Firstly, apologies for being a little quieter than I would have liked to be for World IBD Day. On Wednesday we got ‘the call’ from nursery – little man has spots, can you get them checked out. Turned out to be Chicken Pox II – The Return. So lots of stuff had to be moved and cancelled, and because the pox prevented him sleeping, we didn’t sleep either until last night. Hopefully he’ll be able to go back to nursery on Tuesday.

We have been very grateful for the help, support and advice of our GP surgery (urgent care nurse & GP), NHS 111 and out of hours GP and community pharmacist in trying to make him at least comfortable whilst this has been going on. When your child is having really high temperatures and symptoms which when Googled look terrible, it can be difficult to resist jumping in the car and heading for A&E – but I took my own advice from here and we managed it, and our anxieties without hours and hours of waiting.

Anyway, the new treatment that I was started on after my EUA seems to be working, and so yesterday for the first time in 4 years I was able to dispense with the little net pants I’ve used to hold my incontinence pads in place (see picture). I’m still wearing a small pad, but it’s of the type you can pick up in the supermarket rather than the full inco pad I had been wearing.

I have to admit it was a bit odd being less… restricted. However, for me it is a huge step forward to this wound being healed – less discharge so less need for a pad. And that is a step towards exercise and being able to be more active with my family and in life. The fact that I only have to have the wound checked twice a week, rather than dressed everyday has already made a huge difference to our lives – and so I am very much looking forward to it all being over!

So for now I just have to decide what to do with myc ollection of net pants. A ritual burning? Or perhaps I’ll put them on eBay – I understand there is a market for such things…