… what happened at dialysis today, but by the time that they’d finished with me and I was ready to leave, I had a spinning head, a strange feeling in my stomach and I was feeling light on my feet. It’s not the volume of liquid that they have taken out of me, because I’ve had much more than this in the past, so I dunno.
It’s probably something related to the bad night that I had last night. I wasn’t in bed as early as I was hoping to be, which was a shame. By the time that I’d finished everything that needed finishing and crawled in underneath the covers, it was about 21:45 and, believe me, I was ready for bed.
As usual, it took an age to go off to sleep, but once I’d gone, I’d gone until all of when I needed to leave the bed to take a stroll down the corridor.
As I was passing the Fusebox on the wall, I checked the time. 01:34. That was a good night’s sleep, I have to say.
Back in here later, I crawled into bed but I just couldn’t go back to sleep again, and there I lay for almost five hours, tossing and turning, until the alarm went off at 06:29.
Eventually, I managed to summon up the courage to go into the bathroom for a wash and shave, and then in the kitchen, I washed my medication down with a mouthful of orange juice. After all, it’s dialysis day today.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.
That wasn’t much good, was it? I could do with more exciting dreams than that! But this idea of “a different leg” – how many legs do you think I have? I’m not Jake the Peg.
However, dreaming about dialysis is not just scraping the bottom of the barrel, it’s going through the barrel and into the mud underneath.
The nurse turned up today as usual and chatted about not very much. He’s off on his week’s break this evening so as he left, I wished him a nice break.
Once he’d gone, I could make my breakfast and finish off the last of REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS MADE UPON THE SITE OF THE ROMAN CASTRUM AT PEVENSEY by Charles Roach Smith.
To be quite honest, this book was something of a washout. Roach Smith spends just about three or four pages discussing the excavations, and the rest is comparing the site with other Roman sites elsewhere. As for the finds, there are about three pages of coins tucked away in the appendices. I hope that the next book is more enlightening and interesting.
Back in here, there were a few things that I needed to do, and then I had to check over the radio programme that I was sending off for broadcast this weekend. Afterwards, I made a start on my Welsh homework. There’s still another week before it needs to be in but I want to press on if I can.
As usual, my faithful cleaner turned up to put the anaesthetic on my arm, and then I had to wait for the taxi. And wait, and wait and wait.
The taxi was half an hour late coming for me, but it was my favourite driver so I didn’t mind too much. We had to go to Sartily to pick up another passenger, and so we were hours late arriving at dialysis.
It was in fact 14:45 when I was finally plugged in, and so that meant another really late night arriving home.
With the two bad nights that I’ve had, I was hoping to have a good sleep this afternoon to catch up, but it wasn’t to be. There was a constant stream of visitors this afternoon, and when there wasn’t, the machine was playing up so that brought the nurses running every five minutes.
On top of that, firstly, the doctor came to see me. I had to take a “sample” to him today, so he told me that they were going to analyse it to see whether it’s the dialysis that’s “causing these problems” for me (whatever “these problems” are) and if so, they’ll “do something to help solve the problem”. I don’t like the sound of that one minute.
And then we had the dietician. Apparently, she’d been talking to Emilie the Cute Consultant and they’ve found an intravenous drip that they think might work plugged into the dialysis machine. I don’t like the sound of that either, but at least it means that I shan’t have it stuck in a vein or something.
The way things are, I’m beginning to regret ever having said anything to anyone at dialysis.
Once again, I was the last to be unplugged, but luckily the driver was waiting to take me back home. And it was another one of my favourite drivers so we had a lovely talk all the way home, mainly about cancer and suicide, would you believe? She had quite a story to tell me.
My cleaner was waiting for me when we arrived. She helped me into the apartment and sorted me out.
After she left, I came in here to write up my notes, and now I’m off to bed. Now that the coughing seems to have calmed down, it’s really annoying that there’s something else now that seems to be keeping me awake.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about different legs … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of an incident at Balmoral Castle all those years ago when a serving wench, serving Prince Philip, suddenly burst out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
"What’s the matter, girl?" asked the Queen. "Are you feeling hysterical?"
"Och, no, ma’am. He’s feeling mine."
