… idea of what’s happening to me at dialysis. All I do know is that something isn’t correct.
On Monday, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I was the lightest that I had been for a while when I weighed myself before we started. And it must have been correct because when I weighed myself afterwards, the weight corresponded with what it should have been given the amount of fluid removed.
As well as that, we had the blood pressure slowly creeping up and then, after a few hours back at home, we had that bleeding issue… "or that bleeding bleeding issue" – ed …
Today, I had the highest weight that I have ever had since I’ve been keeping records, and so I spent four hours there today. And heaven alone knows what it would have been had I not persuaded the nurse to take an additional three hundred grammes on Monday.
And then the blood pressure went through the roof – 13.0, which may be normal for you, but it certainly isn’t for me. Finally, after the ten minutes of compression at the end, the nurse relaxed her grip, and we had blood everywhere.
None of this is normal, not by any means, especially as I have no problems riding the porcelain horse, and the next time that I see Emilie the Cute Consultant, I shall tell her.
Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, last night I was terribly late going to bed again. But luckily, I was able to go to sleep quite quickly. I’ve no idea what time it was that I awoke, but I lay there vegetating for quite a while. Eventually, I decided that I may as well show some signs of life, but the alarm beat me to it.
And then, miserable failure that I am, I was still in bed when the second alarm went off, and it’s been ages since that has happened. I ended up being hours late unlocking the door ready for the nurse when he arrives.
In the bathroom, I sorted myself out and even had a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant later on.
Back in here, with nothing to download off the dictaphone, I found a few other things to do until the nurse put in an appearance, earlier than usual. And today, we discussed the weather while he was dealing with my legs and feet. It’s supposed to be nice this weekend, but I’ll wait and see.
After he left, I made my breakfast and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1867.
And here we go again. Today, our heroes have gone to visit the Bury Ditches Hillfort near Clunton in Shropshire. Our party leader explained to his group that he "had examined these earthworks since, and from their bold and perfect condition, he was of opinion that they could not be older than the Roman period. They might even be Roman, for it is now well known that the Romans made elliptical camps as well as square ones. There were, however, no authentic Roman monuments similar to this one, and this, therefore, was very doubtful. If not a Roman work, what is it? He considered it to be Saxon, of the very early period of the Saxons. He believed it to be—not a camp—but the house of a Saxon chieftan of great importance, dating probably from about the sixth century."
According to everyone else these days, it’s an Iron Age hillfort, as are almost all of these hillforts.
Back in here again afterwards, I had a few things to do, and then, oh! what might have been. I attacked the radio notes and in just about seventy-five minutes, I’d completed about sixty percent. If only I had worked this hard on Tuesday and Wednesday.
When the alarm went off, I headed into the kitchen for my disgusting drink and midday medication, and then I began to sort my things for dialysis. My cleaner came along as usual and applied the anaesthetic to my arm.
We had a good chat, and then after she left, I had a couple of things to do and then collapsed over the table.
And, as usual, I was just about to drift off into another comfortable dream when the doorbell rang. It was the young, chatty taxi driver who had come to take me to dialysis. He was ten minutes late, but as I was the only passenger, we made up a lot of the time. And at dialysis, we had the pantomime that I had mentioned.
After I was plugged in, I watched the last football match from the weekend – Caernarfon v Llansawel.
It took a while for Caernarfon to settle into their stride, but once they were up and running, they had much more in the tank than Llansawel and scored three really good goals.
But all through the match, Llansawel’s tactic of putting low crosses into the box was meat and drink to the Caernarfon defence, and I was screaming at them to put the ball in the air. With about three minutes to go, they finally got the message and began to pump high crosses into the goal area, and sure enough, in stoppage time, they managed to pull a goal back. But it was too little, too late.
For the rest of the session, I had some things to do, tidying up on the computer.
As usual, when I’d finished, I had to wait until the nurse (the other one of the two whom I mentioned a couple of days ago) finished cleaning the machine before she attended to me, and then there was the history about the blood. But eventually, I was ready to leave, the last patient in the building.
My driver, another chatty one, was waiting for me, and we had an interesting chat about religion on the way home. My cleaner was ready, waiting for me, and she helped me into the apartment.
It was almost 19:45 when I arrived, and there was no danger of me cooking at that time, so I had crackers and spreading cheese, followed by some biscuits and an orange.
Now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed in the hope of having a good night, but once again, I shouldn’t be so optimistic as it only leads to disappointment.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about blood pressure … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember arriving at the hospital in Paris, and when they checked my blood pressure, it was through the roof.
"Your blood pressure is high today, Mr Hall" said the nurse.
"Well, I’ll tell you what," I replied. "You go for a drive around Paris with the chauffeur who has just brought me here and see what yours is afterwards!"
