… stuck in my hospital bed and had it not been for the physiotherapist and several urgent needs for trips to the porcelain horse, I wouldn’t have put my sooty foot outside my bed today.
The nadir of my existence is that they haven’t even been to make my bed today and I haven’t had a wash or anything because no-one has brought me any clean clothes or washing material.
In fact, I seem to have slid downhill from Celia in “As You Like It” and her “I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.” yesterday to Macbeth’s “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day” in the space of about 18 hours.
It’s all been brought about by the most boring afternoon that I have ever had. Absolutely nothing at all happened this afternoon to relieve the boring monotony of what didn’t go on.
Last night I fell asleep at some time in the early evening and awoke in a panic at some point thinking that it was quite late and I still had on my headphones. However it was only 23:40 so I switched off everything with a big air of disappointment.
At a couple of other times during the night I awoke and ended up at the bathroom but when the alarm did go off at 06:30 I was already wide awake.
There was quite a bit of stuff on the dictaphone. I was messing about as usual, dismantling cars, building little projects, getting electric circuits going, making lights flash etc. I ended up at University. I found an empty room so I moved a car and something else into it, put a bench in it, and began my car dismantling again and my little serendipitous experiments etc. I was having great fun. Then the idea came to me “why don’t I invite others from the University to come and share the fun with me,”. I announced that one evening I’d have a meeting in this room. The room was packed with people who came to listen to what I had to say. I told them what I wanted to do and hoped that they’d take part in it etc. The numbers whittled down during the talk. It came to a question of ghosts and it whittled down even further even though I had my notes about the experiences I’d had from ghosts in the past. I could see from the questioning of the two who remained that I’d have a hard core of maybe half a dozen people similar to me and we’d have something. However I was rather dismayed with all of the negativity that was coming from a few of these people even though I’d managed to talk my way into a University room etc. I thought that I’d done really well and maybe deserved a little more appreciation than I was receiving.
And then back at home the alarm went off and we all got up. It was the birthday of a girl who was staying with us. Nevertheless there were some presents that had to be wrapped for some other occasion so we began to wrap them. About an hour later my father appeared. he was the one who should have been wrapping these other presents but didn’t, saw that we were almost finished and made a few remarks. he said to the girl whose birthday it was “there’s a little present down there. It’s not very much, just a token of our appreciation. Is a fiver any good to you?”. She looked rather embarrassed but said “yes. Thank you very much”. My father said ‘you’ll probably receive much more than that after you take over this family once I’ve gone”. I could see the change of look in her eye, thinking of the impoliteness of what he had said to her etc, this little box with this fiver in it while we were wrapping all these big boxes for him. I could see the change in her face from one of annoyance to one of starting to make plans. I wondered how long it would be before my father found himself over the bannisters and this girl taking charge of the family
After breakfast the doctor came, bringing with her another junior doctor. And as I hadn’t seen anyone for a couple of days I gave the two of them a blast of what is rapidly becoming my trade-mark speech about the wasted opportunities that are happening, or not happening as the case may be.
She explained a little more about what is happening, such as this blood infection that seems to be coming from my catheter port and how on Monday I might be having another examination.
My point that with a lifespan that expires in 2026 at the latest I can’t afford all these delays. She replied that there wasn’t much that anyone can do about my underlying health condition while everyone is fighting the effects of this virus, but I was of the opinion that I would have expected all four professors from the various departments standing around me discussing my case in order to put an end to this bickering and continued case of “pass the parcel” that is wasting my life away.
In the end she went away. Not that I think that anything will happen but of you throw enough whatsit at a wherever some of it might stick and make its was back to the professors concerned.
Shortly afterwards the physiotherapist came by. He gave me a few exercises to do while I was in bed and then a few more to do standing up and even walking to the bathroom door and back.
While we were chatting, I mentioned that strengthening my muscles was one thing but it wasn’t solving the underlying problem of mu right lower leg folding up underneath me.
He was completely taken aback by my remarks, almost as if he hadn’t heard them before.
Anyway, I launched into my story, and gave him all of the information yet again but I wasn’t convinced that he took much notice of what I was telling him
So however all of this pans out, I bet that it won’t be exactly how I would like it to be, viz and to wit, to solve the problem of my leg definitively.
In case regular readers of this rubbish can’t recall the situation, the reason why “I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.” is because I’m too scared to leave. All of these issues about viruses, infections and the like mean absolutely nothing to me in the normal run of things but I don’t think that I’d get 100 yards from here on my feet without falling over.
And then I don’t have the strength to pick myself up.
The rest of the day has been spent falling asleep and being shaken awake by a selection of nurses. It’s really been a most boring afternoon and the next couple of days will be just as bad as the hospital quietens down for the weekend.
So now I’m off to sleep. And having spent most of today trying to fight off waves of sleep, I bet that I won’t be able to fall asleep at all now.
