But not, unfortunately, undrugged.

The price that I have had to pay for having all of my pipes and tubes removed is to be pumped full of yet more pills and potions and I don’t think that it’s ever going to end.

That’s not the only thing that didn’t end either. Last night, being already in bed after my “incident” in the earLy afternoon, I was left pretty much alone. I was reading a long, involved article on the internet and the next thing that I noticed was that it was 00:40.

Something must have changed somewhere with my condition because I found it much easier to lie on my side last night and I would have had a good nights sleep except for all of the clattering that started up shortly afterwards, followed by the stabbing pain in my left heel

Just after 06:00 someone came round with a glass of orange juice and the instruction to remove one of the tubes.

In my opinion it’s too early but they know best, I imagine. And it came out much easier than it went in. I am the first to agree that it was necessary but I will never in the whole of my life forgive them or forget them for doing it. I’ll have nightmares about it for ever.

After that, they left me alone to sulk for a while.

There was a blood test later followed by breakfast. No jam because my blood sugar is too high. So why give me the orange juice earlier? It beats me. But at least they won’t have a reading of 3.48 while I’m stuffing a jam butty down my neck this morning.

The former Chinese Tong hitwoman came to give me a bed-bath afterwards. She previously worked “with old people” before joining the hospital service, so she said, and believe me, I don’t ‘arf feel old right now so nothing much in her work has changed.

Once we’d finished someone came by and removed the remaining tubes and took the needle out of my arm. I’m now a free man.

However, as I said, I’m disconnected in exchange for taking yet more pills.

Next person to call was the person who takes my blood pressure and so on, and then I had a rather uncomfortable visit.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that three years ago at Castle Anthrax I had a surgical intervention on my kidneys to remove a part that was infected with the cancer that I have.

The fact is that the operation failed – in the sense that the infection is back, and in spades too. My kidneys are now only functioning at 25% and failing rapidly.

At this rate it won’t be very long before the fail altogether so apparently now is the time to discuss preparation for dialysis.

She began to explain, in a fashion that might have suited a five-year-old, the do-it-yourself version but I stopped her before she had gone too far and told her that I would select the other version, where I have to come to the clinic three times per week.
"But I haven’t told you what it is" she wailed
"I know" I replied "but you’ve told me enough about the d-i-y version for me to know that I’m never going to do that."
So for those of you who tell me that I ought to get out more often, is three times per week enough?

Seriously though, for everyone who comes to the clinic (everything paid for, even the taxi) there’s so much support and I have a feeling that it won’t be long before I need much closer medical supervision than I’m having. But what kind of state is this to be in?

They are in fact building a new extension where selected patients who are more autonomous and less at risk might come for overnight dialysis. Now wouldn’t that be ideal?

However, it does make me wonder – with my legs, my eyes, my kidneys – what’s going to ack up next and, more to the point, how are they going to fix it?

So having re-arranged my office to the other side of the bed nearest to the bathroom now that I can go there, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. Firstly I was trying to collect all of the details of yesterday all ordered out into the proper chronological order in my head ready to dictate which was silly because I’d already written them out but it’s the pain in my right … "you mean “left”" – ed … heel that’s at the moment killing me that I’m really suffering. I don’t know where this pain is coming from but I do know where it’s going and it really is awful. I’m going to have to amputate my leg if it continues

Yes, this pain in my heel during the night is astonishing. I’ve no idea why it should happen either. They seem to think that it’s due to an oedema becoming impounded into the flesh of the leg by the weight of my body as I sleep but I dunno.

And then we were in a group doing some case studies at University. One of the cases was to be a murder victim, which of course aroused everyone’s attention. We were wondering how on earth we were going to manage to do this. But someone had made some kind of remark about this woman who’d been seen trying to board a bus and what kind of pig’s ear she was making of it so I happened to mention that that was my mother. She’d just been in to see me and was in fact a murderess, having just killed someone on her way out. That seemed to calm everyone down for a moment while they digested the news. The stuff that we were doing was really ancient stuff going back to the Eighteenth Century and that made it really interesting

As it happens, I could well imagine my mother as a murderess. Her egg and chips was enough to wipe out a regiment during the war. However, my money would have been more likely on her as a murder victim, and I know plenty of candidates for the culprit.

But as usual, I have no idea why she and the rest of my family keep on intruding into my dreams. I wish that they wouldn’t.

After lunch of diced beetroot followed by potatoes and green beans, I really was left alone for a while to carry on reading about the Anti-Comintern Pact and the Pact of Steel, and to chat to Liz and one of my neighbours on the Internet. But there was the usual chaos at about 18:00 when they all appeared at once to take my blood pressure, diabetes count and so on

They asked me if I was ready for bed too. Really? I’m happy to sit up and just enjoy the freedom until much later than this. probably 5 hours later too. I won’t be rushed into bed, unless it’s by Kate Bush or Jenny Agutter.

What I’ll do is to add this post in and then go back to reading my article

But one of those suggestions about the pain in my heel was that it was "…simply old age."
"That’s rubbish!" I retorted
"Why is that?"
"Because the other heel is exactly the same age and there’s nothing wrong with that"