Tag Archives: hospital

Monday 4th July 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… no-one disturbed me during the night and I had a reasonable night’s sleep. I was up and about a couple of times during the night as you might expect, and I was off on my travels too. And I would tell you all about it except that you are probably eating your breakfast or something right now.

I was up before the alarm went off too – beating the blasted church bells by a couple of minutes – and I had a good breakfast. I was not alone either – I had company for fifteen minutes or so while I tucked in.

It took me a while to sort myself afterwards and then went off to the hospital. A brisk 20-minute walk (and saying that it was brisk tells you how I’m feeling right now) brought me to the hospital, and I dropped off my nice clean bed-linen in Caliburn. That’s more stuff out of the way now. However, when I returned here later in the afternoon, I bought a pile of tinned stuff with me so we are quits.

But we have had some good news in the hospital, and that is that my blood count has gone up from 9.3 to 10.0 – all on its own. And that’s after two weeks too. Mind you, we’ve had a couple of false dawns before as you know, and so I’m more interested in seeing what it will be like in two weeks time.

We discussed my water retention issues, and they sent me down for a scan to see whether there was a thrombosis. That turned out to be negative, so they could start the next lot of treatment. They are giving me Mabthera, something that is designed for the chemotherapy-intolerant of those who have relapsed. I had that last time and I didn’t notice any side-effects and that’s positive news.

And, of course, no blood transfusion and that’s always good news too.

They have given me an emergency number to ring in case I have another major swelling issue like the other weekend, so I’ll have to file that carefully. I might need it.

I was liberated late in the afternoon and walked back down here in the heat and sunshine and doesn’t that make a pleasant change?

I cooked myself a meal of chick peas and the like with rice and had a chat with Lizand Rosemary on the internet. Now, I’m having a quiet relax before bedtime.

And in other news, I’m sure that you have noticed that yet another rat has deserted the sinking ship. It seems that the Brexit “Ship of Fools” is now drifting helplessly on the storm-tossed seas with no hand on the tiller. Not one of the leaders of the “Brexit” campaign has stayed to steer the ship. That’s because they all know what is awaiting them (Standard Life is the first financial institution to close down part of its UK operations as a result of the result) and they don’t want to have the catastrophe nailed on their doors.

It’s really quite funny to watch all the Brexit leaders running away.

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Friday 1st July 2016 – I’M WHACKED!

I’ve had a really busy day and I’m exhausted.

What didn’t help was that I was awake this morning at 05:30 despite having already had a couple of trips down the corridor. And I couldn’t go back to sleep. I was up early for breakfast too so that was all done and dusted by 08:30.

Check-in at my new place wasn’t until after midday so I had a little relax for a couple of hours and then I filled my backpack and suitcase with stuff to move, and all of the dirty clothes and bedding into an IKEA bag. Once I’d done that, I set off for my new digs.

The place isn’t so bad here. I’ve a big double bed plus a single couch-type of bed. As well as that, there’s a comfortable two-seater divan and small desk and chair. Not only that – there’s a TV and combined DVD/Video player. Shame that I didn’t bring any DVDs.

The kitchen is adequate, complete with dishwasher, and the bathroom that I share with a couple of other rooms is nice and clean. There’s a sitting room too and also a roof terrace. It’s closer to the hospital and the town centre and the street outside is fairly busy, but I have double glazing.

It’s tired, and seen better days, but it looks quite good value for the money that I’m spending. I could be quite comfortable here, I reckon.

Having had a rest, I went up to the hospital. I took the bedding back to Caliburn and brought some more stuff down, confirmed my appointment on Monday (it’s at 09:10) and picked up a bottle that I needed as they want to see my … err … output of Sunday.

On the way back, I picked up some chips from the fritkot and sat on the roof terrace here to eat it.

Once I’d done that, it was back up to the old place to pack up the rest of the stuff and to clean my room there and to wash the floor. That was a struggle getting up the stairs with the washing stuff and my suitcase, and coming down was even more difficult. I had to make two trips with the stuff, it was that awkward to move.

It was also a struggle coming up here with the stuff, and I was glad to sit down. I had a chat with Liz and then crashed out for three quarters of an hour. I can’t say that I was surprised. Mind you, I made sure that I had a coffee when I came round. And wasn’t that nice too?

Making tea was pretty straightforward and I do have to say that the kitchen is cleaner than back at the other place, which is good news. Having a cleaner about the place is always a good idea.

Now, I’m going to go to bed and have an early night. I have curtains at the windows, which is progress, and I’m dying to get to grips with this comfortable bed. It’s not as comfortable as some that I’ve slept on but considering how I’ve been sleeping this last 17 nights it’s going to be luxury.

And I can’t wait.

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Wednesday 29th June 2016 – MY DOCTOR …

… at the hospital this evening came up with the best comment to date about the UK’s referendum result. he reckons that they should find all of the tugboats in Europe to tow the UK out into the middle of the Atlantic and dump it there. And I can’t say that I disagree with him either. We are both of the opinion that the UK’s method of negotiation is to send in a gunboat – tactics that might have worked 150 years ago but are quite simply laughable today. The last time that the UK fought a war on its own, it took them 3 years to defeat a handful of undisciplined and untrained Dutch farmers in South Africa.

So having put the world to rights, I had my body scan. They stuck me on a table, clamped some headphones on my ears and stuck some kind of diving helmet on my head. Claustrophobia wan’t in it. I had to undergo this scan for about half an hour and I spent all of this time in that time-travel portal with my eyes tight shut.

I left here at 19:00 and arrived back at just about 22:00, having grabbed a bag of chips on the way. And I won’t be going to that fritkot again. They weren’t so good and the service was a little chaotic.

This morning I was awake again quite early, 06:30 to be precise, having had one or two trips down the corridor. And I ended up chatting to someone on the internet which meant that I didn’t go down to breakfast until 09:15.

And despite the better day yesterday, we had a rainstorm through the night and a little bit during the day.I went off to do a little shopping at lunchtime – to the Delhaize in town where I bought my baguette, some bananas and a small bag of muesli seeing as how I’ve run out. I won’t buy a big bag until I know what the breakfast in this new place is like.

There’s a bio shop in the Vismarkt in the town centre and so I went for a recce while I was out. There’s a huge selection of vegan stuff in there, including the sliced vegan cheese of the type that I used to buy in Brussels. It’s useful to know that the stuff is quite handy in the neighbourhood.

Updating the blog, I’m now up to the 26th August 2010 – well-ahead of where I want to be. But I don’t expect that I’ll be doing much over the next couple of days while I clean up here and organise my moving to the new pad.

And on this subject, Melanie lent me a needle and thread so that I could sew my bag back together. I have a cheap green bag that I use for going shopping – a bag that I received as a free gift in the pharmacie in St Gervais d’Auvergne – and the stitching had started to come apart. Now it’s a bit more secure and I hope that it will hold out.

Now I’m off to bed to see how I sleep tonight. The long walk to the hospital and back might have done me some good in that respect and I hope that it’s tired me out enough.

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Monday 27th June 2016 – THERE’S NO IMPROVEMENT …

… in anything that I mentioned the other day. I still have sleep issues, I’m still plagued by this water retention issue and the weather is still absolutely miserable. I postponed my trip to the shops again today because the weather was so awful but in the end I had to go out – and was soaked for my pains – but I needed the stuff. And while I didn’t buy any olives for my butty, they had some white pickled onions on special offer – a jar at €0:39 – and so for a change I bought a bottle of those.

I suppose that in all honesty sleep was a little better. Although it took me until long after midnight and I was up and down during the night, it was 06:15 when I awoke and I did feel slightly better. I lounged around for a while and it was 09:10 when I went down for breakfast. But then again, I wasn’t in any hurry.

The water retention though – I’m not going to say too much about that. but I’m in the hospital on Wednesday so I shall make a point to mention it to someone. But this is really getting on my nerves.

During the day I’ve been hard at my blog again and I’m now in the middle of July. As I have said before, it’s not as if I have anything else to do with my time right now. And who knows? I might even finish it off sometime in the near future. Only about 450 entries to do.

I had company for tea. There were crowds of us in the kitchen. I had rice, chick peas, veg, boulghour and a vegetable stock cube. And delicious it was too. There was plenty of it and I must have worms because I’ve been nibbling away at stuff since I came back up here.

And so an early night, and probably another restless night too. I’m fed up of all of this but I dunno what else that I can do.

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Monday20th June 2016 – I SUPPOSE THAT YOU ARE ALL WONDERING …

… what the outcome of my visit to the hospital today was.

Firstly, no danger of my being late for the appointment, for I was wide-awake at 05:30 this morning and surfing the internet, for want of anything special to do. I had a leisurely breakfast and then, making an executive decision, I set off to the hospital in plenty of time without my rain jacket, seeing as how the day looked as if it might just be promising. And how I regretted that decision on the way home, when I had to brave a rainstorm to return to my tiny garret.

First person that I saw after registering was my doctor. She told me that the bone-marrow sample showed no trace of any illness having spread into there and so they too were making an executive decision – which was to definitively stop the chemotherapy. That’s good news as far as I am concerned. Instead, they are going to try another type of treatment and see what effect that has, as well as giving me a medicament that will stimulate the red blood cells.

The nurse then came and dragged me into a little cubicle where she took my blood pressure and pulse, and fitted me with a drain to my chemotherapy port. Once that had been done, she took a blood sample.

An hour or two later I was led to a little private ward where they coupled up three perfusions to me. One was the aforementioned stimulant, the second was a steroid and the third one was some kind of medication. They were all connected to me via a metering machine and I had to ring them every half hour so that they would come and increase the speed.

10 minutes later the doctor came to find me, to tell me what they were going to do to me, but she told me that she wouldn’t bother, seeing that they were already doing it. But the good news is that my blood count, a good week after the last transfusion, is at 9.3 and it’s a long time since it’s been this high. And so no blood transfusion this week.

It was round about 18:00 that I was thrown out of the hospital so I went to check on Caliburn, give him a couple of laps around the car park to warm him up, and park him in a different place so that it looks as if he’s doing something. Plenty of space on the car park at that time, so I reckon that if I decide to move him, I’ll have to keep him out all day until the evening when I can take him back.

I’m running short of socks and undies here so I fetched some more down, and I also meant to bring some more foodstuffs, but I forgot. And how I wish that I had remembered, as I have no small tins of mushrooms or vegetables to pack out the remains of Saturday’s Indian meal. I had to use plain rice and a stock cube instead.

So with my next appointment now in two weeks’ time, I can relax for a while and not worry too much. But I’ll be intrigued to see what my blood count will be when I go back.

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Tuesday 14th June 2016 – SO HOW WAS MY FIRST NIGHT IN MY NEW DIGS THEN?

The answer was “not very comfortable”.

What with one thing and another, it was long after midnight before I ended up going to bed. And once I was in, I had a little listen to the radio but it wasn’t long before I switched everything off and settled down for the night.

But the mattress, which I have put on the floor, as I have no intention of climbing up to the eaves of the room, is really uncomfortable. It’s a very cheap mattress to start with and it sags just about everywhere. But it wasn’t long before I’d dropped off to sleep, and that was how things stood until all of … errr … 05:30. I’m not used to the big city and all of the traffic and the like.

It goes without saying that I didn’t actually leave the stinking pit at that time, and when I finally did, I had plenty to do up here. Breakfast was therefore at 09:00 where I made the acquaintance of one of my co-cottiers. I had to run up and down the stairs twice as well – the first time wasn’t too bad but I was on my knees for the second. This is clearly not going to be sustainable.

The walk up to the hospital was quite pleasant even though it was all uphill. I called at the boulangerie that I had discovered yesterday. and of course, it’s closed on Tuesdays. But there’s an Asian supermarket across the road and they sold baguettes, so that’s that problem resolved.

The parking problem for Caliburn is semi-resolved too. I picked up a document from the hospital yesterday setting out my visits to date, and with this I was able to apply for a parking card for a free car park in the vicinity. This was duly granted.

But having the pass is one thing – finding a free space there is quite something else. I ended up making an ad-hoc space for myself at first, and then going back out at lunchtime to pounce on a liberated space. And that took quite a wait. By the end of the afternoon though, there were a few free spaces so if I do decide to go anywhere in Caliburn it will have to be in the late afternoon that I come back.

I made use of the hospital’s internet to check up on things and to send off another pile of e-mails. I’ve already had two replies from this load of messages, but they were both refusals.

Walking back here was pleasant too in the early evening sun and I encountered the landlord in the building, changing a few light-bulbs including the one that doesn’t work in my room. I also had an encounter with a couple of the girls here, sorting out a place for me in the fridge.

Tea tonight was pasta, kidney beans, veg and tomato sauce followed by slices of spicy cake and soya dessert. Loads of proteins in all of that. And now, having almost fallen asleep a couple of times at the hospital, I’m off for an early night.

I hope that I can have a good night’s sleep tonight.

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Monday 13th June 2016 – IT’S NOT VERY GOOD NEWS!

No, I had the results of the two samples that were taken from me the other week.

The first bit concerns the bone marrow. Whilst it’s true to say that the lymphona hasn’t spread into my bone marrow, the fact is that the bone marrow itself is quite fragile and as a result they won’t be giving me any more chemotherapy. This is because the marrow is quite fragile and they fear that the chemotherapy may damage it.

The second thing is, if anything, even worse. And that is that my illness has spread to my kidneys and that is what is the matter with them.

I don’t know if the situation is dangerous or not – I didn’t ask. What I do know is that they are going to have a meeting on Wednesday to discuss a course of treatment and I have been summoned for next Monday to a meeting to find out what will be the plan. All that I can say is that I don’t like the sound of this at all.

I had a difficult night’s sleep again, awake quite early and having a trip or two down the corridor. When the alarm went off at 07:15 I was awake but it still took me a good few minutes to leave the comfort and safety of my nice warm bed. After breakfast I packed everything away and even found time for a shower, then paid up for my stay and hit the road.

It was pelting down with rain this morning and traffic queues everywhere. However I made an executive decision (an executive decision being, for the benefit of new readers of this rubbish, a decision that if it happens to go wrong, the person making the decision is executed) to follow the signs for the motorway once I reached Korbeek-Lo and that was a much better idea. There was heavy traffic on that road but it was all turning off to the various business parks down there and it didn’t take long to hit the motorway. And once on the motorway it took me a mere 10 minutes to reach the hospital by going right round the city and onto the campus from the rear. I was there half an hour early.

A couple of doctors, one of whom was the girl whom I normally see and the second one was the urologist – she who gave me the bad news – came to see me. That wasn’t all that she gave me either because she ordered an injection for me – one that would help purge me of excess water. And I’ll tell you what – that worked in spades and made me feel so much better.

The Social Welfare girl came to see me too. We discussed my accommodation situation and she’s going to make further enquiries for me. Mind you, although she’s given me a great deal of moral support she hasn’t really gome up with too much in the way of practical help. But then again, I don’t suppose she encounters too many people who have my kind of problems.

They gave me a blood test too, and my blood has dropped down to 7.6. That of course meant a blood transfusion and I had two pochettes of blood. What with all of that, it was nearly 19:00 when I left the hospital. I had a walk down into town and stopped off at a fritkot for a falafel butty and chips for tea – all for €5:50.

And then it was back here to my new home for my first night.

There’s no internet (there’s a student.net site but of course I don’t have a password for it) and there’s a leak around rthe edge of the roof light.

As I said yesterday, I’m glad that I’m only spending a couple of weeks here.

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Sunday 12th June 2016 – I’M GLAD …

… that I’ll only be in this new place for two and a half weeks. It’s nothing at all like the kind of place that I would like to be and, even worse in my opinion, I’m up in the attic three and a half floors up and I was having something of a struggle to find my way up there. If I do manage to meet a nubile nymphette and invite her upstairs to see my etchings, I’ll be in no fit state to do anything about it.

But I’m not going into too much detail about the place. It’s just outside the centre of Leuven, not too far away from the hospital that I visit, and it’s €10:95 per night, everything included. That’s all that you need to know about it. The cheapest hotel in Leuven is €37:00, to give you some idea of what is involved.

I had something of a mixed night last night and was up and about long before the alarm went off, having had breakfast and a chat with someone whom I knew who was on the internet this morning. And then I went off to that boulangerie that I discovered the other day. Half of Belgium was in there in front of me, but I was seen eventually and picked up my baguette. And it was nice too – well-worth the wait.

This afternoon I’ve been tidying up in here and everything has gone down to the new place, except for the stuff that will fit in my backpack. I’ll take that to the hospital with me, leave Caliburn on the car park, and then walk down to the new place from there, and see if I can find a boulangerie in the neighbourhood. I had a quick drive around and couldn’t see one, and I need to put my priorities in the correct order.

On the way back, I stopped off for a pizza – after all, it is a Sunday. I sat on the car park of the Carrefour at Korbeek-Lo and ate it, and pretty good it was too. Then I came back here for pudding.

I’ll have an early night tonight and see what tomorrow brings. It’s the day that I have my hospital results and so I’m not much looking forward to it. I shudder to think what they might have found.

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Friday 3rd June 2016 – I’M BACK …

… in Soissons again – at the Hotel Premiere Classe of course and I suppose that you are all wondering why I don’t move in here.

But the reasons why I’m back are twofold – firstly, I’ve come to recover my mobile phone (which I now have in my sweaty little mitt until I leave it somewhere else) and secondly, and more importantly, I’ve been let out of hospital today.

The doctor came along this morning and told me that nothing now is likely to be done to me until they receive the results of my samplings back from the laboratory, so if I were to stay in the hospital, I’d be just kicking my heels until then. And so I decided to take my wracked and ragged body off for a change of scenery, and they’ve given me an appointment for Monday 13th (yes, the thirteenth – good job it’s not a Friday!) of June. That’s when we’ll (hopefully) find out where everyone has been going wrong with my diagnosis.

I spoke to the girl at Social Services and after an inordinately long wait, she confirmed that they would have me back at Pellenberg from Monday until the day that I go for my results. That gives me a week to track down a room in a house and now that I have my phone back, I hope that I can do that.

But the result of having to wait around so long was that it was 15:30, instead of 14:00 when I left the hospital. And after another session where I jammed the exit at the car park, I was of course decanted straight into the traffic. Not quite as bad as the last time, but bad enough all the same. I stopped off to pick up some fuel at Mont St Jean, given the excitement that’s going on in France at the moment.

The drive down was uneventful although I did pick a new route – down the péage and then onto the motorway for Reims and Lyon, leaving somewhere short of Coucy. And luckily, there was a guard on duty at the tollbooth who recognised Caliburn as a van and not a lorry and I paid just €4:40 for the tolls and not four times that. I hate these automatic tolls.

The road into Soissons is a road that I know well from the old days, bringing me past the walled city of Coucy-le-Chateau (which readers from way back will recall us doing the touristy visit early one morning in midwinter many years ago on our way back from an Open University Students Association meeting) and straight into the town, and now I’m holed up in the Premiere Classe where I’ll be staying until tomorrow.

And I hope that I have as good a sleep as I had last night. Not the best, it has to be said, but my room-mate didn’t snore at all as far as I could tell and once I’d finally managed to go to sleep, I just had the odd awakening here and there and was dead to the world when the nurse awoke me. I’d been on a voyage too, but don’t ask me where because I’ve no idea now.

Still, tonight I’ve asked for the quietest room in the house and judging by this and that, I might actually have it too. Let’s see how I’m feeling after a good rest and a good breakfast tomorrow, hey?

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Thursday 2nd June 2016 -THE BIG PROBLEM …

… with crashing out so thoroughly like I did yesterday early evening is that you can’t go back to sleep again later. Especially when you have a room-mate who not only snores like a bull but who goes to the bathroom more often than I do.

In fact at one stage I do remember dropping off round about 04:00 only to be awoken by him going to the bathroom 10 minutes later. I’m going to definitely change my mind about leaving as soon as I see the doctor, and go and have a really good sleep somewhere else. It’ll mean a change of room too for when I come back (at least, I hope so anyway).

But I did drop off sometime later (but when, I’m not sure) only to be awoken by a nurse who wanted to take my temperature and blood pressure. I was stark out at that moment so I’ll be like a bear with a sore head (or in my case, a hare with a sore bed) for the rest of the day.

But somewhere in all of this, I’d found time to go on my travels again. I was driving somewhere (on the right-hand side of the road) and at a roundabout I had to turn right. On the corner was a school playing field (younger readers of this rubbish might not know what one of these is) with the kids playing all kinds of weird games. I made a few enquiries to find out the name of the school and then I obtained a brochure. The kids who were playing were the “Green” house of the school and this was nicknamed “the Dead”. The reason for this was that the kids in this house were selected for their “fun and spirit of enjoyment” but generally took twice as long to carry out academic tasks than their fellows in other houses.

I was allowed breakfast this morning, and then I had to wait around. And around. And around for my visit for the bone marrow. It wasn’t until 14:30 that they came to collect me and even then I had to wait half an hour before I was seen to.

The monotony was broken by the doctor who came to see me. I asked her if I really could go away for the weekend and she said that she would see the Professor who is handling my case. It seems that whatever happens next, the results of my kidney and of my bone marrow analyses won’t be through for a week so nothing will be decided before then anyway, and the discussion could easily take place at the Day Centre.

So what I need to do now is to speak to the girl at Social Services and see if she can find me a place in the family accommodation at Pellenberg starting on Monday and for a few days. That will give me a weekend away to go and pick up my telephone and then when I come back, a few days to find some accommodation such as a room in a house somewhere with shared facilities. I’ve seen them advertised via the University for as little as €200 per month (and as much as €750 per month too) and that will help me out during the summer while I organise myself.

But retournons à nos moutons as they say on the southern side of the linguistic frontier, we were discussing bone marrow a few minutes ago. And those regular readers of this rubbish will recall that they took a sample in Montlucon back ages ago and I can still feel the pain even now.

But they must have been butchers, not doctors, because the most painful thing about the bone marrow extraction today was the injection for the local anaesthetic. That’s not to say that it wasn’t uncomfortable of course, or that it was totally painless (or without stress because I’m useless in hospital) but it wasn’t anything near as bad as I was imagining.

First thing that I did when I returned here was to change out of my surgical gown and put my own clothes on. That’s much more like it. And now I have to wait for night to fall, and to hope that my room-mate doesn’t sleep on his back tonight. I’ll be glad to get away from here for a few days.

But I can’t go without mentioning a little incident here this evening. I was chatting to one of the nurses (one of the more … errr … mature ones) about what’s been going on, and she expressed a great deal of sympathy for me, ending up by stroking my arm.

Things are looking up!

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Wednesday 1st June 2016 – YES, 1st OF JUNE ALREADY …

… and here I am, stuck in here still. I was going to complain about missing all of the summer but, looking out of the windows and hearing all of the news from home, then maybe I’m better off here. And so I would be too, if it weren’t for the health issues and the monotonous food (which is still, nevertheless, &0 times better than in any other hospital that I’ve visited. Heaven help me if I had still been incarcerated in Riom where the food was the worst that I have ever tried to eat).

Last night I was on my own in my room (and don’t worry – it didn’t last) and I has possibly the best night’s sleep that I have had. I didn’t go to sleep early and I had to nip off for a ride on the porcelain horse at 05:00 but apart from that, I didn’t feel a thing until a nurse awoke me at 07:40 to take my blood pressure and temperature.

I’d been on my travels too – driving around the south of England somewhere around London. Someone asked me what I was doing for lodging so I explained that I was quite comfortable with everything that I had “in the back” – implying that I was in a lorry with a sleeper cab but in reality I was, as usual,camping out in the back of Caliburn. From here, a bunch of us decided to drive back north and (shock! horror!) I let someone else drive Caliburn (which as you all know, is something that would never ever happen) while I was dozing off in the back. But I was awoken by the sound of the driver over-revving the engine and that annoyed me so I told him to take it easy. and then we turned off the A5 somewhere round about Dunstable to go to pick up something that ha had bought on eBay. Where we went to was some housing estate – all modern expensive flats in a kind of woodland-parkland surrounded by an old stone wall, a parkland that was actually the grounds of the local council offices which were in some kind of stately home. You could see where all of the 19th Century terraced houses were built and came to a dead stop at the stone wall.

I wasn’t given any breakfast this morning. Upon making enquiries I was told that nothing was allowed before my “visit”. That was apparently due at 11:30, so the doctor told me. And I made a big mistake when the doctor came round. She told me that I could go home this weekend but not being quite “with it” at that moment I told her that I had nowhere to go. Fool that I am, I should have said yes, gone anyway, done my shopping and then nipped down to Soissons to pick up my telephone. I wonder if it’s too late to change my mind.

It was 10:30 when they came to pick me up, and dressed in the new modern fashion – to wit, one surgical operating gown – off I trollied to the operating theatre, being pushed on my bed. And once down there, I had to wait for ever until someone came to deal with me. And while I was in the waiting area I could observe everyone entering and leaving the area and if I were to have a Pound for every person who thought that the exit door was automatic rather than manual, I’d be dictating this to a couple of floozies sitting on my knee, somewhere in the Bahamas.

I’m not going into detail about what happened in the operating theatre except to say that it was unspeakable and indescribable agony, but what was worse was that they strapped something like a huge stone to my back where they had made the incision, and I had to lie on it without moving for three hours. This, apparently, was to close up the incision.

And after three hours, believe me, that was even worse than the incision and I was feeling like hell, especially as seeing that I developed cramp in my left leg and couldn’t do anything at all about it. Believe me, when they finally unstrapped me, I was in paradise. At least the ecography that they gave me showed that I haven’t suffered damage due to what they did.

When I returned to my room, I found that I have a new room-mate. That’s a disappointment for sure. But still, I don’t suppose that it can be helped.

This was when I found myself in trouble too. Sitting up on the edge of my bed doing something or other, I was told that I was supposed to be lying down to give me intestines a chance to recover. No-one said anything at all about that to me.

and so I lay down – and promptly crashed out until about 22:00 when the most enormous thunderstorm awoke me. I didn’t realise that I was so tired, especially after such a good night’s sleep.

And my new room-mate snores. B@$t@rd!

And on a final note, I’ve been receiving many expressions of solidarity from well-wishers who have been reading this rubbish just recently. I’d like to thank you all for your comments – they mean quite a lot to me in this difficult time.

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Tuesday 31st May 2016 – IT’S NOT GETTING ANY BETTER.

Well, maybe the sleep thing did last night. I seemed to have something of a (slightly better) night and when the nurse came to take my blood pressure and temperature at 07:40 I was dead to the world. In fact the sudden shock of waking up completely dislodged every last detail of wherever it was that I was a-wandering, which is a shame.

After breakfast, I had a couple of visits. Firstly, the nurse came in to change the needle in my chemotherapy port. And I know the nurse from my other visits to the hospital – she’s quite efficient and she didn’t hurt me half as much as any of the others have done. And that’s something, I suppose.

And then I had the doctor, and she brought me some more depressing news (if that could be possible). Firstly, the biopsy on my kidneys is postponed until tomorrow and I don’t like that idea – I just wish that they would get it over and done with.

But secondly, she told me that they have now officially decided that chemotherapy isn’t working as it is supposed to. Like me, they were expecting to see something positive in the way of results by now and they are a little bewildered. As a result, they are going to take another sample of bone marrow on Thursday – and how I will detest that (I can still feel the last lot) and see whether that will give them a further clue. But this isn’t the news that I was hoping to hear – not in the least – and I’m starting to become a little concerned.

The third visit that I had, after lunch, was only guaranteed to increase my apprehension. It was the surgeon who is going to work on me tomorrow. He wanted to tell me – in great detail too, about what he is going to do to me, and I almost had to sit on his head to stop him. I’m useless in hospital and I don’t want to be hearing about things like this. It just drives me into a cold sweat and then I spend all night worrying about it and that’s horrible.

Other news is that my room-mate has been discharged. This could be good news (I might end up on my own for a while and I’m much better on my own as I’m sure that you know) and it could be bad news, because my previous companion was quite good, quiet and didn’t snore. I’m not sure that I’ll find another one so companionable. I bet that it’s unlikely.

And so apart from that, I’ve been chatting to Liz on the internet and doing some work updating my blog and not very much else. As I have said before, it’s very hard for me to summon up the enthusiasm right now.

But we’ll see what tomorrow brings. I’m not looking forward to it, or for the following day either. And the results will be even worse, I reckon. But I must stop thinking like this. Focus on the positives – I mean, I haven’t spent a single cent in over a week and that’s surely something to celebrate.

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Monday 30th May 2016 – ONE THING THAT I’VE LEARNT TODAY …

… is that I won’t be having my next chemotherapy session for quite a while.

It seems that in the opinion of the hospital, I’m far to ill right now to go through all of the stresses that chemotherapy will provide and they think that I ought to recover first.

I have to say that I don’t like the sound of that one little bit. As far as I’m concerned, being ill doesn’t make the slightest difference. I don’t see an issue about chemotherapy making me any more ill – I’ll be suffering just the same and the quicker the treatment starts, the quicker it will be over and the quicker I’ll start to recover. Waiting until I’m feeling better and then making me ill again is just in my opinion absurd. I only want to be ill once.

And if I don’t improve, then I won’t ever have the chemotherapy and then I’ll be back where I started all of these months ago and that’s really defeating the purpose of my coming here.

As you can tell, I’ve had a visit from the doctor this afternoon. She didn’t stay long and didn’t even give me a check-over – she just came to give me the news.

I had a really bad night again last night. I took ages to go off to sleep, mainly due to the fact that I had a really bad pain right across the right side of my chest. It just wouldn’t go away and I just couldn’t find a comfortable position. It was so bad that I felt like calling for some emergency help (now that’s not like me, is it?) but I managed to hang on.

And then once I did drop off, I kept on waking up time after time after time. I really can’t sleep properly at all in this place. But drop off I must have done, because I was off on my travels again.

I was in a house that I owned, in Nantwich down by Crewe Road end but it wasn’t a terraced house such as is there but a modern semi-detached property. I’d had the morning off work and was due to go in for the afternoon but all kinds of delays were holding me up. eventually, I’d sorted out my pushbike, found my heavy blue-grey overcoat, decided what cap I was going to wear (because it was teeming down outside) and eventually I set off. But it was freezing cold too and I decided that I needed my gloves so had to turn back. And this made me wonder whether it was worth setting out again as the office would be closed by the time that I arrived. But as I reached back home I noticed my red Ford Cortina estate, XCL 465X, in the drive and it had been driven in instead of reversed in, as I always do without fail when I’m parking. That took me completely by surprise.
And a little later we were at a huge Open University Students Association (OUSA) meeting and there were hundreds of us in attendance. I found my way in, nearly last (not like me) and struggled into a corner where there were several people whom I knew, including a girl called Jane who was in my class at school (what she was doing at an OUSA meeting is anyone’s guess). We were having a chat about old times when the meeting abruptly started. The first speaker, a woman we knew, started to talk but went so quick that we couldn’t make notes and everyone bellowed at her in unison to slow down and start again – which she did, but after a couple of minutes started to roar off again and we found it impossible to keep track of what we were saying.

The doctor wasn’t the only visitor that I had either. I had a hospital visitor come to chat with me for a couple of minutes and that was quite a break from my routine. She didn’t have much to say, which was no surprise, but she tried her best to cheer me up and encourage my morale and you can never criticise someone for that.

But while I was talking to her, I somehow managed to put my back out of joint and that hurt for ages. I’m definitely breaking up, aren’t I?

The rest of the day has been quite quiet. I’ve sat in the day room and, for a change, done some work (I need to keep myself properly organised and properly focused), and that’s really my lot. As you know, there’s not really a lot else that I can be doing right now. I need to exert myself a little but it’s not easy. Even if I were to find the motivation, there ust aren’t the opportunities just now.

Still, maybe I’ll cheer up tomorrow.

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Sunday 29th May 2016 – WHAT A BORING DAY!

Sometimes I think that it’s just as well that I go off on some of these nocturnal rambles because it’s the only excitement that I seem to be having these days.

Today was one of those days where not a single person came along to break the monotony. Fair enough – I had my pulse and temperature taken twice but that was it. For most of the morning I was crashed out on my bed and for the rest of the day I’ve just been sitting around mooching over the internet and reading a pile of stuff to keep me going. I can’t say any more than that.

Well, yes I can, I suppose. I’ve run out of cheese.

To be frank, I didn’t expect to be here like this. I imagined that Monday would have been a check-up (and maybe a blood transfusion) as it always is, and then I expected to be called back on Friday for a long weekend of chemotherapy. That’s what usually happens. That would have given me all of the time in the world to do all of the shopping that I wanted, but of course it didn’t work out like that, did it? Here I am, it’s Sunday night and they haven’t even started on the chemotherapy, let alone almost finished. No wonder that I’m so fed up.

I’d had a bad night too – taking ages to go to sleep and then waking up regularly through the night. It’s quite true to say that I’m a very light sleeper but the amount of clunking and clanking that goes on in this place is unbelievable.

Mind you, I did manage to get away during the night. I was on a long-distance bus travelling to the Bus Station (which one, I’ve no idea) and Laurence was a passenger too, although I wasn’t “with” her. It was just after 02:30 when we arrived and we had a couple of hours to wait for our connection that would take us to the airport. I immediately grabbed my stuff, made a kind of bed on the floor, and settled down for a short sleep. However, the woman from the cafeteria on the bus station came out to remind us all that the café closed at 02:30 – clearly incorrect because it was after 02:30 by now, so we imagined that she meant 03:30. That didn’t bother me because I reckoned that I would be back awake by then, and if not, it didn’t matter anyway. Neither did all of the people who were taking a rather unusual interest in my sleeping arrangements.

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Saturday 28th May 2016 – I WAS PLANNING …

… on having something of an early night last night but as with all of the best-laid plans of mice and men, it didn’t turn out like that.

First Liz and then, coincidentally the girl who has often in these pages been described as “The One That Got Away” put in an appearance on the internet waves and as a result it was long after 23:00 when I walked down the corridor to my room. Mind you, it didn’t half cheer me up and I felt much better than I had been feeling, especially seeing as how TOTGA offered to come over here and soothe my fevered brow.

I didn’t have a very good night though last night. Despite being exhausted, I still couldn’t drop off to sleep straight away. It took me ages to settle down comfortably, what with all of the noise in the corridor. But I did manage to have a sleep without needing to use the facilities, which is one thing for which I ought to be grateful, and I did manage to go off a-wandering too.

I was back running my taxis again last night and although it was the Modern Era, I still had my fleet of Ford Cortinas and they were all pretty-much the worse for wear. But then it did occur to me that the Cortinas still on the market must be in much better condition and much better restored than mine ever were, so why didn’t I go off to the motor auctions to see whether or not I couldn’t pick up one or two new ones to put in the bank for when the licenses of the existing taxis needed to be renewed.

So that was the plan and I would have put it into effect had my room-mate not awoken me by having an early trip to the bathroom. I had a good session in the bathroom too. With there being nothing connected to me right at the moment, I took the opportunity to have a really good scrub and a change of clothes.

This morning I had the usual visits from the nurses but, as expected, no doctor and no dietician. On the other hand, my room-mate had some family in to visit him as early as 10:00 which disturbed my morning peace. Eventually, I gave up and retreated into the common room.

And that’s where I’ve been for most of the day – in the common room not doing very much at all. And once or twice, having just a little doze as the afternoon wore on.

I had the odd visit, a nurse came to see me and a doctor too. Apparently on Tuesday I’m to have an biopsy on my kidneys to find out more about this protein loss that I’m suffering. And while I’m extremely grateful that the hospital is taking such good care of me, it’s really a peripheral treatment and isn’t going to solve the underlying issues – and that for me is the priority.

But we did have a little perturbation at midday. I wasn’t at my bedside when the food came around and when I returned, I discovered that I’d been given the wrong meal. Someone else has had my steamed vegetables and rice and I ended up with a pile of stuff that I couldn’t eat. It’s a good job that my appetite is drifting away otherwise I would have been quite upset.

And not only that, My legs have started to swell up again. The left one in particular is looking pretty miserable. How I’m fed up with all of this.

Still, I’ll go to bed in a bit, hope that I can have a good night’s sleep, and hope that tomorrow will bring me a better day.

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