As I was saying

Well, that's me back in hospital again with a little infection. I've been in since Saturday night, but this is the first time I've had internet access to write about it; the room they admitted me to had no 3g reception whatsoever, so they eventually moved me back to my original room here at the Beatson. To be honest, I quite liked the bigger room they had me in; the lack of internet was a bit of a pain, but I quite think I'd have survived for a couple more days.

As for what I'm actually in for, they're not quite sure about that. Currently they're treating me with wide-spectrum antibiotics and an antiviral called foscarnet for a virus called CMV; once tests start coming back, they can be more specific in their treatment. Hopefully it'll turn out to be something that responds to the stuff they already have me on, because then I should be out within about three days. If not, it could be a week or more.

Anyway, I'm mostly passing the time in here by sleeping it away, so I think I'll get back to doing that now. Good night.

An overdue update

I'm pleased to announce that I've been discharged from hospital, as of last Wednesday, thereby concluding (hopefully forever) my cancer treatment. While I'm nowhere near out of the woods yet, and there's a long road of recovery even if everything goes perfectly, it is nice to have this milestone out of the way. Other than biweekly clinics and the odd transfusion of blood or platelets, I shouldn't have to spend any more time in hospital.

I'm feeling generally okay, day to day, apart from the tiredness. I'm told I should start perking up in a month or so. My skin is quite dry after the radiotherapy, but moisturiser seems to keep that under control. All that's left to do now is wait six months or so for my immunosuppressants to be tailed off and for my strength to return.

This might be my last post here for a while, I think; I don't envisage a lot more excitement in this treatment regimen. No news is good news.

Exciting developments

The doctors are very happy with how well my engraftment process has gone; so much so, in fact, that they're now letting me out of the hospital during the day. I was initially released over dinnertime on Friday and, since then, I've been out from lunchtime yesterday and today. Unfortunately, I'm still not feeling anywhere near 100% — I've been very tired, amongst other things, and have generally been spending my time at home up in my bed. Nevertheless, it is nice to be out for a while. Perhaps I'll go for a little walk in the park later on, if the forbidden direct sunlight clears off for a while.

Even better than being out on day pass, the staff are now talking in terms of when I might assume outpatient status, and check out permanently. From the sounds of things, I should be out within the fortnight, assuming I stay infection free and assuming my counts continue behaving the way they have been. This is a lot earlier than we'd expected; mum thought I'd be in for somewhere in the region of six to eight weeks post-transplant. While on the one hand this is obviously great news, on the other it makes it seem less likely that I'll be able to collect enough photos of the staff on ward B8 to make a proper attempt at an album of my time there, which is a pity. Perhaps I'll manage over the next week or so, now that I'm feeling a little more energetic, but I fear the staff rotas might make it impossible to meet enough people over such a short period. Oh well.

Anyway, as I've said, I have been feeling a little under the weather despite my enviable blood counts. I'll take a nap just now and see how I feel a little later on, maybe take that walk then.

Par for the course

Well, it seems I've finally developed the little infection I've been being threatened with since my counts started falling. Actually it's surprising I held out so long; my neutrophils are at 0.01 billion per litre, which is rather below the normal range of 2-7bpl. I've been on gentamicin and some other broad-spectrum antibiotic for the past couple of days, only to be informed this evening (on return of my blood cultures) that my bug is a resistant streptococcus; the broad-spectrum drugs are no good for it, so they've put me on something new for the remainder of the week.

There's not a lot else to report, really. I've been having some very odd dreams brought on by the hallucinogenic properties of the morphine I've had for my mouth pain, but apparently this is perfectly normal; the nurses told me not to be too worried about thinking I was going mad or anything like that. Speaking of morphine, the consultant told me this morning that she thinks my mouth should start feeling a bit better over the next couple of days, due to the methotrexate I'd been on finally wearing off, which is very welcome news. Maybe soon I'll be able to get back to eating solid food. For now, though, I'm happy enough sticking with my calorie milkshakes and sleeping a lot.

Good night, for now.

One week in

Well, that's seven days in from the transplant, and the early signs are quite good. My donor cells are a little lower than they could be, so the doctors are debating whether to put me on a growth hormone to get them moving along faster. Other than that, there's been no signs of rejection or anything like that; things could be a lot worse.

Day to day, though, I am feeling much worse, lately. The consultant informed me the other day that days six through ten seem to be when the side effects are at their worst, and her prediction certainly seems accurate enough. I vomited up my nasal feeding tube, this morning, much to everyone's dismay. My mucositis and platelet counts are bad enough now that they daren't attempt the insertion of a new one, mercifully, so it looks like I'll be getting what nutrition I can get from high-calorie milkshakes, for the next week or so. If I get an infection, though, it looks like I'll just need to put up with the resulting weight loss; they seem extremely reluctant to feed me through my Hickman line, for fear that that might cause all sorts of awful complications.

Speaking of the mucositis, they started me on oramorph, an oral preparation of morphine sulphide, today. It is absolutely wonderful; my mouth and throat are hardly bothering me at all, now. I don't know how long they would keep giving me it for, though, there tend to be protocols in place to avoid the possibility that I'd develop dependencies on the various stronger drugs I'm on from time to time. For now, though, I'm enjoying being able to drink a glass of water without wincing too much.

Aside from all of that, things seem to be going quite well. My insides feel noticibly more comfortable and settled now that I've got rid of the nasal tube, which is a nice change. On the other hand, my hair has started falling out now; at the rate it's going, I expect I'll be entirely bald by Saturday or Sunday. It dawned on me today that, by the time I can grow my hair back to its usual length, I'll probably be too old for that sort of nonsense.

So, a mixed bag, this week. Things are generally going well, if a bit uncomfortably. With luck I'll start perking up again around about this time next week. Can't wait.

Good night.

Day +1

Well, I've successfully made it through my stem cell transplant, plus one day, with no significant rejection issues or complications. The last week went about as smoothly as it could have gone; my couple of days of high-dose cyclophosphomide didn't cause any unexpected problems, and so far I've weathered the aftereffects of the total body irradiation as though it had been nothing at all. I spent most of the time during the week getting used to my surrounds at the very nice new Beatson unit at Gartnavel, which really is about as nice as a hospital can be, and just generally relaxing. All of the important parts and aspects of the unit seem to be quite smoothly operational now (it's only just opened, I'm the first transplant patient they've had here), but there are still little things waiting to be sorted out; lack of television reception, apparently, seems to be causing some patients trouble. I'm still getting on fine with my intermittent 3g internet access; I'll survive until they wire in some wireless broadband and, I daresay, even if they don't.

Anyway, I've been informed in no uncertain terms whatsoever that the next couple of weeks are going to be pretty unpleasant. The medicine is straightforwards enough, they'll just be keeping me on immunosuppressants to offset the chances of graft-versus-host disease — a sort of inverse of usual organ rejection, in which the graft rejects me — and a whole lot of anti-everythings to guard against infection. It sounds like I'll get an infection anyway, just as an inevitable result of having literally no white cells whatsoever, but that's what the vancomicin is there for. Aside from issues brought on by low counts, I also have acute radiation sickness to look forwards to; by all accounts, the amount of radiation I got last week should kill me — and it would, too, if it weren't for the donor stem cells. Soon after serious radiation exposure, i.e. today/tomorrow, I should expect my mouth and G.I. tract to ulcerate rather unpleasantly, to the extent that I really won't feel like eating anything for maybe a week or so. Therefore, I've been fitted (today) with a nasal feeding-tube which passes straight through my stomach and deposits (in tonight's meal) 1.5kg of sugar and milk protein goo into my gut. The experience of having the tube fitted was far and away the least pleasant I've ever had, and I very much hope that there are no problems with it. Very much so indeed.

Aside from that, there's really nothing to tell. Technically — if all has gone as well as it seems — I think I'm now cured of cancer, which is a nice thought. Now all that's left to do is survive the cure. Good night.

Another rare update

Wow, it's been a while since I updated this. In my defence, there really hasn't been anything at all going on over the past couple of months; I've been at home the whole time, left completely to my own devices but for the odd visit to one of Glasgow's many, many hospitals for checkups or tests or, more recently, consultations with the departments which I'll be dealing with over the next couple of months. All good things come to an end, as the saying ventures and my own situation upholds; I've been given the date of my stem cell transplant, so on the third of April I'll be reprising my inpatient status for (if all goes according to plan) another six to eight week stint.

I'm somewhat ambivalent towards the transplant. On the one hand, it quite dramatically improves my prospects on the long term: I've got about twice the chance of still being around in five years with the transplant than without. On the other, its negative effects on my short term well-being can hardly be overstated; the most positive consult I've had warned me that I'll feel "worse than I ever have before", and the immediate post-transplant protocol includes a week of intravenous diamorphine which, I'm told, won't stop the pain but will instead "stop me caring about it." I plan to spend as much as possible of the following fortnight asleep.

The transplant conditioning procedure, carried out in the week prior to the transplant date, consists of three days of massive doses of cyclophosphomide, followed by four doses of what the consent form described as an "ordinarily fatal dose" of radiation. In addition to this, I will be administered an immunosuppressant antibody treatment, Campath. The purpose of all of this is to eliminate entirely my own immune system, and clear out any remaining tumour cells lurking in my bone marrow. After the final day of radiotherapy, I'll be infused (exactly like a blood transfusion) with the donor cells; the transplant itself is just as simple as that. Over the next six weeks, it's hoped that the donor cells will graft successfully onto my bone marrow, whereupon they'll assume almost all of the roles previously administered by my pre-leukaemia immune system. Following the transplant, I should essentially be cured; all that's left is prophylaxis and isolation while the graft takes, and anti-GVHD immunosuppression afterwards. Oh, and a whole lot of assorted reasons for feeling awful, of course. This should all begin to tail off around day 100 (day 0 being the transplant date), though, and then I should be free to start working on getting my health back and getting on with my studies.

As for the next week and a bit, however, I should remain at home. I expect I'll spend these as I've spent the past month or so: watching TV, eating home-cooked meals, working with my photographs — I intend to prepare an album for the staff of Ward 24 — and playing about with my computer stuff. For now, though, I'd better get some sleep.

A rare update

Woah, it's been quite some time since I wrote this up. There's been a fair bit going on lately, when I think about it; I had James, Ewan, Joe and Michelle over for lunch and video games Sunday before last, then went to see the Scottish Ensemble in concert on the Friday with Madeleine and mum. On Saturday, I went for a walk in the city centre with Harrison, and shot a roll of T-Max 400; street photography is where the Leica really excels, so I was happy to finally get the chance to properly break-in my M6. I think I got a couple of really good shots, too, so it'll be interesting to get that roll back from the lab. Also on Saturday, I went to my aunt Brigene's 60th birthday; the light was terrible – the Leica was wanting 1/4 of a second on ISO1600 at f/2.0 – though, and I was pretty tired, so we left after only about an hour or so. I stayed awake for the drive home, but fell asleep until 4pm as soon as we got back; I woke up for some food then and again a bit later on, but otherwise slept though almost the entire day. The effects of the chemotherapy are beginning to accumulate, again, so I've found myself sleeping through most of the week. I visited the clinic today for my check-up, and my blood counts reflect the drop in my activity; I've to be cross-matched for a transfusion on Friday, so hopefully I'll be a bit more lively at the weekend.

Being treated as an outpatient makes a nice change and, apart from a mix-up last week with my regular medication, it's gone quite smoothly so far. In fact, I've only had two clinic visits in the past fortnight; the rest of my time has been at home. Having said that, things seem to be picking up again. I have an appointment tomorrow morning to have some extra blood taken, then one later on at the Royal Infirmary, where I'll meet with the transplant unit staff. I've been warned that they'll try to talk me out of going through with the procedure, due to the risk of extremely serious side-effects; the transplant unit has already given me a list of things which I should do before the operation, one item on which encourages me to set my affairs in order. I suppose this means I ought to square my overdraft sooner rather than later. I'll get a couple of units of blood on Friday, starting at eight forty-five in the morning (!), but then I'll have the weekend off before I'm due in at the Southern General for a three-weekly dose of pentamadine; the co-trimoxazole which they had me on in my earlier bouts of neutropenia was apparently suppressing my platelet production a little more than they were happy with, so they're changing my antibiotic prophylaxis this time round. That'll involve a couple of hours spent with a nebuliser, but afterwards I should have another wee break from the hospital; the last break I'll get, it's looking quite likely, before my transplant and the culmination (or conclusion, if you like) of my treatment. Better make the most of it.

Other than that, there's not been much else happening. Amazon delivered my scanner, so I spent a couple of hours this week scanning in a sheet of negatives and taking a look at them. I've not scanned in any Leica negatives yet, and I'm not actually sure when I'll get the chance, what with sleeping upwards of sixteen hours a day and not really feeling particularly up to anything that feels like work during the other eight. I'll maybe try to do a big batch on the weekend, or early next week, and that'll give me some material to work on during the next isolation phase. I was hoping I might bring the scanner into the hospital with me, but it's really too bulky to deal with; better just to have as many files on disk as possible, when admission time comes. I'll post some images on flickr so that you lot can take a look at the people who've been taking care of me these past couple of months, just as soon as I double-check that none of them mind this. And just as soon as I double-check the spellings of their names.

Anyway: I'd best be getting to bed, I'm expected tomorrow at the Victoria Infirmary at breakfast time.

Phase three

On Wednesday, finally, my counts were sufficient for me to be given the intrathecal methotrexate which marks day one of phase three. There were a couple of modifications to the routine this time around — first of all, they decided not to take a bone marrow sample this time and, secondly, they let me out overnight; normally I'd be kept in for observation post-IT, I suppose they must trust me now to be sensible. Anyway, Thursday brought me my first of this cycle's two intravenous doses of vincristine; maybe I ought to learn guitar or something in the next two weeks, capitalise on the time I have before the peripheral neuropathy sets in again. I also received two units of red cells on Thursday, along with the welcome news that I wouldn't need to come back in for an entire week; all of the chemotherapy in this phase is oral, apart from the monthly intrathecal and intravenous work.

Me, mum and dad spent some of the afternoon today visiting the Burrell collection; we ended up leaving the house a bit late, so only got to spend an hour and a half or so wandering around the place before closing. Aidan came up to visit in the evening, before dinner time, and we played Wii tennis for a bit; he's getting better, no doubt assisted by his lack of cancer. Also today, I got back the first set of developed negatives from my new camera; Amazon promise they'll send out my scanner at some point next week, so I'm looking forwards to seeing how they look. Big thanks to Niall and everyone for getting me that :)

Anyway, I'm sure there were a couple of other things which I meant to mention today, I just can't remember what; maybe I'll post another update tomorrow.

Bits and pieces going on now

After waiting so long for my counts to come up on their own, the doctors finally got bored early last week and decided to intervene. I've been taken off of the co-trimoxazole, which can suppress marrow function, and started me on a granulocyte colony stimulating factor, a subcutaneous preparation with the dual effects of encouraging neutrophil growth and causing pain in the bone marrow. After three doses, administered daily, my neutrophils were at 2.2 per nanolitre of blood, which is actually within the healthy range; I've not had counts like that since November. My platelets, on the other hand, weren't quite at the 75 they'd like to see before commencing phase 3, so that was put off for another couple of days.

Michelle Scott came round to visit us at home, on Thursday, to sort out some of the details on my Disability Living Allowance application. The three of us — me, Michelle and mum — spent a couple of hours trying to figure out ways in which we cast my condition in the worst possible light, so as to increase my chances of getting the grant. In the end all we could come up with were repetitions on the theme of my restricted freedom; having to remain within half an hour of the hospital; requiring round-the-clock supervision in case I suffered injury or developed an infection; living with the bruising and haemorraging risks associated with my low platelets. I mentioned my tingly-fingers neuropathy, though I think that's getting a bit better after my break from the vincristine; mum wasted no time in reporting this to the staff, of course, so I was treated to a nerve function test next time I was in the hospital — this basically involved Angus stabbing me in the fingertips with a sharp piece of metal and asking if I could feel it. I could.

I got Saturday off of visiting the hospital, due to my persistently sluggish platelet count, so me and mum went for a walk round the loch at the James Hamilton Centre. I made the circuit much more quickly than I did last time, credit for which must be shared between the improvements I've seen in my strength since getting out more, and the horrible weather; we didn't want to spend a minute more out in the wind and rain than we had to, so there was no doddling and no breaks. We had some tea in the cafe there, and then went home; I spent the afternoon inviting people to come visit me, now that my neutrophils were finally out of the 0.1-0.3 region they'd been in for weeks. As a result, Sunday was quite good fun. James and Ewan came round for lunch, a lasagna made up by mum on Saturday night and left in the fridge, and we wasted three or four hours talking about university stuff and going through the B3ta book; they eventually got a bit worried about when their train ran on a Sunday, and went home at about seven. Dad and I went for a walk round the block, afterwards, during which I posted a package of about seven rolls of film to the lab for processing; it'll be interesting to see how those turn out. We found our cat, Brenden, playing with another family from just up the road; they've been feeding him for years, they told us, and call him 'Jaguar'. I wonder how many other dinners he gets, it's no wonder he's getting so fat. I remembered when I got home that I'd intended to phone some old school friends when I was able to receive visitors; Aidan and Kieran came to visit at about eight o'clock, and we sat around talking for a while before playing Wii tennis for a bit. They took their leave when it started becoming obvious just how tired I was, though I'm sure they'd have kept playing all night given the chance; they left at about half past eleven to prepare for university in the morning, and I went upstairs and passed out until nine in the morning.

Dad drove me into the hospital in the morning, before (I assume) going off to work. I slept between about eleven and three, disturbed only to have my blood taken and to get the results (platelets still too low!). I wasted the next hour or so listening to music and surfing the web while I waited for dad to come back and give me a lift home; the doctors didn't see any point in having me in again till Wednesday, so I have another day off from visiting the hospital. We stopped in at the supermarket so that he could get some things for his dinner; I was to have fishcakes down at Gran's house. I spent the rest of the day relaxing and planning the things I should be able to do in three or four months once I have all this free time and no 30-minutes-from-hospital restriction.

Still nothing much going on, but at least I'm out

Wow, it's been almost a week since I last updated this. I've been allowed home between phases, just travelling in and out for bloods and so on, despite the fact that I'm still highly neutropenic — today's neutrophils were only at 0.1, so I was pretty surprised to have been let out at all. As with the break between phases I and II, the doctors are waiting for my marrow to recover and my counts to come up before launching into the next round of treatment; they don't have a particular date set, but hopefully it'll be some time early this week.

The only interesting medical thing that's happened recently is that I've had the results of my CT scan back. As expected, my lymph nodes have mostly reverted to their normal size in response to the steroids and chemotherapy. One slightly worrying feature on the films is a two-centimetre lump of something at the site where a lymph node should be; this could be a lymphoma, but is most likely a sort of scarring left over from when the leukaemia was working my lymph system over. The doctors will keep an eye on it, of course, but in the meantime it's encouraging that I'm not presenting any of the usual symptoms associated with dying of cancer; the consultants certainly don't seem to be treating this as anything to worry about.

I have to go into the hospital relatively early tomorrow morning, to get some platelets and a red cells transfusion, so I'd better get some sleep just now.

Nothing much going on

I've spent most of this week sitting around, waiting for my counts to come up. My neutrophils are currently at 0.2, Dr Tansey would like to see 0.3 before he'll let me go home for a while. The only procedure of note, recently, was a CT scan; from what I surmise, this was intended to give the doctors a look at my lymph nodes, presumably so that they can pinpoint with greater accuracy just where I am on the tALL-slash-lymphoma spectrum. I haven't heard any results from that, but I haven't spoken to a consultant lately. Apart from that, it's been quiet here. My weight has started to come up, albeit very slowly, which I attribute as much to my lucozade diet as to the break in chemotherapy. I'll have a fish supper if I get home tomorrow, see if I can't capitalise on this upswing.

Anyway, it's late now. I'll try not to let myself go this long between posts in future, even when there isn't anything happening. Good night.

A bit of bad news

The tissue typing people have finally got back to us and, unfortunately, it seems that none of my siblings are suitable matches for my stem cell transplant. The transplant will still go ahead, it'll just be delayed and made slightly riskier by the complication that we need an unrelated donor — in the mean time, I have high-dose methotrexate to look forwards to, in addition to a handful of other intensive chemotherapies. My odds are down a couple of percentage points on this news, but I'm told I've not to think like that.

Oh well.

My counts continue to rise, so hopefully I'll be out for a wee break sooner rather than later. Dr. Tansey has finally scheduled me for the long-awaited CT scan; the doctors will finally get their look at the lymph nodes in my chest, tomorrow, and with some luck they won't find anything untoward.

For a change, I didn't feel very sleepy at all today; I only went for one long-ish nap between lunch and dinner. In fact, I still don't feel sleepy now; I think I'll watch some TV or something, see if I can't bore myself into unconsciousness.

Phase two complete

I received my final consolidation dose of cytarabine today, thus completing the second phase of my treatment. All I need do now is wait a week or so for my counts to recover, and I should be getting back out for a while. What happens afterwards depends on how quickly the tissue typing for my transplant comes through; I'll either get a short break on a much less intensive course of chemotherapy, or go straight back on to the IV methotrexate and other nasty stuff. Here's hoping for a donor.

Anyway, not a lot else to be said for the past couple of days. I've been sleeping a lot, as usual, but not a lot else. Speaking of which, I probably should go to bed now. Good night.

I slept through almost the entire day, yesterday, only really waking up for visitors and when the nurses needed my attention. I was told in the morning that I was quite anaemic, and due some blood, which probably had a bit to do with my tiredness. Liz Watt came round to visit me in the afternoon, and brought me a book of photographs, Jiří Všetečka's The Walker of Prague, for Christmas. I've only quickly glanced through it, but it seems to be a mixture of shots of the architecture of the city's bridges and cathedral and so on, with some street photography from various periods thrown in. It's very nice.

As it happened, my blood never did show up. I had my cytarabine injection quite late on in the afternoon, through a peripheral line, but that was pretty much the extent of my treatment for the day. Sleeping so much was quite nice, it certainly made the time pass.

I spent much more of today awake, though presumably I'm even more anaemic than I was yesterday. I was up quite early in the morning too, having slept very well; in fact, I was turfed straight out of bed after my breakfast, so that the domestic staff could sort me out with fresh sheets. The shower was pretty cold, perhaps this contributed to my lack of sleepiness; I've yet to find out why the water is cold some days and warm on others.

My cytarabine was ready in the morning, so they dosed me up with that. Mum came to visit after lunch, and my blood finally arrived; they hooked me up and I settled down to a nap until dinner time. Dad visited after dinner, and made an attempt at the impossible puzzle which Francis gave me for Christmas. I don't know why he bothers; he gave up about nine o'clock and went home.

I'm quite tired again, in any event, so I think I might go to bed. Perhaps I'll watch the start of a movie before I sleep.

Back inside for a bit

I've had a quiet couple of days; all of my chemotherapy for this block, apart from four cytarabine injections, has been completed. Unfortunately, my neutrophil count has also dropped again, so it looks like I'll be spending the next fortnight or so as an inpatient; the numbers seem to recover slower and slower with each week's dose of poison, and they were at 0.3 yesterday. It's unlikely that they'll recover past 1.0, when they'll let me out again, for at least the next ten days or so.

Anyway. I spent today poring over the Cocoa and Objective C documentation, and learning to program for Mac OS X — I have a simple (and still slightly buggy) calculator application to show for my troubles. I'll maybe write something a bit more substantial tomorrow, if I can think of anything worthwhile. It's quite a nice programming environment, OS X, once you're used to Objective C's slightly odd syntax.

Anyway, it's quite late now; I should probably get some sleep. Good night.

Happy new year!

I was allowed out on Saturday night, but not until quite late; by the time we got home, I was too tired to do anything but go straight to bed. We went back in on Sunday for my bloods, and I got out a bit earlier; my dad wasn't home yet from his holiday to Uist, and mum had already left for hers, so my aunt Helen drove through to take me home. I went for a walk up to the supermarket where I used to work, but almost nobody was around; I picked up some mushrooms for a pizza and headed back down the road. My gran came down to visit for a while, and we had fishcakes and chips for our dinner. I got a bit tired afterwards, and went to bed.

On Monday I'd been told I was due to have a new Hickman line inserted, so we headed in quite early. Unfortunately, the radiology department decided that they didn't have a slot open, after all; the earliest I'll be able to get a new line will be next Tuesday, and there's some debate over whether there'll be any point in putting one in so late in the phase. I'll need a central line come stem cell transplant time, certainly, but the next phase (maintenance) only calls for a very few intravenous procedures; I'll decide later in the week whether to go ahead with having a new line implanted. The only other procedure prescribed for Monday was an injection of cytarabine, so I had a peripheral line put in. The chemotherapy was quite late in coming up, so it was about four o'clock before I was let out for the day. I made a pizza with the mushrooms I'd bought the day before, and ate it while watching Spartacus; afterwards, I went to my bed for a while. I woke up around ten o'clock and decided to stay awake for the couple of hours before the new year came in; I had a little champagne at the bells, and went back to bed.

We didn't need to go into the hospital at all this morning, so I woke up at nine o'clock and made myself an omelette for my breakfast. Dad woke up and got ready, and we went for a drive to the Burrell Collection. The museum was closed for the public holiday but the rain let up for a while, so we went for a short walk in the grounds instead. There were actually quite a lot of people out and about, considering it was New Year's Day. I was pretty worn out by the walk, so I went to sleep as soon as we got home. Dinner was at about four o'clock, so I was woken up for that; gran sent up some fish for us, which dad cooked with roast potatoes and peas and corn on the cob. I went back to bed for a while after this, while dad and Gabriel went up to John and Elaine's for the family New Year's party. I spent the rest of the day lazing about, upstairs and down in front of the television; it's getting quite late now, so I think I'll go back to bed. In early tomorrow.