… before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … a thoracic puncture is the most painful medical intervention that I have ever suffered in my life.
And, having said that, I now wish to withdraw that remark. I do not ever in my life wish to suffer the pain through which I went with this muscular biopsy. I would rather take a dozen thoracic punctures any day. I have never hurt so much in all my life.
But be that as it may, there is a lot of ground to cover before we actually arrive at that point.
Last night, after I’d finished writing my notes, I was thoroughly exhausted despite all of the sleep that I had during the day, and by 22:30 I was in bed, tucked up under the sheets. Not “under the blankets” because there weren’t any on the bed.
It wasn’t all that long before I was asleep either, although as is usual in a hospital, being a very light sleeper means that I have very little sleep, what with all of the racket that goes on in a hospital during the night.
And as I have also said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … there is no point whatever going to bed early because all it means is that I wake up correspondingly early.
And while 04:05 might seem to be rather absurd to some, I didn’t have any choice in the matter. There I lay, drifting in and out of reality until the nurse came to take a blood sample at 06:30. Her procedure was what I would call “efficient” and she didn’t hang about either. It was all done and over in a matter of a handful of seconds with no trouble at all.
Before she left, she asked me "Anything else that you need?"
"A coffee" I replied, more in hope than expectation, but needless to say, I was told to clear off.
Round about 07:30 the circus began in earnest and I had no more rest after that, with blood pressure, temperature, all of that kind of thing.
As Hawkwind once famously said in SONIC ATTACK "your only protection is flight" and I fled into the bathroom for the morning ablutions.
Not that I was safe in there either because someone came to look for me – to ask me if I needed any help, just as I was finishing.
Breakfast wasn’t long a-coming, but my medicine never arrived. And never arrived at all during the day, possibly because no-one had thought to take my prescription yesterday when I checked in.
After breakfast I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was an advert on television about washing powder or something. Some woman was sitting on a sofa holding a bowlful of it when a dog jumped onto her lap and the bowl went everywhere. My younger brother decided that he would try it. He waited until someone was sitting on the sofa with a bucket full of something but it was actually cooking fat. He was training the dog to jump up on her and the cooking fat went everywhere. I went in to see what the commotion was and saw the mess. I went back into my room and on the two-way radio I said “that looks three metres by three metres, nine square metres, nine metres cubed so we reckon that if you make a start now, you might have it all tidied up and cleaned away by breakfast. My mother heard it and was immediately swept up in a kind-of anger. She dashed into the bedroom and sorted out some old bedclothing, bed covers, sheets and so on. She said “you can’t leave your brother to clean that up. I’m going to do it”. I asked “how do you think he’s going to learn? And then again, you’re always complaining that no-one ever takes any notice of me. Here I am, giving some kind of instruction and you’re almost immediately undermining it, so what do you expect?”. She completely lost her temper at this point . She stuck her face right in front of mine and began to scream at me. I just couldn’t understand what on earth was the matter with her. My brother had caused all of the mess so it’s up to him to clean it up. It all seemed quite logical to me
“I just couldn’t understand what on earth was the matter with her”. That was perfectly true when we were small, but as we grew older we certainly began to understand exactly what it was. It was a combination of several factors, none of which should be the subject of discussion here. But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the idea that I would get it in the neck for anything that my brothers and sisters did was a habitual state of affairs. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I remember talking to my friend’s daughter in Florida on the internet years ago who was having a major bout of pre-teen angst. "whenever I do anything wrong and my little brother tells my mom, my mom yells at me. But whenever he does anything wrong and I tell my mom, my mom yells at me for not watching him". I really felt for poor Tina at that moment.
And having said all of that, since when did logic ever play any role in anything that our family ever did?
Somewhere along the line, Nerina put in an appearance. We were talking about the USA. She said that although she had only visited three or four States of the USA she had certain opinions about certain things. I asked her which States she had visited. She listed four of them in New England, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, that area, That was how that part of the dream went on but I’m not sure how it fitted in.
If ever I had to live in the USA (not that I would – the USA has become a horrible place since the election of Bush and the de-humanising of the country – I would be most at home in New England. Vermont would be my State of preference – I’ve spent many a happy hour, day, week there in Burlington and Brattleboro’ – followed by New Hampshire and then Maine
I was talking to friends about the underground floor of the Place d’Armes when suddenly the door of my apartment opened. There were people in there brushing it out and it was filthy, disgusting. There was dust and all kinds of stuff everywhere. it looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for twenty years. As they carried on working with the door open, firstly the woman whom I knew came out and said a few words. Then an older woman with only one eye came out and said a few more. Then a man who was probably the partner of the first woman came out. He saw me and said “you’ve done all right out of this, haven’t you?”. This started a huge row in the …. On one occasion I said “on one occasion I did propose that you can take over my apartment. I wasn’t putting you out on the street”. He replied “she can’t do that. She has two weak knees”. I replied “and what do I have?”. He didn’t have an answer to that. In the end I told him to shut his mouth, go back into the apartment and carry on. He could of course spend as much time arguing with me as he likes because the longer he argues, the less work he’s doing so the more work he’s going to have to do so the longer he’s going to have to stay so the more rent he’ll have to be paying me.
As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I did offer the tenant an exchange of apartment as far back as November 2023, but the tenant refused. She’s also had at least two opportunities to buy it (in France, if a property with tenants is put up for sale, the tenant must be offered the property first) and has refused to buy it on either occasion. But seeing as she has had informal notice 18 months ago and formal notice in July last year, she’s had plenty of time to find somewhere else as she said herself in a letter in her reply to me eighteen months ago.
As I was revising for my Welsh course, I was invaded by a doctor and a gaggle of students who began to pull my legs apart and watch me as I marched later up and down. He gave a running commentary on my condition and the examination that he made and then had a lengthy chat afterwards, which told me nothing that I didn’t really know before.
He disappeared with my paperwork and my inscription but it changed nothing. I still didn’t have any medication. It’s a good job that I’d brought my own anti-cancer medication with me.
Because of his lengthy visit I had missed the first fifteen minutes of my Welsh class. I joined in rather late and was doing quite well, despite the lack of preparation, but had to exit rather hurriedly when lunch came.
It was a good job that it came when it did because about fifteen minutes later they came to fetch me for my biopsy. We had to wait ten minutes outside the laboratory in the wind and then I had a fifty-minute wait inside until the specialist arrived.
Whatever happened in there, you don’t want to know and I don’t want to talk about it, except that I will go through anything except a second one of those.
Back here, I collapsed into my chair and I haven’t moved since. I’ve been searching for a few more films by Launder and Gilliatt to watch in bed tonight, without very much luck although I did manage to locate a copy of the “dummy run” for the SAINT TRINIANS films, a film called THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE with many of the usual suspects.
Yesterday, I was afraid that I was rather over-optimistic with the vegan meals. Today at lunch, the vegan option was an omelette. This evening, it was steamed fish. So I ate what I could tonight and then made myself a cheese butty. It’s a good job that I’d brought my own supplies
So now I’m off to bed. I have a blood test in the morning at 05:30, so I’ve been told. That means another night of studying, I suppose, one one day I might even pass. We shall see.
But seeing as we have been talking about States in the USA … "well, one of us was" – ed … when I took Kit, Liz (“this” Liz, not “that” Liz)’s daughter to University in Ontario I crossed over the river and went to have a look around Detroit.
Back in France later, someone asked me "what State is Detroit in?"
"Well" I replied, "from what I saw, it was in a flaming dreadful one."
