… not sitting in a rainbow but lying in a hospital bed. They took one look at me during my second examination and that was that;
But anyway, the hotel was nice and comfortable and I actually managed a couple of hours sleep at some point. During the night I dreamt that my missing parcel had turned up last night. There was a note on it “delayed due to suspicious contents”. I was wondering whether it was the nutmeg in it that had attracted their attention or not.
At about 07:00 I set out for the station, hobbling all the way down there to the ticket machine where I bought my ticket for the 07:24 express to Leuven.
It’s one of the pushme-pullu trains powered by a Class 18 electric locomotive, number 1817 as you can see.
With it being a double-decker there are steps up into the carriage and I’m beginning to have difficulty climbing in now. I hope that that isn’t a portent of things to come. I shall be having real difficulty if I do because many of the “Leuven” trains are like this
You can see how early it is that I’ve set out this morning. As I hurtle across the Flanders plain, the sun is only slowly beginning to rise and dawn is slowly breaking
And we all know the old saying –
“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight
Red sky in the morning, Leuven’s ablaze.
Although the train was on time it was held up on a couple of occasions and ran at a snail’s pace all the way Consequently we were 15 minutes late arriving.
Added to that the buses were all in chaos and the one that I wanted didn’t arrive. I had to wait 10 minutes for the next and as a result I was very late arriving at the check-in.
The first test was a breathing exercise which I failed miserably, coughing everywhere. In the end she didn’t bother with the final test.
The second exam was my nephrology test. There I poured out all my woes, not just about this illness but about everything that is affecting me too. They gave me several tests of all kinds of things, including a balance test where I had to walk by putting one foot in front of the other. And I forget how many times they had to grab me to stop me falling over.
That was enough for them. They telephoned to arrange a room for me. And here I am.
The rest of the day was spent being pushed around in my bed for a pile of examinations.
One of then was to push a camera down my throat to check my lungs. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s the kind of thing that will happen over my dead body, as I explained. Despite their assurances, I was still unwilling so they gave me a pill to “relax” me.
Three hours later I regained consciousness with the examination completed. They told me that I have an atypical viral pneumonia.
This kind of thing they tell me usually clears itself after a week or so but with me having no immune system it’s anyone’s guess when it will clear. Consequently I’m here for a while being pumped full of antibiotics in the hope that something might work
So right now here I am. I’ve asked for and been given a sleeping pill and I’m hoping for a really good sleep.
And I might even have one too.
