Well this is all a bit embarrassing. Guess where I am? I’ll give you a clue. They gave me my meds at 5.30am and I’m sporting some rather fetching paper pants.

So here’s what happened. I may have mentioned the niggly tummy ache/back pain that has been bugging me for months? Yeah we know what it was now. Unfortunately it took …. well not to be dramatic but near collapse to get me to this point. It happens so slowly. I went from skipping a few meals to packing in eating because whatever I did the burning nagging pain in my tummy wouldn’t stop but seemed to get worse with food. Constipation was suggested as a possible cause but either nothing worked or there was much effort and eye crossing pain for very little result. By Tuesday after pretty much a fortnight of being doubled over Miss Stubborn here finally went to see her team where Amina took one look at my 7st 10lb frame (I’m usually at least 9st) and informed me I was stopping in.

Since then I’ve been looked after by the girls on Ward 11 who bring me pain meds and boss me mercilessly to eat properly. I’m also the proud owner of a new bit of shiny metal. I won’t show you if you don’t mind but it’s called a bowel stent. You see what had happened was the tumour near my coccyx was pressing on a bit of bowel so hard it was obstructing it. Hence food wasn’t budging above it and it threw my digestive system in a bit of a tizzy hence the sort of pain that makes you cry those big snotty tears.

What the stent does is open up the bit of bowel and I had the procedure yesterday. So far so good. I’m a bit sore, I was a bit terrified about the mechanics of getting a stent in the right place but as promised I was under heavy sedation so I only caught the last five minutes of my innards on the big screen and I vaguely remember being groggily fascinated.

So now I take time to recover. If this works gang then loads of problems will disappear for a while and I can get back to the business of having fun rather than being curled up in a ball. My diet will have to change to accommodate the stent. Out goes roughage, whole grain, legumes, tomato skins, raw vegetables …. Anything healthy really and in comes white bread and pasta and booze. I promise it’s on the recommended side of the chart.

Speaking of my new white van man diet it’s nearly time for my builder’s tea breakfast so I’ll sign off. Still here though Team Ripley, just getting my game face back on.

Ripley out xx