Congestive hepatoMEGAly is MEGA

***There is supposed to be a photo here but it won't upload, argh!***

I think I need to regauge my concept of a long day. Normally I think a long day is a long day but having lived through yesterday it has now become apparent I have underestimated how long a day can be and just how long I can spend in a hospital. 11 hours solid yesterday, apart from the 5 minutes it took me to walk from one hospital to another. That's right, I went to TWO hospitals yesterday, like some awful pub crawl with needles instead of pints. It wasn't all bad though, in fact, bits of it were positively wonderful, there was just the odd moment of chaos and/or distress thrown in there to test my mental capacity like an MI5 mission.

But yeah, enough building up the drama. I begun by getting up at some horrendous hour (the less said the better, but it was somewhere around 7) and trudging through the streets of Sheffield to the beautiful Hallamshire hospital. Day ward first and I was of course in 'isolation' on a chair near the water fountain because me and my cold are a danger to society. Or at least, cancer patients. I made all my favorite hospital staff a reindeer (can't remember if my army of origami reindeer have had a mention in any of my past posts) but as I'm a genius I left Anthony and Yusef's ones at home so I passed the time folding folding and more folding. They just took my blood and swab swab swabbed me as predicted and there really wasn't any very exciting happenings at all. Other than bumping into SNOWDON (BOTH MY TOP DOCTORS IN ONE DAY!) who was all like "Oh, yo Constanze, iz you in for ur bone marrowz extractionz" and I was like "nah man, just day ward and the c to the t scan, no 1 haz booked me in for no bone marrowz yet" and he was like "oh shit maaaan, we shud do that like now, get you like proper booked in" and I was like "yeeeaaah man, mint" because we speak so gangsta obviously so I have a bone marrow at some point in the future but I don't know when because I wrote it on my hand then washed my hand and washed off when it was. Really need to find that out.

So by half twelve I was done but my sexy CT scan wasn't until three and I was pondering what to do. I really wanted a nap so I snook up to P floor in the hope I could hide in the teenage cancer room there. However, when I got to P3 IT WAS COMPLETELY EMPTY. Like on one of those zombie films just before all the zombies jump out and and eat you. I went to sleep in the room anyone before some random nurse came and threw me out and I was very distressed. Apparently I can't be alone in a hospital unsupervised. Not sure if this is a good sign or not. So back down to day ward I went and there I made a bed with three chairs that could have easily doubled up as a torture implement. I JUST WANTED A NAP. WHY DOES THE WORLD HATE MY NAPS? Fuck this, I thought, I'm having some chips. So chips I got, with so much mayo that it was vaguely disgusting, I only ate about three chips but somehow made four packets of mayo vanish. I swear to god there is something wrong with me.

What next? TABLETS. Last time I went in I tried to get me some delicious tablets but the pharmacy didn't have enough and I had to go and get the rest and I got them with far too much ease. There's something a bit unnerving about being able to obtain £6000 worth of cancer medication by stating my hospital number. If someone robbed me they'd grab my purse with a fiver in and leave the expensive medication behind, hahahaha, fuck you criminals. But that was that and then...

CT SCAN. I booked in and sat down and there were all these nervous looking people staring around and it made me laugh a bit but that's a bit mean sorry. Then a nurse came over to me with a huge bottle of water (I am shit at estimating quantities but there was a fucking lot, more than I have ever drunk in one sitting before by a large factor) and was like DRINK THIS WATER MIXED WITH DYE YOU HAVE 20 MINUTES and then all the other patients laughed at me. "I'm glad I'm not you" to quote one directly. There was a bit of a wait in which time I watched someone have a stroke (not on purpose, I wasn't just staring, they were right in my line of sight and it was weird and interesting and horrible all at the same time) and overheard a story that made me cry so I had to hide behind a copy of OK! magazine while I bawled like a lunatic because I'm a sucker for a romantic/sad story. There was this carer talking to this old lady and she was telling her this story about this old couple that used to be on one of the wards. They'd been married since they were 18 and used to walk around the hospital wards hand in hand because they both had cancer together then the husband died and as they wheeled his body out the hospital she said to him "I love you and I've always loved you and I'll be with you soon" and then about two weeks later she died too. I tried to feign choking on my excessive amounts of water to explain why I was so red eyed. But yeah, eventually I was saved from the strokes and sad stories and I was whisked away to have canulas put in and be filled with more x ray dye (the one that makes you feel like you're wetting yourself, it's so convincing, you have to try it) and scanned scanned away. They scanned my whole chest and pelvis area. Then they gave me a kidney dish to be sick in because they water wasn't very happy in my stomach but I managed to keep it in. Then I did a lot of wees. They wouldn't let me just go though as I developed a pathetic rash on my arms where they dye went in and they thought it might be a reaction but I was still dancing around half an hour later so they let me go eventually.

OOH OHH OHH OHH!!! Sorry to interrupt my own story but the post just came with my monthly review letter from Snowden. My ultrasound showed signs of congestive hepatomegaly which has the word mega in it so it must be MEGA. That's the posh word for all my liver trouble although I just googled it and it says "Congestive hepatomegaly is a backup of blood in the liver, resulting from heart failure" which doesn't sound all that nice but obviously mine is a very very very mild form of that so all is cool. This also may solve they why does Constanze have fluid in her abdomen mystery. And maybe more lymphocytes? All these exciting things! Anyway, back to the story Constanze, back to it...

Then it was a short (well, short in terms of distance, it took me about a century) walk over to Weston Park hospital for the young people Christmas cancer party. I arrived a fashionable 1 hour and 30 minutes early so they let me sleep in a little room and I was so happy to finally have my nap. It was weird going back to the TCTU, I was only there for three nights when I had my transplant in 2009 and it seems so long ago! I have been ill FOREVER. Lots of my cancer homies were there and there was much food and merriment. My team kindly nominated me to be covered in toilet roll for one of the games (see attached photo) but we won because in the end I was the most covered in toilet roll so all is good and I won a dark chocolate orange which is good because I hate chocolate but I like dark chocolate! Yay! You also have no idea how hot toilet roll is and how hard it is to breather through. The pringles challenge proved too much for me though, I didn't dare even attempt it after seeing Ivans shove 30 into his mouth without question. If you haven't died of cancer, the teenage cancer team try their very hardest to kill you with party games :)

Then it was hometime and I trekked throught the dark and the cold and the rain across two counties and over 20 miles and it was all very fun because I like wandering around in the dark. Then I was in my bed and was a very happy Constanze :)

I am TOO AWAKE for someone who spent ONE YEAR awake yesterday. CRASH AND CANCER BURN, crash and cancer burn. I need some breakfast. Some breakfast that isn't recently rediscovered strawberry pencils that someone got me last Christmas.

I'll shut up now. This is enough cancer for anyone :D

Constanze :) xXx

P.s At some point I'll have to make this post about sad things but I'm in too much of a good mood to do it. As you all know my bad moods are few and far between so it's hard to give a balanced view on the good and bad points of cancer. I'm also really scared that if I made a sad blog post then some poor cancer patient will come on and read the first post and be like OH MY GOD CANCER IS SHIT when really it's amazing and cool. Just slightly inconvenient. We'll see.