After just over six months in Addenbrookes Hospital, Adelle was declared medically fit to go home and discharged on Saturday.

It has been a while since I posted here and quite a lot has happened.

First there was a day out to John Lewis and the Grand Arcade, in the centre of Cambridge. Again, Adelle was accompanied by two APRs to help out if needed. We did a whirlwind tour of some of the shops in the Grand Arcade – anyone who knows Adelle will know how much she will have missed going to the shops.

Next there were a couple of home visits with some of the physios from the hospital to help us run through how things actually work in the house.

After a bit of practice we were confident enough for Adelle to come home for a recreational day. Mothers Day was her first day at home for pleasure, we had a wonderful meal of roast beef and a day being a family.

Last weekend we borrowed the community transport van for the day and went to collect Adelle from the hospital, driving her back here for another day visit.

Then, finally, on Friday, Adelle came home for an overnight visit. The visit went well and the end of the stay in hospital is now in sight. A welcome development given that she left the hospital for this visit a couple of hours shy of six months since she arrived.

Meanwhile I have been packing up our house to put everything into storage, we are moving in with Adelles parents until we have all adjusted to our new routines.

This has got to top the poll for my worst New Year of all time. Not only is Adelle stuck in hospital but I’m stuck at home so full of lurgy that it took me half an hour to recover from a walk to the front gate of our house. Indeed, it’s all looking so bad at the moment I’m just going to call it a day and go to bed. But, before I do (and, shhh, don’t tell Adelle, you know how she hates unauthorised pictures turning up the internet), here’s a picture of our day out to Scotsdales

Happy New Year everyone.

So it wasn’t coming home for Christmas, but we had a good time anyway. We had a seminar room just around the corner from the ward to use for a family Christmas, we took our presents to open there with Adelle.

After presents we headed down to the food court where they were serving Christmas dinner in styrofoam boxes.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Today we met Adelle at Scotsdales garden centre. She arrived in a taxi with two helpers to be on hand in case they were needed.

We were booked to see Father Christmas with Nils, but she arrived early enough to take a detour via the christmas lights section before heading in.

Then, after Nils met Father Christmas and chose the most complicated meccano motorcycle for his present, we went to have some coffee and cake.

She was so happy to get out of the hospital, even for an hour. It was the first time she has been out since she arrived nearly three months ago.

Adelles ward has now reopened for visitors after being closed for a week due to a sickness bug going around the ward.

It has been a tough week for her, confined to her bay of four beds, seeing only the same few staff all week, no visitors, not even for others in her bay. She perked up from her sadness when I arrived to see her today, though.

She is making good progress with sitting in the standard wheelchair, so is nearly ready for a day out to Scotsdales garden centre a few minutes drive from the hospital.

It has now been two months since Adelle was admitted to Addenbrookes hospital, and three weeks since she moved to the stroke rehabilitation ward. She is making progress with sitting exercises and can now hold her head up well, her left-hand side remains extremely weak. She can sit in a wheelchair and has taken trips down to the concourse and around the maze of corridors that make up the hospital. Burger King has turned into a treat, a welcome alternative to fish pie (again) or puree chicken.

The speech therapy is helping and she is now proficient at whisper-shouting.

Typically the doctors are being non-committal about how long she will be staying with them, but it now looks likely that it will be some time beyond Christmas.

She has had a number of visitors and likes seeing her friends, if you would like to come and visit let me (or her mum) know and we’ll arrange a time.

Adelle has now had her tubes removed and has moved downstairs to the stroke rehabilitation unit. She is starting to eat (if ‘soft, moist’ is a diet?) and drink again. She can whisper but not vocalise with any strength – she is mostly easy to understand when there isn’t a lot of background noise and, while occasionally a little confused, is mostly making sense.

They are making plans for the physio, occupational and speech therapies she will need over the coming weeks to regain as much of her previous ability as possible. Recovery is unlikely to be complete, we don’t know yet what is going to be missing.

They have told her they expect her to be with them for 7 weeks, which would bring her home for Christmas, or maybe Boxing Day. But these kinds of plans are very likely to change.

She is considering visitors, since she is very bored. If you would like to visit please arrange with myself or her mum and we’ll plan it with you and her.

Adelle is continuing to make progress, albeit slow still, she is a getting brighter all the time. The tubes are still present but they are now trying to make a plan to remove them. Her writing is getting easier to understand but it is still frustrating for her. Indeed, she is making jokes about hospital food. She wants to get up and walk around but keeps forgetting that her left leg isn’t strong enough to do that, never mind the tubes tethering her.

Updates here will be less frequent now but I will try to post about any significant changes in situation.

She is still not ready to accept visitors.

Today Adelle moved upstairs from the High Dependency Unit to a more normal ward. She now has less need for intensive nursing and monitoring. She will likely stay on this ward until they can remove her feeding and breathing tubes, when she will be moved to the stroke rehabilitation ward. They are working to find ways to help her communicate with us – she cannot speak with the breathing tube. She has, all along, been able to hear and understand us, and has been frustrated by our inability to understand what she is trying to communicate. She can write, albeit somewhat strangely. She gets very tired very quickly.

I have taken her print-outs of your facebook comments, which she claims to have read – I’m not sure how reliable her reading is since she is still suffering from neglect of the left side. If you have anything you would like me to pass on to her, leave a comment here.

She is still not ready to accept visitors.