… that I didn’t have to go to dialysis this morning. I would probably have never even made it to the front door.
As I told Isabelle the Nurse later, this morning was the worst that I had ever felt in my life.
It didn’t seem like that last night, though. It’s true that with baking my loaf and all of that last night, I was quite late starting to write my notes. And with everything else that I have to do too, it ended up being well after 22:00 that I finally finished everything and crawled under the quilt covers.
As usual, it took a good while to go to sleep, but I awoke at some point due to a desperate coughing fit, so desperate that it caused me to vomit no fewer than four times. After that, somehow I managed to go back to sleep.
But not for long. I awoke again, this time for a different reason, and when I checked the time, it was 03:54. So when I’d finished walking the parapet, I came back to bed but I couldn’t go back to sleep. There I lay until the alarm went off at 06:29.
At that point, it was a desperate struggle to rise to my feet and I almost didn’t make it. And in the bathroom, I crashed out on the chair in there at least twice while I was trying to sort myself out.
Not surprisingly, I was hours late going into the kitchen, but as it’s a Dialysis Day, I just had a mouthful of grapefruit juice to wash down my medication.
Back in here, I fell asleep in my chair I don’t know how many times, but even so, I managed to transcribe the dictaphone notes.
What a pity that I can’t recall the first part of this dream. It sounds as if it might have been interesting. I wonder who the girl was too.
As for the second part, this appears to relate to nothing at all.
When Isabelle the Nurse turned up, I told her of my woes, and she insisted that I talk to a doctor about them. She has agreed that this has gone beyond a joke.
After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright. However, I can’t remember anything that I read. I do, however, remember falling asleep four or five times while I was eating, despite how strong I’d made the coffee.
Back in here, I fell asleep for an hour in my chair and then gradually came round into the Land of the Living. I spent the next fifty minutes researching the next radio programme and then went to prepare my things for dialysis.
My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. We had to go to Sartilly to pick someone else up, and so we were late arriving at dialysis. It goes without saying that I was one of the last to be plugged in too.
While I was being attended to, I mentioned that I would like to see the doctor on duty, so my nurse made a note. And once she’d left, instead of doing any work, I settled down and went to sleep – in so far as it was possible to do so in there.
There were all kinds of people buzzing around my head, but I didn’t take very much notice. It turns out that with everything that I had told them about the fatigue, they had turned the machine up to “maximum” and prolonged the stay from three and a half to four hours. Consequently, just over 3500 ml of fluid was being extracted and my dry weight was set well below my “sporty” weight.
The doctor on duty who came to see me was Emilie the Cute Consultant. She told me that the fibroscopy had discovered two aggressive microbes in my lungs, and so she would prescribe a course of aggressive antibiotics to deal with it. I hope that their aggressiveness matches the microbes – or at least gives me some relief.
While I was at it, I was also having a little chat with an old schoolfriend who now lives in Crewe. He was doing his best to console me, which was very nice.
It was one of my favourite taxi drivers who came to pick me up, and because we had to fuel up with diesel at the depot, we were later than ever arriving home. My faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment and after she left, I came in here to write up my notes. No tea again.
So now that I’ve written up my notes, there are still a few things to do and then I’m off to bed, hoping for a better day tomorrow. After all, it could hardly have been worse today, could it?
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the contents of my lungs … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "do you know what ‘bacteria’ are?"
"They are the rear entrances to cafés, aren’t they?" I replied.
