Christmas time, a time of celebration, festivity, joy, happiness and most importantly of all sparkle. No sorry, most importantly of all, loving and giving. Thursday saw the Carol service held on the ward. I never knew that they had this (I am fortunate enough that I have never been in so close to Christmas before) but they have a small choir come and sing hymns and someone reads a service whilst various patients congregate in the corridor, creating a human maze and littering the narrow pathway various wheelchairs and oxygen cylinders. Many people with CF are renowned for having a rather bad sense of humour, which is my excuse for finding a gathering of pajama-clad people the majority of which have knackered lungs wheezing their way through carols perversely amusing.

Irony aside, carols always have quite a profound affect on me and looking around it really sunk in how lucky I am - I am going home. Home to spend Christmas with my family and friends, and a lot of the people surrounding me are not. Wednesday night I was lying in bed feeling quite sorry for myself, I couldn’t sleep, I knew Thursday night an event was happening which I wanted to be a part of but wouldn’t be able to manage, and was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling feeling pretty hard done by (cue sound of violins and Greek tragedy theatre-style lighting). However talking to one or two people around me and being exposed to some of the current situations on the ward is a good and timely reminder. It is not wise to sit and contemplate what you can’t do. It wastes energy and time, and more importantly actually anyone in the world could probably list 10 things that they can’t do right now, whatever their current situation. Even when it is hard, it is vital you concentrate on the opportunities that are within your grasp and try and make the most of them. After all you don’t know how long they will present themselves for so it is best to make the most of them whilst you can.

So yes as I was supposed to be saying when I sat down to write this entry, I was discharged Friday and am home, woohoo! Nearly didn’t make it due to both lifts in the hospital deciding to break down simultaneously (my ward is 4 floors up) and at one point knotting bedsheets together and shimmying down the side of the building was looking like an inviting prospect. I had apparently made my mind up that I was going a tad prematurely as the doctors looked somewhat surprised when they entered my room to find packed bags strewn around the room and raised their eyebrows when I confessed I had already taken my longline out, thus not giving them much of a choice but to send me home. Yay for decent internet connection which allows me to post my own blogs, fabulous food and most importantly own bed!