It's been an eventful week. After a great 5 week Christmas holiday with my family in the UAE last week I ate something dodgy and got food poisoning. At first I thought that it was just the meal that didn't agree with me, but after spending the whole of Monday evening throwing up followed by bouts of diarrhoea, I realised that this was food poisoning. Having contracted this once before I was aware that you just have to let your body take its course and get rid of the poisons from both orifices. Whilst this was a concern, as I wasn't throwing up the next morning, just feeling rough and aching in the stomach, I was content with letting things be. Although I wasn't able to eat much, except for soup I didn't have any further puking sessions for the next two days, but I was still getting diarrhoea. Then early on Thursday morning the vomiting restarted and more diarrhoea.

By this stage I was feeling totally dehydrated and really weak. In fact I felt just as weak as when I left hospital last year after all the chemo. In addition to my parents' concern I was getting worried, so we deceided to fly back to the UK and go straight to hospital where I could be treated. Dad had to fly back accompanying me, as I was too weak to carry anything and needed supervision. At Heathrow I was put in a wheel chair for the long walk to passport control, where after passing though I called the hospital to let the doctors know when had happened. By the time we arrived at A&E (accident and emergency) it was just after 8pm, however it wasn't until 1am, over four hours later, that I finally made it back on to Dacie ward.

Feeling totally washed out I was put on an 18hr drip to rehydrate my body. By this point, I had already lost 5kgs in the last couple of days, and the priority was to put some fluids back in to the body. Next morning the blood results from the night before didn't show up any anomolies or worrying markers. In addition to not having had any temperature during the entire episode, the doctors agreed that it looked like food poisoning. Unfortunately with this, there isn't much that can be done except for waiting for the body to get over it. This is the first incident that my new immune system has had to deal with so I could expect the recovery to take longer.

I was discharged from hospital on Saturday afternoon, but I was still getting diarrhoea. One of the downsides to food poisoning if that you've got to eat very basic baby foods until you're better, so for the last few days I've been eating baby rusks, rice, and bananas (not mixed), in addition to lots of shaken 7up so there isn't too much gas inside.

Now I may be feeling a little better, but I haven't yet recovered any weight and still feel fairly weak, I'm flying out again back to the UAE for a few weeks, so I can stay with my parents and recover from this minor setback under supervision and with a decent climate.