… the dictaphone from the night last night.

For the simple reason that I didn’t really have a night last night.

There were several nocturnal voyages, but in every case I was wide awake, knew where I was going and what I was trying to do. There were some rather uncomfortable situations and moments as Bibendum deflated and disappeared and I resumed something like my normal self

And you’ve no idea – or maybe you have, I dunno – how good it feels to have had a shower after all this time. There I was, riding the porcelain horse in the rather cramped bathroom, and the flexible shower pipe and shower head were right in front of me. I didn’t need an invitation.

It was the most peculiar shower, sitting there like that, but it worked and it was wonderful. But one thing is that I should have been selling tickets, the number of people who stuck their heads into the bathroom to check that I was OK.

So here I am, sitting on my throne in my office here in my bedroom in my own clothes rather than a hospital nightgown and you’ve no idea how good that feels either. Just like Marvin Lee Aday and EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT
I FELT THE FEVER GROW
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE?
ALL REVVED UP WITH NO PLACE TO GO

It’s a different throne too. Now that I am unplugged and much more mobile than I have been of late, the … errr … convenient chair has been consigned to the dustbin of history and I’m now sitting on the comfortable seat that I have recovered from its exile. This is an improvement to my situation too.

But as for last night, I was left pretty much alone for most of the evening. No-one came to disturb me so I put myself to bed again, and it was much easier than it has been recently too.

For the first hour or two things went according to plan and I had a good sleep. But that was all there was.

Round about 02:00 we had the first of our nocturnal voyages which wasn’t much of a success but bearing in mind previous difficulties, involved the intervention of some of the nursing staff. But once things started, they didn’t stop and as Bibendum slowly deflated at last the nocturnal voyages became quicker and more frequent. While all this was going on, sleep was out of the question.

The nurse came around at about 07:00 and asked "Have you been?"
An accompanying orderly, sticking her head into the bathroom and looking at the contents of a certain container, said "I think he’s been"
And I had the feeling of being in a 1960s British television programme dubbed for the foreign language market.

They gave me the test for diabetes and when the morning nursing team took over I had a second. The good news was that not only did I qualify the first time round for a glass of orange juice, I qualified the second time for jam with my morning bread

No-one came round for ages to deal with me or my bed. By the time that they did, I was already in the bathroom making the most of freedom. It was lovely, as I said, but next time I’m going to barricade myself in. It was embarrassing but really, do I care?

The prescriptions that I have include a Vitamin D supplement on Thursday and the injections of Binocrit (replacing Aranesp) as the Injection of the Last Resort on a Wednesday if necessary. So God knows what day it is today because the nurse came round to give me the Vitamin D and the injection. What with all of the blood tests, the needles, the anti-coagulant injections twice per day, I’m becoming something like a dartboard. One with all of his problems not a double top but at triple nineteen.

After all of this, I was pretty-much left alone. I took advantage of this by curling up on my new comfy chair for an hour or two. But they also forgot my afternoon coffee. When the nurse came to check in later to ask if everything was OK I replied "No" and complained about the lack of coffee.

But bless their hearts, an orderly sailed off in search of a coffee and having scoured the hospital, came back 10 minutes later with a piping-hot mug of the aforementioned. They are lovely.

However, while I was away with the fairies I had the impression of being the Procurement Officer of a small country trying to obtain some aeroplanes for our nascent air force. I shall really have to stop reading these World War II aeroplane technical notes when I’m not doing anything else

A doctor (not one of the usual two) stuck his head in too. He asked if everything is OK so I told him of my adventures.

He wandered away and ten minutes later the nurse came back with yet another pill "Take this" she said. "The doctor thinks that you aren’t losing enough water"

If the truth were known, neither do I. So here goes. How many is this now?

Having made suitable enquiries, It looks as if I’m now back on the Burinex again. That’s a tablet that I’d been taking since right at the very beginning of my adventures all those years ago but they stopped and replaced with another a few weeks ago and all of my troubles began.

Now it seems that I’m taking them both. How long will this scenario last? As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … these doctors are sailing in uncharted waters with this illness being so rare and it’s all being done by trial and error. But let’s hope that there isn’t another error like this last few weeks otherwise we might end up with some kind of trial somewhere and that would be unfortunate.

The nightnurse has just come by to give me my evening injection of anti-coagulant. That means that shortly things will be winding down for the evening. She asked me if I needed any help in going to bed. Well, had I been 20 years younger I would have made a remark but these days I’ll just think it instead. This particular nurse is quite a nice girl.

So before I go, talking about trials has reminded me of one of the times when I was steaming down the M6 near Tebay with a party of holidaymakers on our way from Central Scotland to the Continent with one of Shearings’ coaches.
On the fells opposite, there was a Sheepdog Trials taking place so for the want of anything better to do, we pulled off the motorway to watch the proceedings.
Having parked the coach and disembarked to passengers I went to buttonhole a local. And he was a very vocal local yokel too.
"How are they getting on?" I asked.
"You’re too late" he replied. "All of the dogs have been acquitted."