Me 101

16 – 20 AUGUST 2007: During those five days I was an inpatient at The Royal Brompton Hospital with Mum. I was there to start getting some home ventilation support to help me breathe better at night, which I’ve previously mentioned. My stay at the hospital was quite nice (better than my stay at Charing Cross Hospital), it was quite a trendy place since it was located right in the middle of South Kensington: and my room had a TV, mini fridge, and shower in it too! Although, as usual they needed some blood, this time blood from venous and artery; they took blood w/ a very sharp needle from my right ear lobe for the artery blood test and clamped my ear to stop the bleeding after which gave me a scar on my right ear lobe for several weeks that looked like a hickey or a “lovebite” in the UK (a fact I exploited wholly). And given that my veins are like strings and run faster than the Road Runner when needles are near, the doctor (female) searched for a long while for a good vein. Not finding one it was down to the groin again for some blood: I almost jumped out of my skin as her hands were quite warm and in combination w/ the latex gloves it just does something to a man (especially, when it’s someone w/ somewhat quite good facial structure, in that intelligent/geeky kind of way) whilst she touched me, and let’s say I had to fight very hard to keep King John at bay forcing myself to internally singing “The Tundra Rap” and imagining myself buried in ice. Thankfully, she decided to then get blood from a vein in my left wrist and quickly took some blood because I’m not sure that I would have been able to take much more of the groin prodding…


Overall, the stay went well, and I’ve been using the ventilator ever since at home. The only I don’t like, is the mask as it goes over my face and I just don’t really like anything over my face (I suppose over time I’ll get used it), but the ventilator itself is starting to help me breathe better.