… is that I don’t have to come back here until 13th September.
More good news is that there’s a new ice-cream stall in Leuven that has vegan speculoos and coffee ice cream. Right next door to my favouritefritkot too!
And even more good news is that I finally made it to the Asian supermarket and stocked up with fennel, fenugreek and cumin seeds. The Indian cuisine in my apartment can therefore remain on the menu … “PERSONSu” – ed.
On the other hand, the bad news is that I should be enjoying and making the most of whatever I can do and whatever health I have because it’s not going to get any better and it’s all downhill from here.
Despite all of the bits that they’ve taken out of me over the last few years, there are more signs of the disease in my heart and in my kidneys. And they suspect that the problem with the nerves in my leg is the illness taking a hold.
Add to that the brittle bones that I have due to the blood problems, and it seems that they’ve done all that they can. Hence the five-month gap between now and the next visit.
The doctor gave me a pile of stuff to give to my own doctor and he expects him to be keeping a closer eye on me in future.
So it looks as if things are going to be changing. I’ve already given instructions to put Strider up for sale. No point in paying out all this money on insurance if I’m never going to be using him.
One idea going through my head is to fly to Montreal, hire a car, drive down to empty Strider of all of my possessions, throw away or sell some of them and take the rest back to Montreal and rent a storage locker at Jarry like I used to do in the good old days
However, that’s a long way away yet.
It’s more to the point to talk about the rest of the day. I was in bed early and fell asleep quite quickly, which is hardly a surprise given how much exercise I had yesterday.
And apart from the odd tossing and turning here and there, I slept through until the alarm went off.
After a shower I headed off and caught the bus to the hospital.
First appointment was with the kidney guy. He gave me a good going over and was surprised to see the difference in my blood pressure between standing up, lying down, and standing up immediately after lying down. He’s never seen anything quite like it previously.
There was a long wait for the next couple of appointments so I went and found a power point and transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was in bed quite early and asleep quite quickly. I was away on some kind of interesting dream quite early when I had a huge attack of cramp in my sleep. That awoke me of course and the dream disappeared. The cramp stayed for quite some time. And I DO mean “quite some time”.
Later on I was in a court room. There was a case taking place about an inheritance. The plaintiff was some old woman who said that she’d been a nun and had waited devotedly on a guy for so very long so she ought to inherit some of his money. It went to trial and the defendant put into the witness box a friend of this old guy to testify, but as soon as he took the oath he repudiated all his testimony. He went over to the defending counsel and mocked him which didn’t go down very well. It looked as if the plaintiff had actually won by a mile. The case was adjourned for the final summing up that would take place on the Monday. But the friend made a special point of asking for all his phone records back that made the defence suspicious. He went through the phone records and was able to follow them up. He found out that there was something not right between the relationship between the friend and the woman concerned. He made further enquiries and had an adjournment for a couple of days. When the case restarted he smuggled in someone under a blanket into the court. He asked leave to adduce other evidence which he did. He asked the person under the blanket if she recognised anyone in Court. She immediately pointed to the plaintiff and described her as being some neighbour of the old guy or something to do with him but with no relationship whatsoever. Defending counsel asker her who she was. She whipped off her blanket. It was a little old woman underneath there. She declared herself to be the person the plaintiff was alleging to be. She could describe in intimate detail all her early life which was documented and a lot of personal stuff, and describe all about the home and the life of this guy and how she’d been living in poverty somewhere miles away but the defence in the end had managed to track her down and bring her into court. The plaintiff not only lost her case but she and the friend of the dead man who had repudiated his evidence found themselves in a lot more serious trouble than that.
Then I had exactly the same dream again except that it focused more on the start of this story when this kid was probably 6 or 7 years old on a pushbike fighting the boys etc and followed her through adulthood. And then her testimony. Of course it was much harder for the defendant to win but he still managed to pull it off in the end. All the members of his branch of his bank know about this guy just in case he pulls the same scam against somewhere else
Finally I was in bed and at 05:00 the phone rang. I was sure that it was a taxi job and I really didn’t feel like it at that time of the morning. I answered the phone and it was a woman. She asked if we could get together to sort out some insurance issue. I asked what she was talking about. She replied “the solicitors have now told me to contact you to settle the matter. I vaguely remembered something about an accident but no solicitor had been in touch with me. “You need to ask the solicitor to contact me to tell me that and I’ll phone you back”. We had this pointless discussion for about 10 or 15 minutes. Suddenly she was there in the room, a little girl from the Philippines or Indonesia or somewhere saying that her boss had come to stay with her and what the heck was her boss doing staying there when she should be staying in a hotel or something like that. She hated the idea of people taking advantage of her. I thought “this is 05:00. What is this to do with anything?.
Much to my surprise (and yours too) the nurse who took my blood sample did it first go with no pain at all. That was impressive. Not like the people at Avranches who on one of the days that I was there had to take five goes and I ended up looking (and feeling) like a dartboard.
My final appointment was for 15:30 so there was an hour to wait. And they called me to be seen at 17:45, and then only after I’d complained twice. Consequently I wasn’t in a very good mood at the time. Still, having spoken earlier in the week to someone in the UK who had to wait 10 hours for an emergency ambulance and then 12 hours in Casualty before they were seen, I don’t know why I’m upset.
Anyway, the meeting didn’t go to plan. One thing that I do know is that a heart transplant is out of the question. For that to be considered, you need to be in pretty good health and they reckon that the way I am at the moment, the rest of my body wouldn’t stand the shock.
The good news though is that I still have a heart right now. That proves that I’m not a Tory.
It was 18:45 when they threw me out, so it was a good job that I’d been to pick up the medication during the pause at midday.
And despite the rain, I decided to walk home. He’d told me that I need to exercise more, but that’s not easy on crutches of course so I have to do what I can.
At that time of night I didn’t expect the Asian supermarket but my luck was in, which was good news.
With my spirits flagging by the time that I reached the town centre, I went for a bag of chips at the Ali Baba. And finished it off with an ice cream from next door.
It was a long stagger back to the hotel but I found an easier, more convenient way to the hotel that involves much less athleticism. And I was flaming glad to find my way back home after all of that.
53% of my daily activity doesn’t sound a lot but it’s more than I’ve done just recently. No wonder I’m whacked.
So off to bed for an early night. I have to be up early because I have a train to catch in Brussels at 08:13. That’s not something to which I’m looking forward.
