with the choice of either trying to have the baby turned manually, or to go for a Ceasarean Section.

In the meantime Helen is trying to do Knee-to-chest exercise to help turn the baby.

The midwife also suggested we considered Moxybustion chinese medicine. We called in to see Chinese doctor yesterday to look into this and also read up a bit online. BabyCentre.Co.Uk also suggests that this is a possible way to get baby to turn. We’re talking this over. At this stage we’d still really like to try for a natural birth…

See Moxa video on YouTube:

It’s been my job to move furniture around the house a lot, and do DIY things in preparation. We didn’t have space in our kitchen to fit a tumble dryer, so I knocked down our old shed (which was overdue because the damp had really got the better of it), had a new one erected in the back garden. My dad wired it up for electrics and the new tumble dryer was put in there last Thursday. This evening I put the finishing touches to the new pathway that I had dug out, filled with quarry dust, and then put nice red slabs down on.

Have got our bedroom pretty much clear and ready to go. Shifted shelves downstairs out of the way to make room for crib, and am moving the TV out this weekend because there’s meant to be a nursing chair for Dutalier arriving this week. Not exactly sure where the bedroom TV is going to go to.

Already we have more baby clothes than we quite know what to do with or have room for – need more storage! So apparently M&S are doing nursery furniture inc set of drawers, wardrobe and bed (which she won’t need yet but might as well get) for about £500… will try to get a race up to M&S this weekend to have a look.

My wife, on the other hand, has been doing a huge amount of preparation herself… she has been steadily stocking up on pampers and baby wipes and baby accessories – although we’re both completely torn over the eco/green issue of whether or not we should be buying disposable nappies – the debate continues… she has all the little clothes washed, and tumble-dried, and ironed and ready to go, she has her bag…packed… I don’t…. I think I should pack some comfortable shoes given that I’m probably going to end up doing about 100 laps of the Ulster Hospital maternity ward in 2 days…

As her ‘Birth Partner’… She also e-mailed me her ‘Birth Plan’ this evening which I need to print out and put into my bag for labour. This is the document that outlines how she would like the labour to go pending on the unknown and feasible at the time. This evening I am studying this document to make sure I remember it as best as possible… she has explained it to me a few times now… general gist of it is this…

She would like to try to use one of the birthing pools in one of the Ulster Hospital’s new home-from-home suites, and try to get through the pain herself trusting in her body’s ability to adjust to heightening levels of pain with endorphins. She should also be able to use gas and air. I am to ignore any requests to move her upstairs to the labour ward if, and only if, she is at or beyond the transitional stage in labour. Once you get past the transitional stage you are in the second stage of labour then you’re meant to be on the home stretch.

Anyway… tomorrow I have the morning booked off work. We’re going to the hospital for our last scan which I’m really looking forward to.

In the next few weeks we are also due to start our Parent Craft Classes… these used to be called antenatal classes… think I would have preferred the latter term… the words ‘Craft Classes’ always conjure up images of balsa wood, wood glue, Cornflakes boxes and Sellotape to me… I fear they are going to hand me a doll and a nappie and I, with a trusty pair of safety scissors am going to transform them into a hand-painted Star Wars base and a glitter-covered Father’s Day Card…

Apparently we were quite lucky. The midwife said they were stopping the tours to help reduce the risk of infection, and instead they’re making a virtual tour DVD instead for future expectant parents to watch at home.

We were there before for two scans last year, but this evening we had the chance to get to see around on the upstairs floors including the Home from Home area and the Labour Ward.

We were really impressed with the new unit. It’s a nice, bright and really spotlessly clean environment and the midwives we’ve met there have been really friendly and helpful.

The Home from Home units especially just looked amazing, each of which includes a birthing pool which my wife is really hoping to get to use.

The tour was excellent and we left feeling really excited about the whole thing and looking forward to going there… at this stage Helen is hoping sooner rather than later!