By this stage, we knew the Green Room inside out. It had an adjacent toilet, sink and shower, which we all made use of (even the shower). We had all sussed that if you sat in a certain seat in the Green Room, you can see through the knee level air vent to the shower room and if anyone was on the loo, you can see their legs while they sat on the loo.

I think I was last to realise it and always wondered why Adele went to a different loo. Another good reason to use another loo was the thickness of the door to the shower room. PAPER THIN. Fart and everyone knew it !

We had sussed the coffee machine out in there also. It served 2 different soups, coffee, hot chocolate and tea. But we all knew the only thing that was drinkable was the tea. All this advice we would pass on to other families who entered OUR green room.

Another tip we learned…………….Sometimes, we would have that many drinks of tea, the machine would run out of water to heat up, but we had a solution. Get the plastic flowers out of the vase. Take the vase into the shower room. Stand UNDER the shower with the vase, and fill the vase up with water and then fill the drinks machine up. It couldn’t be done in the little sink, because of the angles and the size of the vase.

All these tips we passed on to other families. There was a great camaraderie amongst the families in the Green Room. We got on very well with the Lews family. The husband, daughter (20) and 2 sons (18,19) were there for Karen Lews who was the same age as Karen. She was also a big Donny Osmond fan and was ALSO going to the same concert kp was due to go to in September. The daughter brought in a photo of Donny so that we could put it up near our Karen, which was nice.

We also kept their lads supplied with fags as they were a bit strapped for cash.

Sadly, she died about a week after being admitted to the ICU.

Despite all the odds, our Karen was still managing to win the battles she was facing. Every day, we felt there was more chance she would survive.

Karen had a big problem with her temperature today. Everyday she was under this inflatable blanket, that had very cold air pumped into it. It did a great job of bringing her temperature down. She peaked at 39′C today. Not too bad for Karen.

Karen had had an eye swab (and some other swabs) taken the other day. The results were back today (E.Coli in her eyes, and enterococcus in her lungs…………

The consultants wanted to rule out Karen’s neck and spine for damage, but the only way they could really do this is by waking her up …..

At 6pm, they started to lighten her sedation. We weren’t allowed in the ICU at this point for some reason. It soon became clear that Karen wasn’t reacting well to being taken off the sedation drugs. She was getting very agitated apparently. A nurse came to see me in the green room and asked if I would come through and try and calm her down, which I duly did. Miraculously, hearing my voice did calm her down substantially, but not enough to keep her unsedated, so she was re-sedated.

Off sedation for 3 minutes. Increased Heart Rate. Increased Blood Pressure. Increased Respiratory Rate. Agitated. Had had a bolus of morphine [a burst]

Click on photo to enlarge

They thought the stress of being trapped and unable to move on this rotational bed got her agitated. It felt right. The good news was they were able to do some neurological tests whilst she was under light sedation.

Click on photo to enlarge

Click on photo to enlarge