Weekend and hospitals!

Thank you so so much for all the emails and messages that you have sent since my last post. I have felt really blessed. It was a very hard post to write as I want to write that I am getting better and that every day is a joy but I don't want to mislead you. Chronic illness is rubbish and for those of you who suffer or care for someone who does you will know the ups and downs that come with the diagnosis. However I don't want you to think that I am sitting at home sad all the time - that is not the case either. I just have good days and bad days and sometimes good mornings and bad afternoons! There is very little pattern although I can predict that after a busyish day I will have a bad day. I am thankful for sleep ( even if it is broken sleep ) which restores me eventually! 
My weekend was lovely. It was great to see Chloe and Ed's new flat in a lovely part of Kingston. Chloe is 7 minutes walk from the hospital which is perfect after late nights. They have a little garden which they are already enjoying using. It is smaller than their last flat ( the joy of London prices) but is light and airy and only has 1 bathroom to clean instead of the 3 in the last flat! Their wedding presents arrived yesterday so I think they will be needing more storage as they have filled their existing storage. 
The cycling was wonderful. We managed to miss the pouring rain, thunder and lightning unlike the poor people cycling. We saw some of the 30,000 amateur on thier way back into London and then the pro cyclists just leaving London. We were so lucky that there was a cross over at the end of Chloe and Ed's road so that we could see both. I have a few photos which I will post later of cyclists whizzing past. I love all the pagentry of the cycling - the motorbike outriders, the sponsors cars and then the head of the race car and then the cyclists passing so fast that you almost miss them followed by the streams of  team cars in bright colours with the ambulance and police cars at the back. Often there will be a lone rider mixed in with the cars seeking support of some kind. Knowing some of the cyclists and their teams really helps and I can now pick out cyclists from the peloton (sometimes) as they whizz past. On Sunday we saw Bradley Wiggins with the team sky boys. We returned to see the return of the pro riders later in the day having followed the race on television through the afternoon and were delighted to see 2 British boys in the breakaway who eventally came first and second. It was so wonderful to be able to do that on Sunday without very much walking at all and a nice little wall to sit on while we waited. It was the first time Paul had seen a cycling race live and I think he glimpsed a little of why I like it so much - although I don't think he will take up following cycling! The journey home was quite exhausting and I was very, very glad to be back in my bed by the evening. 
Yesterday I had my annual visit to the oncologist. Sadly my consultant has retired and I was unsure who I would see. After some confusing phone calls the previous day where they tried to cancel my appointment as I have a mammogram next week and they wanted me to wait until October for the results, I managed to persuade the nurse that I needed to be seen now. I had a good chat with Dr A and he decided that we did need to exclude the possibility that my back pain could be caused by bone secondaries so I am having a bone scan next Monday. I am sure this is a precaution but I don't want anything to be missed because we assumed it was part of the autoimmune disease. He took that very seriously and agreed. So next week is going to be a week of hospitals - I have a bone scan on Monday. ( injection at 9.45 and then the scan at 1 pm), Wednesday a mammogram and Friday a rheumatology appointment where hopefully we sort out my drugs. I will then have an oncology appointment when my bone scan results are back - in about 2 weeks time. Hopefully after all that we will have a better idea of the plan - and we all know how much I love a plan! 
Tomorrow is results day and hopefully after that Ben will have a plan too. I can't quite believe that after 27 years of having children at home it will just be Paul and I. Life is ever changing.