Category Archives: hospital

Tuesday 14th June 2016 – SO HOW WAS MY FIRST NIGHT IN MY NEW DIGS THEN?

The answer was “not very comfortable”.

What with one thing and another, it was long after midnight before I ended up going to bed. And once I was in, I had a little listen to the radio but it wasn’t long before I switched everything off and settled down for the night.

But the mattress, which I have put on the floor, as I have no intention of climbing up to the eaves of the room, is really uncomfortable. It’s a very cheap mattress to start with and it sags just about everywhere. But it wasn’t long before I’d dropped off to sleep, and that was how things stood until all of … errr … 05:30. I’m not used to the big city and all of the traffic and the like.

It goes without saying that I didn’t actually leave the stinking pit at that time, and when I finally did, I had plenty to do up here. Breakfast was therefore at 09:00 where I made the acquaintance of one of my co-cottiers. I had to run up and down the stairs twice as well – the first time wasn’t too bad but I was on my knees for the second. This is clearly not going to be sustainable.

The walk up to the hospital was quite pleasant even though it was all uphill. I called at the boulangerie that I had discovered yesterday. and of course, it’s closed on Tuesdays. But there’s an Asian supermarket across the road and they sold baguettes, so that’s that problem resolved.

The parking problem for Caliburn is semi-resolved too. I picked up a document from the hospital yesterday setting out my visits to date, and with this I was able to apply for a parking card for a free car park in the vicinity. This was duly granted.

But having the pass is one thing – finding a free space there is quite something else. I ended up making an ad-hoc space for myself at first, and then going back out at lunchtime to pounce on a liberated space. And that took quite a wait. By the end of the afternoon though, there were a few free spaces so if I do decide to go anywhere in Caliburn it will have to be in the late afternoon that I come back.

I made use of the hospital’s internet to check up on things and to send off another pile of e-mails. I’ve already had two replies from this load of messages, but they were both refusals.

Walking back here was pleasant too in the early evening sun and I encountered the landlord in the building, changing a few light-bulbs including the one that doesn’t work in my room. I also had an encounter with a couple of the girls here, sorting out a place for me in the fridge.

Tea tonight was pasta, kidney beans, veg and tomato sauce followed by slices of spicy cake and soya dessert. Loads of proteins in all of that. And now, having almost fallen asleep a couple of times at the hospital, I’m off for an early night.

I hope that I can have a good night’s sleep tonight.

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Monday 13th June 2016 – IT’S NOT VERY GOOD NEWS!

No, I had the results of the two samples that were taken from me the other week.

The first bit concerns the bone marrow. Whilst it’s true to say that the lymphona hasn’t spread into my bone marrow, the fact is that the bone marrow itself is quite fragile and as a result they won’t be giving me any more chemotherapy. This is because the marrow is quite fragile and they fear that the chemotherapy may damage it.

The second thing is, if anything, even worse. And that is that my illness has spread to my kidneys and that is what is the matter with them.

I don’t know if the situation is dangerous or not – I didn’t ask. What I do know is that they are going to have a meeting on Wednesday to discuss a course of treatment and I have been summoned for next Monday to a meeting to find out what will be the plan. All that I can say is that I don’t like the sound of this at all.

I had a difficult night’s sleep again, awake quite early and having a trip or two down the corridor. When the alarm went off at 07:15 I was awake but it still took me a good few minutes to leave the comfort and safety of my nice warm bed. After breakfast I packed everything away and even found time for a shower, then paid up for my stay and hit the road.

It was pelting down with rain this morning and traffic queues everywhere. However I made an executive decision (an executive decision being, for the benefit of new readers of this rubbish, a decision that if it happens to go wrong, the person making the decision is executed) to follow the signs for the motorway once I reached Korbeek-Lo and that was a much better idea. There was heavy traffic on that road but it was all turning off to the various business parks down there and it didn’t take long to hit the motorway. And once on the motorway it took me a mere 10 minutes to reach the hospital by going right round the city and onto the campus from the rear. I was there half an hour early.

A couple of doctors, one of whom was the girl whom I normally see and the second one was the urologist – she who gave me the bad news – came to see me. That wasn’t all that she gave me either because she ordered an injection for me – one that would help purge me of excess water. And I’ll tell you what – that worked in spades and made me feel so much better.

The Social Welfare girl came to see me too. We discussed my accommodation situation and she’s going to make further enquiries for me. Mind you, although she’s given me a great deal of moral support she hasn’t really gome up with too much in the way of practical help. But then again, I don’t suppose she encounters too many people who have my kind of problems.

They gave me a blood test too, and my blood has dropped down to 7.6. That of course meant a blood transfusion and I had two pochettes of blood. What with all of that, it was nearly 19:00 when I left the hospital. I had a walk down into town and stopped off at a fritkot for a falafel butty and chips for tea – all for €5:50.

And then it was back here to my new home for my first night.

There’s no internet (there’s a student.net site but of course I don’t have a password for it) and there’s a leak around rthe edge of the roof light.

As I said yesterday, I’m glad that I’m only spending a couple of weeks here.

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Friday 3rd June 2016 – I’M BACK …

… in Soissons again – at the Hotel Premiere Classe of course and I suppose that you are all wondering why I don’t move in here.

But the reasons why I’m back are twofold – firstly, I’ve come to recover my mobile phone (which I now have in my sweaty little mitt until I leave it somewhere else) and secondly, and more importantly, I’ve been let out of hospital today.

The doctor came along this morning and told me that nothing now is likely to be done to me until they receive the results of my samplings back from the laboratory, so if I were to stay in the hospital, I’d be just kicking my heels until then. And so I decided to take my wracked and ragged body off for a change of scenery, and they’ve given me an appointment for Monday 13th (yes, the thirteenth – good job it’s not a Friday!) of June. That’s when we’ll (hopefully) find out where everyone has been going wrong with my diagnosis.

I spoke to the girl at Social Services and after an inordinately long wait, she confirmed that they would have me back at Pellenberg from Monday until the day that I go for my results. That gives me a week to track down a room in a house and now that I have my phone back, I hope that I can do that.

But the result of having to wait around so long was that it was 15:30, instead of 14:00 when I left the hospital. And after another session where I jammed the exit at the car park, I was of course decanted straight into the traffic. Not quite as bad as the last time, but bad enough all the same. I stopped off to pick up some fuel at Mont St Jean, given the excitement that’s going on in France at the moment.

The drive down was uneventful although I did pick a new route – down the péage and then onto the motorway for Reims and Lyon, leaving somewhere short of Coucy. And luckily, there was a guard on duty at the tollbooth who recognised Caliburn as a van and not a lorry and I paid just €4:40 for the tolls and not four times that. I hate these automatic tolls.

The road into Soissons is a road that I know well from the old days, bringing me past the walled city of Coucy-le-Chateau (which readers from way back will recall us doing the touristy visit early one morning in midwinter many years ago on our way back from an Open University Students Association meeting) and straight into the town, and now I’m holed up in the Premiere Classe where I’ll be staying until tomorrow.

And I hope that I have as good a sleep as I had last night. Not the best, it has to be said, but my room-mate didn’t snore at all as far as I could tell and once I’d finally managed to go to sleep, I just had the odd awakening here and there and was dead to the world when the nurse awoke me. I’d been on a voyage too, but don’t ask me where because I’ve no idea now.

Still, tonight I’ve asked for the quietest room in the house and judging by this and that, I might actually have it too. Let’s see how I’m feeling after a good rest and a good breakfast tomorrow, hey?

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Thursday 2nd June 2016 -THE BIG PROBLEM …

… with crashing out so thoroughly like I did yesterday early evening is that you can’t go back to sleep again later. Especially when you have a room-mate who not only snores like a bull but who goes to the bathroom more often than I do.

In fact at one stage I do remember dropping off round about 04:00 only to be awoken by him going to the bathroom 10 minutes later. I’m going to definitely change my mind about leaving as soon as I see the doctor, and go and have a really good sleep somewhere else. It’ll mean a change of room too for when I come back (at least, I hope so anyway).

But I did drop off sometime later (but when, I’m not sure) only to be awoken by a nurse who wanted to take my temperature and blood pressure. I was stark out at that moment so I’ll be like a bear with a sore head (or in my case, a hare with a sore bed) for the rest of the day.

But somewhere in all of this, I’d found time to go on my travels again. I was driving somewhere (on the right-hand side of the road) and at a roundabout I had to turn right. On the corner was a school playing field (younger readers of this rubbish might not know what one of these is) with the kids playing all kinds of weird games. I made a few enquiries to find out the name of the school and then I obtained a brochure. The kids who were playing were the “Green” house of the school and this was nicknamed “the Dead”. The reason for this was that the kids in this house were selected for their “fun and spirit of enjoyment” but generally took twice as long to carry out academic tasks than their fellows in other houses.

I was allowed breakfast this morning, and then I had to wait around. And around. And around for my visit for the bone marrow. It wasn’t until 14:30 that they came to collect me and even then I had to wait half an hour before I was seen to.

The monotony was broken by the doctor who came to see me. I asked her if I really could go away for the weekend and she said that she would see the Professor who is handling my case. It seems that whatever happens next, the results of my kidney and of my bone marrow analyses won’t be through for a week so nothing will be decided before then anyway, and the discussion could easily take place at the Day Centre.

So what I need to do now is to speak to the girl at Social Services and see if she can find me a place in the family accommodation at Pellenberg starting on Monday and for a few days. That will give me a weekend away to go and pick up my telephone and then when I come back, a few days to find some accommodation such as a room in a house somewhere with shared facilities. I’ve seen them advertised via the University for as little as €200 per month (and as much as €750 per month too) and that will help me out during the summer while I organise myself.

But retournons à nos moutons as they say on the southern side of the linguistic frontier, we were discussing bone marrow a few minutes ago. And those regular readers of this rubbish will recall that they took a sample in Montlucon back ages ago and I can still feel the pain even now.

But they must have been butchers, not doctors, because the most painful thing about the bone marrow extraction today was the injection for the local anaesthetic. That’s not to say that it wasn’t uncomfortable of course, or that it was totally painless (or without stress because I’m useless in hospital) but it wasn’t anything near as bad as I was imagining.

First thing that I did when I returned here was to change out of my surgical gown and put my own clothes on. That’s much more like it. And now I have to wait for night to fall, and to hope that my room-mate doesn’t sleep on his back tonight. I’ll be glad to get away from here for a few days.

But I can’t go without mentioning a little incident here this evening. I was chatting to one of the nurses (one of the more … errr … mature ones) about what’s been going on, and she expressed a great deal of sympathy for me, ending up by stroking my arm.

Things are looking up!

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Wednesday 1st June 2016 – YES, 1st OF JUNE ALREADY …

… and here I am, stuck in here still. I was going to complain about missing all of the summer but, looking out of the windows and hearing all of the news from home, then maybe I’m better off here. And so I would be too, if it weren’t for the health issues and the monotonous food (which is still, nevertheless, &0 times better than in any other hospital that I’ve visited. Heaven help me if I had still been incarcerated in Riom where the food was the worst that I have ever tried to eat).

Last night I was on my own in my room (and don’t worry – it didn’t last) and I has possibly the best night’s sleep that I have had. I didn’t go to sleep early and I had to nip off for a ride on the porcelain horse at 05:00 but apart from that, I didn’t feel a thing until a nurse awoke me at 07:40 to take my blood pressure and temperature.

I’d been on my travels too – driving around the south of England somewhere around London. Someone asked me what I was doing for lodging so I explained that I was quite comfortable with everything that I had “in the back” – implying that I was in a lorry with a sleeper cab but in reality I was, as usual,camping out in the back of Caliburn. From here, a bunch of us decided to drive back north and (shock! horror!) I let someone else drive Caliburn (which as you all know, is something that would never ever happen) while I was dozing off in the back. But I was awoken by the sound of the driver over-revving the engine and that annoyed me so I told him to take it easy. and then we turned off the A5 somewhere round about Dunstable to go to pick up something that ha had bought on eBay. Where we went to was some housing estate – all modern expensive flats in a kind of woodland-parkland surrounded by an old stone wall, a parkland that was actually the grounds of the local council offices which were in some kind of stately home. You could see where all of the 19th Century terraced houses were built and came to a dead stop at the stone wall.

I wasn’t given any breakfast this morning. Upon making enquiries I was told that nothing was allowed before my “visit”. That was apparently due at 11:30, so the doctor told me. And I made a big mistake when the doctor came round. She told me that I could go home this weekend but not being quite “with it” at that moment I told her that I had nowhere to go. Fool that I am, I should have said yes, gone anyway, done my shopping and then nipped down to Soissons to pick up my telephone. I wonder if it’s too late to change my mind.

It was 10:30 when they came to pick me up, and dressed in the new modern fashion – to wit, one surgical operating gown – off I trollied to the operating theatre, being pushed on my bed. And once down there, I had to wait for ever until someone came to deal with me. And while I was in the waiting area I could observe everyone entering and leaving the area and if I were to have a Pound for every person who thought that the exit door was automatic rather than manual, I’d be dictating this to a couple of floozies sitting on my knee, somewhere in the Bahamas.

I’m not going into detail about what happened in the operating theatre except to say that it was unspeakable and indescribable agony, but what was worse was that they strapped something like a huge stone to my back where they had made the incision, and I had to lie on it without moving for three hours. This, apparently, was to close up the incision.

And after three hours, believe me, that was even worse than the incision and I was feeling like hell, especially as seeing that I developed cramp in my left leg and couldn’t do anything at all about it. Believe me, when they finally unstrapped me, I was in paradise. At least the ecography that they gave me showed that I haven’t suffered damage due to what they did.

When I returned to my room, I found that I have a new room-mate. That’s a disappointment for sure. But still, I don’t suppose that it can be helped.

This was when I found myself in trouble too. Sitting up on the edge of my bed doing something or other, I was told that I was supposed to be lying down to give me intestines a chance to recover. No-one said anything at all about that to me.

and so I lay down – and promptly crashed out until about 22:00 when the most enormous thunderstorm awoke me. I didn’t realise that I was so tired, especially after such a good night’s sleep.

And my new room-mate snores. B@$t@rd!

And on a final note, I’ve been receiving many expressions of solidarity from well-wishers who have been reading this rubbish just recently. I’d like to thank you all for your comments – they mean quite a lot to me in this difficult time.

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Tuesday 31st May 2016 – IT’S NOT GETTING ANY BETTER.

Well, maybe the sleep thing did last night. I seemed to have something of a (slightly better) night and when the nurse came to take my blood pressure and temperature at 07:40 I was dead to the world. In fact the sudden shock of waking up completely dislodged every last detail of wherever it was that I was a-wandering, which is a shame.

After breakfast, I had a couple of visits. Firstly, the nurse came in to change the needle in my chemotherapy port. And I know the nurse from my other visits to the hospital – she’s quite efficient and she didn’t hurt me half as much as any of the others have done. And that’s something, I suppose.

And then I had the doctor, and she brought me some more depressing news (if that could be possible). Firstly, the biopsy on my kidneys is postponed until tomorrow and I don’t like that idea – I just wish that they would get it over and done with.

But secondly, she told me that they have now officially decided that chemotherapy isn’t working as it is supposed to. Like me, they were expecting to see something positive in the way of results by now and they are a little bewildered. As a result, they are going to take another sample of bone marrow on Thursday – and how I will detest that (I can still feel the last lot) and see whether that will give them a further clue. But this isn’t the news that I was hoping to hear – not in the least – and I’m starting to become a little concerned.

The third visit that I had, after lunch, was only guaranteed to increase my apprehension. It was the surgeon who is going to work on me tomorrow. He wanted to tell me – in great detail too, about what he is going to do to me, and I almost had to sit on his head to stop him. I’m useless in hospital and I don’t want to be hearing about things like this. It just drives me into a cold sweat and then I spend all night worrying about it and that’s horrible.

Other news is that my room-mate has been discharged. This could be good news (I might end up on my own for a while and I’m much better on my own as I’m sure that you know) and it could be bad news, because my previous companion was quite good, quiet and didn’t snore. I’m not sure that I’ll find another one so companionable. I bet that it’s unlikely.

And so apart from that, I’ve been chatting to Liz on the internet and doing some work updating my blog and not very much else. As I have said before, it’s very hard for me to summon up the enthusiasm right now.

But we’ll see what tomorrow brings. I’m not looking forward to it, or for the following day either. And the results will be even worse, I reckon. But I must stop thinking like this. Focus on the positives – I mean, I haven’t spent a single cent in over a week and that’s surely something to celebrate.

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Monday 30th May 2016 – ONE THING THAT I’VE LEARNT TODAY …

… is that I won’t be having my next chemotherapy session for quite a while.

It seems that in the opinion of the hospital, I’m far to ill right now to go through all of the stresses that chemotherapy will provide and they think that I ought to recover first.

I have to say that I don’t like the sound of that one little bit. As far as I’m concerned, being ill doesn’t make the slightest difference. I don’t see an issue about chemotherapy making me any more ill – I’ll be suffering just the same and the quicker the treatment starts, the quicker it will be over and the quicker I’ll start to recover. Waiting until I’m feeling better and then making me ill again is just in my opinion absurd. I only want to be ill once.

And if I don’t improve, then I won’t ever have the chemotherapy and then I’ll be back where I started all of these months ago and that’s really defeating the purpose of my coming here.

As you can tell, I’ve had a visit from the doctor this afternoon. She didn’t stay long and didn’t even give me a check-over – she just came to give me the news.

I had a really bad night again last night. I took ages to go off to sleep, mainly due to the fact that I had a really bad pain right across the right side of my chest. It just wouldn’t go away and I just couldn’t find a comfortable position. It was so bad that I felt like calling for some emergency help (now that’s not like me, is it?) but I managed to hang on.

And then once I did drop off, I kept on waking up time after time after time. I really can’t sleep properly at all in this place. But drop off I must have done, because I was off on my travels again.

I was in a house that I owned, in Nantwich down by Crewe Road end but it wasn’t a terraced house such as is there but a modern semi-detached property. I’d had the morning off work and was due to go in for the afternoon but all kinds of delays were holding me up. eventually, I’d sorted out my pushbike, found my heavy blue-grey overcoat, decided what cap I was going to wear (because it was teeming down outside) and eventually I set off. But it was freezing cold too and I decided that I needed my gloves so had to turn back. And this made me wonder whether it was worth setting out again as the office would be closed by the time that I arrived. But as I reached back home I noticed my red Ford Cortina estate, XCL 465X, in the drive and it had been driven in instead of reversed in, as I always do without fail when I’m parking. That took me completely by surprise.
And a little later we were at a huge Open University Students Association (OUSA) meeting and there were hundreds of us in attendance. I found my way in, nearly last (not like me) and struggled into a corner where there were several people whom I knew, including a girl called Jane who was in my class at school (what she was doing at an OUSA meeting is anyone’s guess). We were having a chat about old times when the meeting abruptly started. The first speaker, a woman we knew, started to talk but went so quick that we couldn’t make notes and everyone bellowed at her in unison to slow down and start again – which she did, but after a couple of minutes started to roar off again and we found it impossible to keep track of what we were saying.

The doctor wasn’t the only visitor that I had either. I had a hospital visitor come to chat with me for a couple of minutes and that was quite a break from my routine. She didn’t have much to say, which was no surprise, but she tried her best to cheer me up and encourage my morale and you can never criticise someone for that.

But while I was talking to her, I somehow managed to put my back out of joint and that hurt for ages. I’m definitely breaking up, aren’t I?

The rest of the day has been quite quiet. I’ve sat in the day room and, for a change, done some work (I need to keep myself properly organised and properly focused), and that’s really my lot. As you know, there’s not really a lot else that I can be doing right now. I need to exert myself a little but it’s not easy. Even if I were to find the motivation, there ust aren’t the opportunities just now.

Still, maybe I’ll cheer up tomorrow.

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Sunday 29th May 2016 – WHAT A BORING DAY!

Sometimes I think that it’s just as well that I go off on some of these nocturnal rambles because it’s the only excitement that I seem to be having these days.

Today was one of those days where not a single person came along to break the monotony. Fair enough – I had my pulse and temperature taken twice but that was it. For most of the morning I was crashed out on my bed and for the rest of the day I’ve just been sitting around mooching over the internet and reading a pile of stuff to keep me going. I can’t say any more than that.

Well, yes I can, I suppose. I’ve run out of cheese.

To be frank, I didn’t expect to be here like this. I imagined that Monday would have been a check-up (and maybe a blood transfusion) as it always is, and then I expected to be called back on Friday for a long weekend of chemotherapy. That’s what usually happens. That would have given me all of the time in the world to do all of the shopping that I wanted, but of course it didn’t work out like that, did it? Here I am, it’s Sunday night and they haven’t even started on the chemotherapy, let alone almost finished. No wonder that I’m so fed up.

I’d had a bad night too – taking ages to go to sleep and then waking up regularly through the night. It’s quite true to say that I’m a very light sleeper but the amount of clunking and clanking that goes on in this place is unbelievable.

Mind you, I did manage to get away during the night. I was on a long-distance bus travelling to the Bus Station (which one, I’ve no idea) and Laurence was a passenger too, although I wasn’t “with” her. It was just after 02:30 when we arrived and we had a couple of hours to wait for our connection that would take us to the airport. I immediately grabbed my stuff, made a kind of bed on the floor, and settled down for a short sleep. However, the woman from the cafeteria on the bus station came out to remind us all that the café closed at 02:30 – clearly incorrect because it was after 02:30 by now, so we imagined that she meant 03:30. That didn’t bother me because I reckoned that I would be back awake by then, and if not, it didn’t matter anyway. Neither did all of the people who were taking a rather unusual interest in my sleeping arrangements.

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Saturday 28th May 2016 – I WAS PLANNING …

… on having something of an early night last night but as with all of the best-laid plans of mice and men, it didn’t turn out like that.

First Liz and then, coincidentally the girl who has often in these pages been described as “The One That Got Away” put in an appearance on the internet waves and as a result it was long after 23:00 when I walked down the corridor to my room. Mind you, it didn’t half cheer me up and I felt much better than I had been feeling, especially seeing as how TOTGA offered to come over here and soothe my fevered brow.

I didn’t have a very good night though last night. Despite being exhausted, I still couldn’t drop off to sleep straight away. It took me ages to settle down comfortably, what with all of the noise in the corridor. But I did manage to have a sleep without needing to use the facilities, which is one thing for which I ought to be grateful, and I did manage to go off a-wandering too.

I was back running my taxis again last night and although it was the Modern Era, I still had my fleet of Ford Cortinas and they were all pretty-much the worse for wear. But then it did occur to me that the Cortinas still on the market must be in much better condition and much better restored than mine ever were, so why didn’t I go off to the motor auctions to see whether or not I couldn’t pick up one or two new ones to put in the bank for when the licenses of the existing taxis needed to be renewed.

So that was the plan and I would have put it into effect had my room-mate not awoken me by having an early trip to the bathroom. I had a good session in the bathroom too. With there being nothing connected to me right at the moment, I took the opportunity to have a really good scrub and a change of clothes.

This morning I had the usual visits from the nurses but, as expected, no doctor and no dietician. On the other hand, my room-mate had some family in to visit him as early as 10:00 which disturbed my morning peace. Eventually, I gave up and retreated into the common room.

And that’s where I’ve been for most of the day – in the common room not doing very much at all. And once or twice, having just a little doze as the afternoon wore on.

I had the odd visit, a nurse came to see me and a doctor too. Apparently on Tuesday I’m to have an biopsy on my kidneys to find out more about this protein loss that I’m suffering. And while I’m extremely grateful that the hospital is taking such good care of me, it’s really a peripheral treatment and isn’t going to solve the underlying issues – and that for me is the priority.

But we did have a little perturbation at midday. I wasn’t at my bedside when the food came around and when I returned, I discovered that I’d been given the wrong meal. Someone else has had my steamed vegetables and rice and I ended up with a pile of stuff that I couldn’t eat. It’s a good job that my appetite is drifting away otherwise I would have been quite upset.

And not only that, My legs have started to swell up again. The left one in particular is looking pretty miserable. How I’m fed up with all of this.

Still, I’ll go to bed in a bit, hope that I can have a good night’s sleep, and hope that tomorrow will bring me a better day.

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Friday 27th May 2016 – IF ANYTHING …

… my night last night was even worse than the previous one. I was awake for ages before going to sleep and then I awoke again at about 03:30. every time I tried to go to sleep something or someone brought me back round again and that was annoying.

None of the foregoing though stopped me going on a wander. I started off with my old rock group and we were practising in the concert room of some workingmen’s club somewhere. The club opened at 18:00 but the concert room didn’t open until 19:30 so we were able to hire it for that 90-minute period every so often. Things were a bit shambolic and anarchic and it was clear that we weren’t getting on too well together but we had to persevere.
From here we went on to the house of someone whom I know in France. There was agroup of us there and two of our number, the lady owner of the place and her friend, went out for a walk. They hadn’t been gone for more than a couple of minutes when there was the most astonishing thunderstorm and the heavens simply opened. I’d never seen so much rain in all my life. The house leaked like a sieve and the rain roared inside. The two people outside came running back and we asked them whatever possessed them to gooutside when the weather was threatening like this. I wanted to go into the next room but a stream of water cascading down the walls and down the door made me unwilling to open the door but someone else did so and we were thus able to leave the kitchen and go into the living room. But as we went inside, the daughter of the house (who was already in there) shouted “you should see the water going into the bucket”. What was happening was that there was an avalanche of rainwater falling down inside the house, bouncing off the stair rail and going straight into a sink at the back of the living room. But the whole house was inundated, soaking wet, and everything was being ruined.
A short while later, I was at another house and suddenly a couple of people arrived, one of whom was Nerina. They had been to the shops and bought tons – and I do mean tons – of stuff and they were unloading the car and dumping the stuff everywhere. Our task was to take it where it was supposed to go. I remember that there were four huge picture frames but what was in them I do not know because they were wrapped in Christmas gift wrapping. I had two of these and was taking them to another room, but trying to fight my way out with all of the rest of the items and everyone else in the way was proving to be much more difficult than it ought to have been.

The dietician came to see me this morning, and brought one of his drinks to show me. But even though it has no milk as such in it, it’s jam-pack full of milk proteins and so that’s no use to me unfortunately. Apart from that, he doesn’t really have too much of an idea as to where to go from there.

And the doctor came too. She was dismayed when I told her that just half an hour earlier, my “stomach trouble” had reappeared – and in spades too. I did think yesterday that it was too early to go crowing about it. But she tells me that they have decided against the chemotherapy that I’ve been having. They are going to give me some other sort of treatment. However, it does have all of the same side effects such as the shivering and the fever and it’s every three weeks, not every four, so I’m not sure how much further down the road we are going to be with this.

I have a horrible, nagging suspicion that my illness isn’t going to respond to anything really and that I’m going to be stuck like this for ever. seeing them bring another pochette of blood to me this afternoon did nothing to allay my fears.

The spinach that I ordered for lunch came smothered in a creamy kind of sauce which was clearly no good for me so it looks as if I’ll have to abandon my idea of a varied diet and stick with the mixed veg, rice and extra carrots for now.

In case you are wondering, it’s true that I’m feeling pretty disillusioned right now. Not with the hospital, which is doing everything that it reasonably can do to help me out, but with the way things are working. I was hoping that by now I would have shown some kind of improvement and would slowly be starting to get on top of everything, but it’s clearly not working out like I wanted. All of this is generally making me feel quite miserable and when I look back on all of the things that I was doing a year ago, or four years ago, or 10 years ago, it’s beginning to drag me down to think that I might never be doing that again.

So this afternoon I sat quietly (or as quietly as I could – only two visitors per patient are allowed at the bedside at any one time and so a huge family that has just come from Africa to see a relative is all crammed in the day room and as they rotate two-by-two they are creating something of a carnival atmosphere in here and I’m in no mood to enjoy it) and read a pile of stuff on the internet.

Still, tomorrow is another day. It’ll be quieter because there are no ancillary staff members on duty, but I don’t expect it to be any different.

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Thursday 26th May 2016 – IT’S HARD …

… to think of what I’ve done today.

I know that my night last night was nothing like as good as last night. I didn’t drop off to sleep so early and I was awake by 04:00, much to my dismay. In fact, round about 15:00, I dropped off to sleep and was awoken at 17:00 by a nurse gently shaking my leg to tell me that my tea had arrived.

Another thing that I do remember about the night was that a girl who has been described in these pages as “the one that got away” came to visit me at some point.

So what have I done today then?

The answer is, basically, nothing. The doctor came to see me again and she examined me. She says that they will make a decision today about my chemotherapy (although, if they have done, I don’t know what it is) and she offered me an endoscopy to look into my stomach – something that I turned down flat as you might expect.

The dietician came along too. He told me that he’s going to prescribe a certain high-carbohydrate drink for me that has 300 calories per serving, and he would be back shortly after 14:00 with the first instalment. He didn’t put in an appearance either so I don’t know much more about that.

And really, nothing much more.

I have to take my stomach pills twice a day now, so I have been informed, because I still have the nausea, but the problem at the other end seems to have subsided, at least for the moment. Mind you, as we all know with chemotherapy, it won’t be long before it’s back.

Anyway, that’s your lot. I hope that tomorrow will be more exciting.

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Wednesday 25th May 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I had a pretty good night’s sleep last night.

I was in bed by 22:00 and I don’t remember very much after that before I went to sleep, but apart from one or two trips to ride the porcelain horse, that was effectively that until about 07:30. It’s a long time since I’ve had a sleep quite like that in a hospital.

Today, I’ve had a couple of visits. Firstly, the doctor came in for a chat with me. She’s concerned about my general health, which I might have said the other day, but she’s even more concerned about my dramatic weight loss. I’ve lost 11.6kgs since all of this started and she’s worried that if it keeps on at this rate, I’ll be starting on the muscles and proteins and that could be serious. She did however mention that my blood count has gone up after my transfusion – it’s now 8.7.

a short while later, the dietician came to call. Not the usual one (she’s away for a couple of days) but another. he told me that the doctor had sent me and that they wanted to know much more about my eating habits.

He spent a great deal of time chatting to me and seemed to be very thorough in what he was trying to do. He didn’t, unfortunately, have any instant solutions (I would have been surprised had he done so) but he’s going to try to put together some kind of plan and he’ll get back to me tomorrow.

Apart from that, that’s all really. I’ve had a quiet, relaxing day of not doing very much at all, and I’ve managed to force some food down – to such an extent that you might say that I’ve had a couple of decent meals for once. They remembered to bring me biscottesinstead of bread for breakfast – but forgot the jam!I’m hoping that I can have a pretty good sleep tonight too and maybe feel a little better for tomorrow.

But what’s worrying me is that I’m feeling like this already and I haven’t even started the next lot of chemotherapy. Remembering how bad I felt last time once the chemotherapy was over (and that was starting from a good healthy position), whatever am I going to be like in a week’s time?

I shudder to think.

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Tuesday 24th May 2016 – AND WE’RE BACK …

… and the same old hospital routine – the same one that we’ve experienced dozens of times before. Although it wasn’t an especially early night, by 03:30 I was awake again and that was how I stayed for much of the morning. I don’t remember going back to sleep at all. But luckily, my room-mate doesn’t seem to snore, which is a good thing.

We’re back on the hospital diet too and the smell of the food is putting me right off once more. I managed a banana for breakfast, some tomato soup and an apple for lunch, and for tea I had cheese butties and a soya yoghurt.

Yes, cheese butties. When my overnight drip-feed stuff ran out, I nipped down to Caliburn for my suitcase and this time I brought a few supplies with me too – biscuits and cheese and the like – so now I’m prepared for anything.

The dietician came to see me too and we managed to talk about my eating arrangements. I mentioned that I was having these kinds of dietary issues and she promised to do her best to see that I had stuff that I could actually eat.

Another visitor was the girl from the Social Services. She came to see how I was and to chat about my future accommodation, but that was rather pointless at the moment because I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here, so it’s clearly not possible for me right now to arrange appointments to see anyone.

We had the medical staff too, and the doctor gave me a good going-over. And it seems that some kind of decision about my treatment. The general consensus is that the chemotherapy that I’ve been having is too violent for my body, delicate little flower that I am, and they might have to think about giving me another form.

That will be the subject of discussion amongst the medical staff during the week, so it looks as if I’ll be staying here now until the next lot of treatment – due to start on Friday but may be postponed – is complete.

And my mobile phone has been located. Liz very kindly rang up the Premiere Classe Hotel in Soissons and asked them about it. Apparently they found it underneath the pillow in the bedroom. They’ll hang on to it until I’m released from hospital when I’ll go down and pick it up again. That’s not what I had planned to do, but it can’t be helped. Without an address, there’s no other way of receiving it any quicker.

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Monday 23rd May 2016 – MY LIBERTY …

… didn’t last all that long, did it?

Here I am, back in the hospital, in a different ward, and here I’ll be staying, I imagine, until the cows come home. I’ve no idea.

And despite all of the money that I spent on some decent accommodation last night, I had something of a bad night. Having crashed out last night by 21:30, I was awake long before 03:00 and I don’t recall going back to sleep afterwards.

I had a visitor during the night too. A local farmer came to see me back at my place in France (it wasn’t my place in France, actually, but never mind). He complained that I’d been going too fast past his fields and he would appreciate it if I didn’t go so fast and that I didn’t take the short cut through the mountains. I didn’t recognise him so I asked him to show me which were his plots of land, and eventually he whipped out a map of the area, which turned out to be the Arran Peninsula in Scotland. After a good look, I could work out that there were parts of France marked on this map too but I was having difficulty trying to identify them. And while I was doing that, he was explaining that he was part of a committee that oversaw various rules and regulations and had the power to fine transgressors as much as three Euros for any breach thereof.

This morning it was lashing down with rain and there were traffic queues everywhere. Luckily the traffic going my way was moving steadily and I wasn’t delayed by much. In fact, I was at the hospital in the day centre by 09:15, 15 minutes before my appointment.

The place was crowded too and it took a while to be seen, but it wasn’t too long before I was stuffed into a side ward and given what looked like half a gallon of antibiotics. My blood count is down too (although this is no surprise) to 7.4 and so a transfusion is on the cards.

And what with one thing and another (and once you make a start, you’ve absolutely no idea how many other things there are) they’ve decided that rather than kick me out and call me back on Friday, they’ll be keeping me in. Still, focus on the positives – it means that I’m not having to pay any accommodation fees anywhere.

I had to wait ages, though, for a free bed and it wasn’t until 20:30 that I was wheeled upstairs. A different ward, as I said, and no-one speaks English here which is just as well for I need to stretch my Flemish.

I have a room-mate and he seems to be quite cheerful enough and, to my great delight, he doesn’t seem to snore. How I’ve longed for a room-mate like this.

So I’ll settle down for the night now and see how it goes, and I’ll give you all an update tomorrow. If ever I drop off to sleep, that is, because for some reason or other (possibly because I had something of a sleep during the afternoon) I’m not feeling in the least bit tired at the moment.

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Friday 13th May 2016 – NOW, THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!

Last night, I dropped off to sleep during the middle of one of the Boris Karloff “Mr Wong” films, and apart from a trip down the corridor in the small hours, that was all that I remember until 06:25. It was one of the best nights’ sleeps that I’ve had since I left France and I enjoyed it so much.

I’d been on my travels too, playing bass in a rock band somewhere and we had a concert to play, part of a huge music festival. And although we were set up and ready, our drummer (a friend of mine from way back) hadn’t turned up. He hadn’t sent a message or anything to say where he was or what he was doing, and because we weren’t therefore ready, our spot at this festival was slowly being whittled away by the organisers. And with him being my friend, my bandmates were having a little whittle at me about it. Everything was here from this drummer – his tent, his drums, even the roller skates for his roller skate hire business – everything except him.

So breakfast all eaten and done long before the alarm went off, a nice warm shower and clean clothes long before 08:30, even time to spend on doing some more blog updating before hitting the road at 09:30. And I apologise to Pellenberg for some of the things about it. Not because they aren’t true, but because it’s only half the price (like €10:00 per night) to stay here. I’m prepared to put up with the inconvenience at €10:00 per night.

First stop was the bank, where I had business to perform. And I learnt a thing or two there that I didn’t know either and that made me feel bettertoo. And afterwards, I went to LIDL where I bought myself a set of three new toys – some 800mm (massive) SDS drill bits, 16, 18 and 24mm, at €9:00 (for three, not for one) and these are so impressive.

Next stop was to Spit. This is a charity shop in Leuven that sells books, records, clothes and tons of furniture. It’s huge and full of stuff and I spent a pleasant hour in there looking for stuff. Not buying anything, of course, just looking. But I could have bought several items had I been of such a mind. There was some good stuff in there.

Lunch was at the fritkot at the Jacobsplein, and then off to the hospital for my check-up.

I gave a blood sample and it came back as 8.1. And that, surprisingly, is quite stable for the last couple of weeks. In fact, since I’ve been undergoing treatment, the blood count hasn’t dropped below 7.8. They reckon that I can go for a week without a transfusion because they are keen to see how I hold up. I explained that I’ll be doing a lot of driving but they seem to think that I’ll be fine.

I do like their optimism.

So they heaved me out at 16:00 – minus the transfusion – and I hit the road for home. And I don’t mean “home” as in Pellenberg but “home” as in the Auvergne because I’m coming back for a week. I need more clothes, more books, more stuff in general if I’m to stay here until September and I reckon I should grab it while the grabbing is good. My next appointment is Monday 23rd so I have a little 10-day window to do it.

But it was horrendous coming back. Totally horrendous. The traffic queue started just outside Leuven and lasted until well after Valenciennes. And then there were all kinds of perturbations on the Francilienne. All in all, a journey of less than 4 hours to Melun took just under six hours to complete. Ironically, before I set out, I was toying with the idea of going back via the old road to Auxerre but I reckoned the motorway would be less stressful.

Ohh woe is me!

If this isn’t bad enough, the Première Classe Motel where I’m spending the night (in view of my state of health I’m doing the trip back in easy stages and in comfort) isn’t actually in Melun, it’s in the neighbouring commune. However, there’s a street of the same name in Melun so that when you programme the street name and “Melun” into your GPS like someone around here did, you end up in the middle of some rather insalubrious council estate somewhere. That took me a good 20 minutes to sort myself out.

But as the legendary Marechal MacMahon once said – “j’y suis, j’y reste” or “here I am and here I’ll stay”. Or as Martin Luther put it – “hier stehe ich – ich Kann night anders” or “I’m staying here – I can’t do anything else”.

I’ve had enough for one day.

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