T + 524. (sings) there's a hole in my forearm - dear Liza, dear Liza.

Been off predisnolone for about 10-12 days now and I'm pretty sure that I can see physical changes already. The hump on the back of my neck is disappearing to the point where I am able to feel the top of my spine again. Best of all my face is losing the rigid water melon-like structure - and strange to say, but I'm actually quite pleased to be able to see wrinkles again as opposed to the stretched drumskin fizzog that I've had up until now.

Guys Hospital for more ECP today - could only manage 35ml per minute peak blood flow as opposed to 50ml, guess I wasn't hydrated enough. The net effect of this was that the process took about 25 minutes longer than usual which put me in jeopardy of missing my once an hour train home. So I obviously started flapping and when the second needle was removed from my left arm after the nuked white blood cells were returned to me I applied quick pressure to the bandage to stop the bleeding, the nurse removed the tourniquet and I got a plaster whacked over the needle hole yelled my goodbyes and dashed out down to the lift to get to London Bridge Station.

Jumped into the lift on the fourth floor which was pretty crowded and by this time had about 18 minutes to make it to my train loads of time to spare. It was not long before I noticed that I was attracting some worried looking stares from the rest of the lift users - well not so much me as the arm of my jacket. I looked down at my left arm to see the jacket was completely sodden with blood from the elbow down and that a healthy flow of blood was running down my hand over my knuckles and pooling on the lift floor. I gingerly slid my jacket off and wrapped my arm up in it - things were starting to look a little Reservoir Dogs by now, and reassured my fleeing co-travellers that it wasn't as bad as it looked.

4th floor please

Had to go all the way down to the ground floor then took the lift by myself (surprise surprise) back up to the fourth to the ECP unit leaving a polka dot trail on the floor all the way behind me. The nurses got a tourniquet on my upper arm, a thick bandage and wadding to stop the flow and had me cleaned up and on my way within about 6 to 8 minutes. I felt guilty about all the clearing up I'd created for them to do, but they wouldn't hear of me helping. If that's what 35ml a minute looks like I dread to think what a fully hydrated flow would have done...

 I'd pretty much written off catching the 14.23 by this point so took a leisurely stroll over to the station expecting an hours wait. Arrived at platform 5 at 14.22 - WTF I could actually still make this, - and set off at my best swift walk up the ramp and along the platform (running still being out of the question) and bugger me sideways if I didn't actually catch a break at London Bridge for once and made the train by about 3 seconds. As I have probably mentioned before, I realise that my horizons may have narrowed somewhat over the past 18 months, but I'm still chalking this one down as a big fucking win in my book.

 On the train I was wearing dark glasses due to the photosensitive chemicals in my blood from the ECP and it was amusing to catch the worried looks on the faces of my co-travellers on the way home, seeing as I couldn't wear my bloody jacket over my t-shirt, my heavily bandaged arms were on show - with the semi tightened tourniquet still in place - I'm not sure what I would have thought had I been in their shoes - a junkie on summer holibobs maybe?- after all it was the Hastings train and the town does have a bit of a rep for white.

So - more of the same at Guys tomorrow though hopefully without the theatrics.