… I’ll be out on my ear next week.

Not actually out of the hospital though, but out of my bed and out of my room. But as anyone who has been here will tell you, it’s a long walk from the door of this room to the bus stop at the end of the hospital premises and there are opportunities for anything to happen along the way.

Someone from Social Services came to see me this afternoon to give me the “bad” news but before I tell you about that, let me tell you about my strange encounter with someone from some kind of service that may have been Cardiology.

He was the one who gave me the hint that my time in here is drawing to a close. He told me that they will be arranging “a whole collection of appointments” to deal with the issue, presumably of my breathing, but “at some point in the future” after I’ve “been discharged”.

Discharged? It looks more like I’m being expelled, I reckon.

He also told me the bad news that although there’s a trapped nerve and two slipped discs (that are trapping the nerve) in my back, it’s a high-risk operation. Therefore, nothing can be done.

Consequently I asked him if he was REALLY going to send me home uncured and whether he was REALLY expecting me to come back uncured at some point or other for a series of examinations that could easily have been performed while I’ve been here?

And before he could say anything about viruses, I mentioned that the virus and I had gone together, without any ill-effects by the looks of things, down to the operating theatre the other day and I wondered what Excuse n°2 on the cheat sheet might be.

At that point, in case you hadn’t guessed it, his telephone mysteriously began to ring. “Give me a minute” he said, went outside the room and that was that.

A couple of hours later I saw him nonchalantly strolling down the corridor in the company of couple of other doctors, rounds finished, on the way towards the lifts, home and tea.

Nothing like putting the patients in their place. It was downright insulting.

In between my two sightings of the doctor I had a visit from the Social worker as I mentioned above.

Apparently there had been a meeting between the medical staff and Social Services about what to do with me. She asked me what I thought and I told her that as far as I was concerned it wasn’t a matter for me at all.

She asked me what I intended to do, to which I replied that my immediate preoccupation would be to make it as far as the bus stop. She expressed an interest in my walking state so I told her to ask the physiotherapist.

He’d been past this morning and after a couple of exercises we’d set off for the end of the corridor. He had to help me down to the end and the trip back to my room was … errr … somewhat “interesting”.

She told me that she’d seen the physiotherapist, which makes the plot sicken even more, and so I told her that she has had her answer.

Reading between the lines, it looks as if the physiotherapist will be visiting me more often and the flogging will continue – either his or if necessary, mine – until my mobility improves.

Anyway, back to the plot.

She wanted to know whether I fancied Brussels or Leuven. I told her that Brussels was right out of the question under any circumstances.

She asked me about my previous history in Leuven. I told her about Sint Pieter and Pellemberg and that strange hostel, and then when they put me onto three-monthly visits I headed off in search of the apartment of my dreams.

Shortening the time between visits became a major inconvenience but I had no intention whatever of abandoning my little corner of Paradise.

She made a point of saying that my choice of hospital and my subsequent choice of accommodation was a free choice, all of my own and I had to accept the consequences. I replied that I was quite happy with my choices and had no intention of changing it. If necessary I was quite prepared to go home, stay there and let nature run its course.

That rather shook her and so I told her that as far as I was concerned that was the end of the discussion, particularly after I’d described the antics of the doctors over the last couple of days or so, but she said that she had no intention of leaving until she’d had her say

Ohhh! For a few doctors like that!

The discussion went round and round in circles. She wanted me to stay in a hotel but not even she could afford the €55 per night – €1700 per month – to stay in the Ibis Budget.

She mentioned a few other suggestions that might have been slightly less expensive and ended with me eventually making the suggestion that I would abandon all forms of medical care and stay at home until the end. That certainly brought the conversation to an end apart from the odd bit of discussion here and there.

She told me that there would be a further meeting and that she’s see me again in a couple of days with further news.

It might not sound much like it but it was rather an acrimonious meeting. If they know how difficult it is for me to walk the 10 or so yards down to the end of the corridor, heaving me out to go 700 kms home is bad enough but then expecting me to come back in a week or two is an absurdity when they have had me here for five weeks.

During the night last night we’d had another wrestling bout with a nurse trying to find my hand under the bedclothes to plug in my antibiotics. She awoke me of course so I told her that for obvious reasons it’s much better to awaken me before doing anything like reaching for my hand.

Nevertheless she had another go at hunting for my arm to uncouple me while I was asleep instead. That’s a recipe for disaster, for obvious reasons.

So apart from the odd falling asleep and being awoken by nurses and having the odd official visit from the physiotherapist etc as stated, the day drifted off into rather more of the usual – or should I say “habitual” way in which things have been developing just recently.

There was plenty of stuff on the dictaphone from during the night. I was having a dream, I don’t know what about but it was something to do with the radio. Someone taking part in this dream disagreed with something or other and so set out to prove that they started up with a song. Someone brought round a piece of paper with all of the options for this song on it but only half were there. I said that they would have to reduce the font size then everything could fit on one piece of paper. In the meantime this song that we were supposed to be singing was playing away in the background. Suddenly I realised that I’d been asleep with the radio on and it was an episode of the Old Time Radio and the song was actually in the radio programme to which I was listening while I was asleep and it had awoken me

This next one is a story about a group of preteen girls in wheelchairs going to a big football match in Glasgow. I can’t remember whether it was a Rangers or a Scotland match. All at different times they had to go to the ladies’. The only ladies’ was somewhere on a roundabout somewhere outside the stadium. The last 100 yards to reach it was extremely difficult for people in a wheelchair. They had to be carried. There was one girl whose mother didn’t think that it was bad at all but the mother was afraid of mice. When the girl reached this final 100 yards where her mother was going to refuse to carry her she pointed out a mouse to her mother, which made her scream. That brought someone else along. There was also someone else there whose guardian thought that it wasn’t really rough. They had to persuade the guardian to carry the person. A third person found a Rangers scarf in the bottom of a bag while she was in the ladies’. There was a fourth girl there who when she finally reached the ladies’ there was an old guy there listening to the radio in Welsh. She asked what was happening. he said that no matter who you are and where you are and who you follow your first duty lies with your home town team. It was Penrhyncoch on the radio to which he was listening. Ever since then she became a lifetime fan of Penrhyncoch in the Welsh pyramid. It was all about these preteen girls in wheelchairs at this Scotland or Rangers match having to be carried down that last 100 yards to the ladies’ because the path was supposed to be too rough for wheelchairs.

And finally I was back in school. There was something going on about the local newspaper. It was having some kind of something where people talked about the connections that their family had with different areas in the distant past. The newspaper marked it up on a blackboard and the idea was that all people from school would be able to interchange different stories about different areas and hope that it would bring to light a lot more answers and information than it has done. I was looking at the blackboard, which they were constantly changing, and I could see some interesting things coming up about the Wem area. I was beginning to wonder whether there was some information coming up that might be of interest to me when we seemed to skip a few pages when we were talking about my particular family history going back several generations. It was all dark, as if my eyes were permanently closed but I could hear everyone talking “they are disgusting people” and events about which I know nothing. I wished that I was able to take notes. This story drifted again into people from the USA being present and my brother talking to them as if they were long-lost family. They were discussing apples and how as kids they would all eat them together. Then people began to take their leave but I realised that one American boy was staying behind so I thought that I’d go over to talk to him but for some reason my brother, even though he was trying to leave, wouldn’t leave the guy alone. It was impossible for me to actually manage to talk to him even though I couldn’t see him now and I was somewhere in Chester near the river. I could feel that the river was in the vicinity right below. I could see a few things, I could see the guy but he was talking to my brother. This conversation was never-ending. I thought that I would never ever have a chance to talk to the American guy even though he seems to be staying behind and everyone is leaving. Quite simply my brother didn’t seem to want to leave even though he was saying goodbye all the time. That meant that I couldn’t manage to talk to the guy.

And then there was the Welsh lesson. I wasn’t disturbed too much and so apart from the odd interruption here and there, I saw it out from start to finish and that was much more like it compared to last week’s disaster

But not for long. If they are heaving me out net week I need to work on how I’m going to get down the corridor without help.

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