Tues 17th:

Andrew grumpy this morning on arrival something to do with wanting another pair of headphones and claiming that there were tricks. Also refused to go to day room. Rory says this is a good sign. Establishing question revealed he was 26, good, this is an improvement.

I was also grumpy because he had caused trouble by pulling the canula for his MRI out. This had to be reconnected to his hand after lunch in preparation for the 2nd attempt at the scan. The reconnection caused him much distress, but he forgot this after about 10 mins. In the event they ran out of time, and he has been reslotted in for tomorrow, 1.40pm. I am to go with him to provide reassurance and must not have anything metal about me. Chances of keeping canula in overnight I put at less than 50% so we may have to go thro' it all again tomorrow. I have continully nagged all afternoon about leaving the canula alone, and at one point someone suggested enclosing the hand in a large oven mitt!

The angry scotsman has turned out to be really only angry with his son, who came back for another earbashing today. He is quite reasonable with everyone else and tonight asked me if I would buy him some slippers. Ken , the lovely elderly man in an opposite bed has gone home ( at one rather surreal point Ken and Andrew decided that they knew each other but for completely different reasons). This has prompted Andrew to ask if he could go home, which I think is a good sign.

His post today brought around 15 cd's, including those from Lucy, Pippa, Jean and Chloe I made the mistake of allowing Andrew to open all these at once ( should have learnt from yesterday!) and the ensuing chaos plus the headphones issue ended in an argument. Thankfully you had all labelled them. He has listened to two of Pippa's and one of Lucy's. There is also a wonderful large card from London Barndance - thank you all.

There were also a quantity of pictures. This morning before going in I had got the thousands of photos out that we have, which are not well catalogued and felt quite overcome at the task of sorting them all out. Luckliy Lucy is coming to help later in the week.

Asked consultant re strange food behaviour and he said not to worry he had seen similar 2 or 3 times and it generally clears up after about 4 months recovery. Requested visits by dietician and also speech therapist as his voice is so weak. When John Howarth and his son turned up with guitar (the staff take one look at anyone with a guitar now and direct them straight to Andrew; they also pop into the dayroom and have a dance, listen or join in when they can), Andrew was not able to play due to canula in hand so I asked John if they could do some songs to encourage the voice to become stronger, and this did seem to work. In fact I did wonder later if a "memory song" might be composed which could work on both areas of difficulty. I have heard that it is easier to memorise things if you sing them. Is it too cheeky to ask if any of Andrew's songwriting friends might help put something together?

The consultant has learnt that the test he wants to have done at Harefield, which has an extremely long medical name said too quickly for me to write down but which is known by staff as a TOE (throat oesophagus echo) might be able to be done by a peripatetic cardiologist who has the equipment and who visits the hospital about once a week. I hope so.

Rory visited later and so did Chris Wilkinson. Chris supervised tea and also engaged Andrew in a game of draughts, which was about the right level of challenge.

A food parcel from Di in porch and grapes from Gill - many thanks. I consumed yesterdays food parcel from Rory at various times throughout the day.

Later, when asked what year it is Andrew hazarded that it is 2001 - after the millenium, quite pleased about that.

Once again, many thanks for all your support
Gill
xx