In Which It Turns Out That My Family's Bosom Is Extremely Uncomfortable

It's a short trip home and a short walk upstairs which is hitchlessly completed, and without further

adieu it's to bed for me.

Nicole, bless her, has to get used to the Roman Handshake Lever Lift as I am utterly incapable of moving from prone to unprone in any variation. Unprone to prone isn't a problem; downwards is pretty easy. Upwards not so. Sideways is a pain in the arse too. Actually, not true: sideways is a pain in the everywhere and everything, apart from my head.

We arrange the pillows so that I am relatively comfortable, then Nicole goes and does what any self-respecting carer would do under the circumstances: she does shopping.

I'm OK with that, mainly because she's going shopping for me. Laxatives, you know, and clothes that fit and are easy to get on and off. Not that she has any ideas - it's just that I can't put on a T-shirt without something ghastly occurring in my collarbone. And she seems to think for some reason that I am low on tracksuit bottoms.

She hasn't been gone ten minutes before I am forced to attempt to exercise my new-found freedom by going to the toilet. 

I attempt to raise my sad and sorry self to the sitting position but this is agonisingly painful. There is no strength in my stomach muscles that spasms in my chest musculature won't defeat.

Twisting over to get my legs over the edge of the bed is more successful though after a while my left shoulder starts to become heavy and sags onto my poor collarbone which sends nervous signals up to Central Command that say "get up, now, please."

That proves difficult though, since I still have the problem of levering myself upright even if I am on my side, and the rib muscles are still putting paid to that.

I try to use my foot against the skirting board as a fixed point against to lever the fulcrum of my hips but again this is impossible.

And please note that all of this hurts, and feels increasingly hopeless, increasingly frustratingly useless. I begin to realise that I am actually stuck, and need to be rescued; at which point my phone does its little Nicole chirrup and my own little Cavalry detachment rides back to save my bacon.

I do not intend to bore you with a blow by blow account of the next few days except to say that it was extremely depressing and sobering to realise quite how debilitated I had become but, with the support of my family and considerable amounts of pain relief, obstacles were overcome and sheer pigheaded stoicism has seen us through, and we are on the mend.

Eloise in particular has stepped up to the mark; Nicole being a nurse is used to this sort of stuff and I don't wish to detract from the sacrifices that she has had to make in terms of studying and working time and general emotional fatigue from looking after Lyra all the time (which I have to admit is a lot of work), but Eloise has supported her in looking after Lyra when she needs to, getting ready for school herself, and generally trooping on without too much fuss in what has been an upsetting time for everyone.

But the heat will be off soon, because Grandma Mary is flying into town to take over the caring reins, and all our troubles will be over.