I cannot praise the staff of Leighton Hospital enough

Mr Sherwood and I did a spot of glamping a couple of weeks ago. We stayed at a lovely place called York Yurts. There are only four yurts on this campsite as well as a glammed up caravan.

Now neither myself or the other half are youngsters any more so the thought of staying in a lovely insulated tent complete with log burner and proper double bed sounded like the ideal compromise to camping.

We had a lovely time. The owners are incredibly friendly and nothing was too much trouble. We had a cooked breakfast delivered to our Yurt every morning and on an evening there was a roaring camp fire where we all sat around, talked about anything and got ever so slightly merry.

We came home full of the joys of spring but sadly we had a terrible homecoming. My father-in-law was admitted to hospital the day we came back and very quickly deteriorated.

We moved from a standard ward to the high dependency unit and then to intensive care within a staggering short time.

Sadly he passed away on Good Friday but he was still talking to us right up until the last few hours and my most cherished memory is of him giving me a big cheesy grin and his familiar raised eyebrows as I left just a few hours before he passed away.

I’m not going to get morbid on you as that is not my style. I like to see something positive in everything that happens although sometimes it can be hard.

What I did want to say in this blog was that I cannot praise the staff of Leighton Hospital enough.

Over the years I have heard all sorts about Leighton but from the minute we arrived both our family and my father-in-law were treated with the upmost respect and dignity. Nothing was too much trouble even though it was quite obvious that all of the staff were very busy.

They made what was a very difficult time bearable and took care to explain at each stage what was happening.

My arthritis hasn’t been so great with all the running around to hospital plus the general stress that it causes so it was a bit of a down-trodden me that went for my appointment at the arthritis clinic last week. I’ve been becoming more and more tired and it’s easier for me to say what doesn’t hurt rather than what does.

My specialist decided to try me on a steroid injection (me and needles are not great friends so you can imagine my reaction!).

I have to say after 5 days I feel like new again. My swelling has reduced, the pain is bearable and I actually have a spring in my step.

So much so that Mr Sherwood is moaning about me being to active now! I’ll let you know how it goes as I’ve been told that this injection should last 6 to 8 weeks.

I’d also be interested to hear of any other arthritis sufferers out there who have had steroid injections and how they’ve felt with it.

So as I said at the beginning, this is a bit of a self-indulgent blog and reading it back now its also a bit of a mixed bag but thanks for taking the time to read it.

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