… at dialysis, I had a session where nothing seemed to go wrong, and it passed this afternoon without the slightest of worries.
On top of that, the médécin de garde this afternoon was Emilie the Cute Consultant, and what could any man want more than that?
In fact, I had an idea that it was going to be a good day today. Although it wasn’t early when I went to bed last night, it wasn’t as late as many have been just recently. And once I was in bed, I went pretty much straight to sleep.
Although I have a couple of vague memories of waking up during the night, I must have gone more or less straight back to sleep because I don’t really remember very much at all until the alarm going off at 06:29.
As usual, it took me a while to rise to my feet, and the first task was, like it always is these days, to go to unlock the front door ready for Isabelle the Nurse when she arrives.
The second task was different today. It was to go to stir the chilli mix. It had been in the slow cooker all night, and it still hadn’t boiled at that point, I noticed. Consequently, I put it on “high” to give it a kick start and went into the bathroom to organise myself for the day, including having a shave ready for Emilie the Cute Consultant in case she examines me.
When I’d finished in there, I went back into the kitchen to check the chilli. By now, it was bubbling away, so I gave it a really good stir and turned the temperature down to “medium” and left it for a while.
Back in here, the first job was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.
Here I am once more with another little group of friends. But apart from that, there’s nothing in this dream that I can readily identify. However, it does have a very familiar ring to it and I’m sure that there’s been something like this happening before, but I just can’t place it.
The presence of my previous Welsh teacher is interesting too, although I’ve no idea why she’s there.
As for the bourbon biscuits, the cheap Tesco ones are in fact vegan, and on several occasions when I was over in the UK, I’d bring back several packets to keep me going. And that gives me an idea – why don’t I ask my chatbot if he can work out a good recipe for me? I may as well try.
… "And as a matter of fact, he did ask, and his chatbot came up with an excellent recipe" – ed …
It looks as if I stepped back into that first dream later on, but this is another dream that means nothing at all to me. I’m not sure why the car would be involved, why I’d be expected over here in France to look at a map and why a girl in the UK would have a trade card for the USA that she would let someone else use.
This one is the most weird of them all.
If I were to point out every inconsistency in this dream, we’d be here forever trying to explain them. But the most important is how my mode of transport changed from being a van, a coach and a motorbike and then back again, and then there was the image of a self-driving coach taking itself through the woods.
It’s probably best if I were to say nothing and let you try to work the rest of them out for yourselves. Perhaps someone can identify if this relates to anything else that has happened in the past.
Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, but a little late today. With her oppo taking over tomorrow, I imagine that there has been a rush for last-minute injections and blood samples. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … she has “the touch”, whereas her oppo doesn’t.
While she was working on my legs and feet, she told me of her plans for her week off. At St Malo over the weekend there’s the start of a single-handed yacht race – the Route du Rhum – between Brittany and the Antilles, finishing at Guadeloupe. She’s off to witness the start and to wish everyone bonne route. It’s a race that takes place every four years, and the record time is well under seven days.
After she left, I made my breakfast and while I was eating, I read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1867.
And those of you who were perturbed by all of this mass slaughter of disappearing wildlife that I mentioned yesterday will be pleased to know that the fish had their revenge. Our author tells us that, on the train along the Wye valley near to Llangoed Castle, "you see from the railway the very pool where poor Mr. Holmes was drowned while fishing, in sight of his newly married wife."
When I’d finished breakfast, I went round into the kitchen and tipped a couple of handfuls of peas and a tin of sweetcorn into the chilli mix, gave it a really good stir, and then began to tidy away the breakfast things. While I was in the fridge, I pulled out two small tubs of soya yoghurt, and when the tidying was done, I switched off the slow cooker and tipped the yoghurt in, giving it a really good stir. Now I’ll let it cool down.
Back in the bedroom, I reviewed the radio programme for this week and sent it off to be added into the stream for the coming weekend, and then I set about reconverting into a format that I can use, the music that my chatbot found for me yesterday. And I hadn’t finished it all when my alarm clock sounded to remind me that it’s time to stop work.
So I sorted out my midday medication and a disgusting drink and then began to pack away the travelling laptop, ready to take with me to dialysis.
My faithful cleaner turned up to apply the anaesthetic to my arm, and I’m glad that she was here because one moment, I was sitting on a chair at the dining table and the next moment, I was lying on the floor with a pain in my head where it had apparently collided with the electronic drum kit.
Between the two of us, I managed to sit back into the chair so that I could finish off putting on my shoes.
After my cleaner had left, I did my usual “collapse in a semi-recumbent position over the table” until the taxi arrived. And it was my favourite Belgian taxi driver too, so we had a good chat. We had to go off into the sticks to find another passenger and then into Sartilly for our usual Monday passenger.
And going off into the sticks is no problem for me. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m going to parts of Normandy that I never knew existed until I started travelling with this taxi company.
As a result of everything, we were late arriving at dialysis, but it didn’t matter too much because I was seen more or less straight away and I was up and running by 14:25. It’s been later than that a few times even when I’ve been on time, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.
To my surprise, especially after the last couple of weeks, there wasn’t much to be extracted, so I persuaded the nurse to wind it up by three hundred millilitres so as to give me a head start for Thursday.
I spent the afternoon watching football. The first game was the rest of Cambrian United v Airbus UK Broughton. From 2-0 down, Airbus won 3-2. This was a Cambian United-sponsored stream, so they had one of their fans commenting, and even he was forced to admit that once Airbus began to play with the wind in the second half, they were by far the better team. Cambrian’s “kick and rush” style of play into a headwind was taking them nowhere.
When that match was over, I watched the whole of Colwyn Bay v Cardiff Metropolitan. Very much against the run of play, the Met took the lead, and when the Seagulls had a player sent off in the thirty-first minute, we thought that it was “game over”.
However, then we had two of the most extraordinary goals that I’ve seen for a while. Defending a corner kick in a swirling wind, a Met player went to head the ball out of danger. The wind, however, swirled the ball round to the back of his head and another gust of wind took it into his own net.
Even worse, a few minutes later, the Seagulls had another corner. Kicking an inswinging ball into the penalty area in the same swirling wind, the ball beat everyone and went straight into the net. So from being 1-0 down, Colwyn Bay had gone to 2-1 even with being a man down.
However, in the second half, the Met had the wind in their favour and they managed to find an equalising goal, although it wasn’t as bizarre as those of Colwyn Bay.
Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me. She wanted to know how I was getting on with the immunotherapy, so I explained that I seemed to be doing OK. She said too that she would see what she could arrange about this COVID vaccination, which was nice of her.
While she was there, I took advantage of asking her about the nighttime sessions of dialysis. She explained that it probably wasn’t for me, which is a shame. Firstly, you need to be autonomous, which I’m not. You need to be in good health and not require medical supervision, which rules me out too, and then you need to be able to compress your own wounds, and that definitely rules me out.
When it was time to be unplugged, I didn’t have to wait long, and the nurse came over to me with a nursing student just starting her second year. She’d come on a work placement to dialysis for a few weeks and it was her first day.
However, there was all kinds of chaos going on around me, with ill patients, rebellious patients, and machines sounding alarms all over the place, so I let my experienced nurse clear off once she’d unplugged me and I taught the nursing student how to do a compression … "is there no end to this man’s talents?" – ed …
My driver was waiting for me when I was ready, and I was home by 18:40. My cleaner helped me inside and then stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt.
After she left, I made some rice and veg and then heated up a couple of serving spoons full of my chilli in the microwave. That was tea tonight and it was delicious, but I’ll know all about it tomorrow, that’s for sure.
Pudding was more apricot halves with home made chocolate and coconut ice cream, and that was as delicious as usual too.
After the washing up, I portioned out the rest of the chilli into individual servings, and then I had to tidy the freezer to be able to fit them in there. But now, they are quite happily freezing away, ready for use another time.
So now that my notes are written, there are just a couple of other things to do and then I’m off to bed. No Welsh course tomorrow, so I can relax a little.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about nursing students … "well, one of us has" – ed … a student nurse from Crewe went to do her first work placement.
Amongst the things that she had to check that she had brought with her was a red crayon.
"Why have you brought that?" asked her placement supervisor.
"Well" replied the student. "I’m not sure how else I’m expected to draw blood while I’m on this ward."
