By Gillian
Chris was meant to go into hospital yesterday for an overnight stay to have his third round of chemotherapy. Unfortunately, there is an outbreak of Norovirus at Cheltenham General hospital, and apparently some wards are closed. The upshot is that there wasn’t a bed for him yesterday. We phoned again this morning, and still no bed available. I had taken the day off work to be able to do the driving, so we decided to go out and enjoy ourselves with the unexpected free day. We went to Witley Court, one of our favourite English Heritage sites and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

A view of the East Wing of Witley Court from the Flora fountain
When we got home at 3:30pm, there was a message on the answerphone from the hospital asking us to call the Bed Manager. I did so, and it turned out that she had called after lunch to say that a bed had unexpectedly become available if we could get down there immediately. But by the time we picked up the message we had missed the opportunity! We will try again on Monday and hope that there is a bed free.
One good thing about the delay is that we will be able to go to a John Williams concert tomorrow night at Malvern Festival Theatre. We bought the tickets many months ago, well before the cancer was diagnosed, and it was looking very likely that Chris would be unable to go if the chemotherapy had happened when it was originally planned.
{ 4 } Comments
Sounds like you had a fab day. Enjoy the concert & fingers crossed there is a bed on Monday
Yes, it was a good day. Hope your final drinkies wasn’t too emotional…
Another local place we like to visit is Croome Court. I hadn’t realised the importance of Defford during the war for testing the radar equipment until I went there. The cafe is interesting as well if you haven’t visited it before.
Perhaps you could offer to take your own bed with you if they are short?
@Eric, we have been a couple of times to Croome Court, but only ever visited the gardens. It sounds as though it would be worth going inside the house too.
I wish it were as simple as bringing my own bed! But as a favourite project manager (Brian M. if you remember him) used to say, we have been overtaken by events 🙂 I was called in on Sunday afternoon.