Easter Baking Extravaganza: Hot (Cross?) Buns

Being mostly bedbound and unable to eat DOES NOT have to mean you can't do something you love. For me, that's cooking and baking.

Mama and I had a busy fun filled afternoon Baking the first batch of Easter goodies: Traditional Hot Cross Buns, pepped up with cinnamon and citrus peel, as well as the ubiquitous sultanas. The day got off to a bit of a dodgy start. My scales were playing hide and seek, Mama forgot the second type of flour to make the essential crosses with, and the small measuring jug that used to be kept in the kitchen was turned into a bile bag measurer months ago.

Dry ingredients sifted & mixed

So, Mama made a mercy dash back to her home for the missing stuff as I pressed on, (weighing scales found), with measuring out the dry ingredients. I was so eager and focused on measuring out my two weighing tubs of flour, (my scales only go up to 450g and I needed 500g), that I had dumped the first lot of flour unsifted into our mixing bowl. It was only when I was halfway through measuring out the rest of the flour that I realised my mistake.

Big cook Little cook

Horrified at what Mama would say, the girl guide in me took over. I stopped my measuring,  took the tub off the scales so I didn't knock 100g of flour all over the bed, and got a nurse to help me spoon the mixing bowl of flour into an empty clean ice-cream tub. Cue some expert sifting, my mistake was rectified.

By the time Mama arrived back, all the dry ingredients, (flour, salt and sugar), we're ready in the mixing bowl and the yeast packet was in the process of being opened. Together we gradually mixed in the watered down milk until our dough was well formed but sticky. We turfed it out of it's pot and onto a chopping board on the bed. It was ready to knead.

Mixing decks

It's amazing what an impression something can make on you at a young age without you realising, even after only doing it once. When I was 12 I went on a school trip to France. On one of the outings, we went and made Pain Au Chocolat at a local Boulongorie. It was the only time I've kneaded bresd dough until today, but as soon as that dough was on the board and under my fists it all came back to me.

Rosie Kneads Dough

The hardest bit of the whole enterprise was getting the bloody sultanas, orange zest and mixed citrus peel into our dough. Oh my god! As soon as you pressed them in, the ones you'd put in earlier would pop out! It didn't help that I was trying to do this back in the mixing bowl as Mama cut the orange zest on the board. Occasionally I'd turf her off, Chuck the dough on the board and knead it a fresh. After a couple of repetitions, plenty of swearing and laughing later our dried fruit adversaries resolve started to wane. Exhausted, but with currents running evenly through we left the dough in its bowl to prove.

And boy did it prove. Double it's size, happy and majestic. I buttered the baking trays, and together we took handfuls of our springy dough mix rounding it into even sized balls until we had a good bakers dozen plus one good sized patties on our tray. Whilst waiting for them to prove again, we made our piping mix for the most scary and exciting bit yet: piping the all important crosses.

Crossing the Buns...

Ordinary flour, sugar and the rest of our milky water spooned into a crudely made piping bag, (plastic bag with the end chopped off). Both of us having never piped anything before, Mama had a go first to get the idea before handing over to me. Hmm... I'll say piping is not my forte yet but I managed 7 reasonable attempts all mostly cross shaped.

The next job was getting them home to Mama's house to bake. By this time my TPN nurse had arrived as well, (the clock had struck 8), just to add to the general melee. A washing basket commandeered for one baking tray, the other was placed in the box Mama had used to bring the equipment over with her. Both trays will be baked at home. Drive safely Mama, you are carrying precious cargo on board...

Tray 1 of Hot Cross Buns 

Tray 2 of Hot Cross Buns

Home is where the heart is...

It's harder than you think, the transition back to "normality". Well, I say normal, the whole dropping everything out of the blue at less than a moment's notice to be transferred to hospital to stay for weeks at a time IS my normal. That transition always goes without a hitch. The first night is hard with the sudden increase in noise and light, having to always ask and wait hours for pain relief, but within a day or so it's as if I've never left.

"Sleeping" an original cartoon by Rosie P

Like slipping on an old pair of gloves. Warm and familiar. Coming back to the flat takes a lot longer. It all has an effect. The weeks of sleeping with one eye open all the time. The constant uncertainty over medication. I sleep like the living dead for the first day. Not even a nuclear explosion could wake me up.

But that uncertainty doesn't leave. It just hides. Like the monster under the bed. Lurking until you think you've settled back in to a routine, then it hits you like a tonne of bricks...

.. Usually in the middle of the night. It feels wrong lying in my own bed I the dark listening to the silence. This is my house. I'm in my own space, meds are on time, I have control of my own movement, my own light. I get my TPN reliably. I don't have to fight for the basics. So why do I feel so lost and disoriented? I should be this way when in hospital. But it's not. There I have a routine. I wake at 6, have meds and start my day as the ward comes to. 10 is when the doctors arrive. Then self enforced rest at lunch time to avoid the smells and the sounds of food. Visitors arrive at 4pm. They stay till 7. After handover at 8, it's films whilst I wait for my night time meds.

"Heart Returns Home" an original cartoon by Rosie P

Home is the unknown. The unexplored frontier. I don't know where I am. The freedom is too vast. The choice of what to do too broad. Home feels like the dream. I'm not usually here long enough to form a proper routine. These things take time. And most of mine is spent away from my castle, in a distant land. From there the grass surrounding my home and castle looks greener, more luscious. But then again, things in dreams always seem brighter and shinier than they really ever were.

Home is scary because it should feel right and it doesn't. Home takes time to adjust to. Like a tiger used to its cage, suddenly released back into the wild. There's a million and one things to do and worry about. Is nursing and care cover sorted for the week? Do we have enough medications to see us through till the next trip to the pharmacy? When is the next batch of uni work due?

Oh god uni work. I'm behind. I tried to keep up in hospital, but resistance is futile so they say. No. I must keep fighting. Home wil become home again sure enough, and a new routine will form. Change is scary. And change happens AT home in my castle. Hospital is always the same. Predictably unpredictable.

The Flat of Rosie IS where my heart belongs, even if it does take it a while to get there.

32 hours and counting: A Transport Story

"What?!" My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe my ears. This can't be happening. Not for the second day in a row. I looked at Dad, my mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. For once, my insatiable voice had been silenced. Everything that could be said had already passed my lips. So I just sat there. In dumbfounded silence blinking back bitter, angry tears.

"Dreamer" an original cartoon by Rosie P

"I'm sorry, but we've tried contacting the bed manager, and transport won't be here before 9 tonight at the earliest. Would that be too late? It's really difficult to book for a stretcher ambulance on a weekend. Plus you have far to travel..." it was only when her voice trailed off that I became aware my eyes were throwing daggers. I snorted in disbelief, shaking my head, resisting the urge to grab her warmly by the throat.

Panic started to rise I my chest. I can't do another night. Not here, with meds so infrequently, with the constant screaming and moaning from the old lady next door. My eyes widened as another realisation hit me, like a punch in the gut. Oh god. What about my TPN?? Yesterday I got lucky as they'd over ordered my prescription, leaving me with a spare bag. The fight for fluids could take hours! My head sunk into my hands, the light stabbing my eyes like a thousand white hot needles. A migraine was brewing. The calm before the stress induced storm to come.

Sound went distant. Colour started to drain. I could hear Dad. He was talking to a gaggle of nurses: "So 10am tomorrow, for definite?" The resounding silence said it all. The cracks were beginning to show in earnest. "Your bed manager said that he'd arrange and pay for a private crew for tonight." Dad hissed, "We had even given him the name of our regular private ambulance company, only to be told that G4S have made there own arrangements. That was nearly two hours ago. So, once again, where the hell are they?!" He growled.

"Fire Breather" an original cartoon by Rosie P

"Stretcher cases are more complicated than you understand, sir." exclaimed the nurse. Dad's laugh was more like a howl. If humans could spit fire, she would have been roasted alive in a nano second. Big mistake nurse, big mistake.
"I have travelled in more stretcher ambulances than you have had hot dinners, NEVER ever has it taken this long" he seethed. "That award you have on your notice board, for your ability to organise patient discharges is clearly not worth the paper it's written on!", and with that we set about dismantling my care for the second night in a row, leaving the nurse and gawping Carer to chew wasps alone.

I felt utterly drained, as if I'd run a marathon up Everest. With Dad busy on the phone, and another nurse placing my meds back in my bedside locker, I glanced at the clock. Time was not on my side. 8 o'clock. The night shift had started to arrive for handover. Amongst them was my favourite nurse. Dropping her bag in the corridor, she made a beeline for me, embracing me in a bear hug without a word. Grateful and emotional, I squeezed back. "I'm so sorry" she soothed.

"So am I", I whimpered, tears finally running. "So am I".

"Manners maketh the nurse"

Manners cost nothing. I understand you are tired, that you have worked a long and difficult 12 hour shift. That you want to go home to your bed. But having a go at a patient because they are in agony and have had the sheer audacity to ask you yet again for their medication, which they originally asked for well over an hour ago, is not conducive to the situation.

You are not in charge here. The patient is not your subordinate. You are both equals. A nurse is a patient's hands and legs when they cannot move. They are a comforter and soother when pain is out of control. Respect is earned, and works both ways.

When pain relief is asked for, from the perspective of the patient, the message, (and the nurse), often seems to vanish into the ether, never to be heard of again. If no one has appeared by the half hour mark, doubt creeps in. Have they forgotten? Are they doing it? Am I not due it yet? We only press our buzzers to find out what's going on, not to offend or upset you. That is after all why they are there.

To misquote a character from the film Kingsman, "Manners maketh the nurse". 

Hospital buzzer