Tag Archives: hospital

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.

0

Friday 27th May 2016 – IF ANYTHING …

… my night last night was even worse than the previous one. I was awake for ages before going to sleep and then I awoke again at about 03:30. every time I tried to go to sleep something or someone brought me back round again and that was annoying.

None of the foregoing though stopped me going on a wander. I started off with my old rock group and we were practising in the concert room of some workingmen’s club somewhere. The club opened at 18:00 but the concert room didn’t open until 19:30 so we were able to hire it for that 90-minute period every so often. Things were a bit shambolic and anarchic and it was clear that we weren’t getting on too well together but we had to persevere.
From here we went on to the house of someone whom I know in France. There was agroup of us there and two of our number, the lady owner of the place and her friend, went out for a walk. They hadn’t been gone for more than a couple of minutes when there was the most astonishing thunderstorm and the heavens simply opened. I’d never seen so much rain in all my life. The house leaked like a sieve and the rain roared inside. The two people outside came running back and we asked them whatever possessed them to gooutside when the weather was threatening like this. I wanted to go into the next room but a stream of water cascading down the walls and down the door made me unwilling to open the door but someone else did so and we were thus able to leave the kitchen and go into the living room. But as we went inside, the daughter of the house (who was already in there) shouted “you should see the water going into the bucket”. What was happening was that there was an avalanche of rainwater falling down inside the house, bouncing off the stair rail and going straight into a sink at the back of the living room. But the whole house was inundated, soaking wet, and everything was being ruined.
A short while later, I was at another house and suddenly a couple of people arrived, one of whom was Nerina. They had been to the shops and bought tons – and I do mean tons – of stuff and they were unloading the car and dumping the stuff everywhere. Our task was to take it where it was supposed to go. I remember that there were four huge picture frames but what was in them I do not know because they were wrapped in Christmas gift wrapping. I had two of these and was taking them to another room, but trying to fight my way out with all of the rest of the items and everyone else in the way was proving to be much more difficult than it ought to have been.

The dietician came to see me this morning, and brought one of his drinks to show me. But even though it has no milk as such in it, it’s jam-pack full of milk proteins and so that’s no use to me unfortunately. Apart from that, he doesn’t really have too much of an idea as to where to go from there.

And the doctor came too. She was dismayed when I told her that just half an hour earlier, my “stomach trouble” had reappeared – and in spades too. I did think yesterday that it was too early to go crowing about it. But she tells me that they have decided against the chemotherapy that I’ve been having. They are going to give me some other sort of treatment. However, it does have all of the same side effects such as the shivering and the fever and it’s every three weeks, not every four, so I’m not sure how much further down the road we are going to be with this.

I have a horrible, nagging suspicion that my illness isn’t going to respond to anything really and that I’m going to be stuck like this for ever. seeing them bring another pochette of blood to me this afternoon did nothing to allay my fears.

The spinach that I ordered for lunch came smothered in a creamy kind of sauce which was clearly no good for me so it looks as if I’ll have to abandon my idea of a varied diet and stick with the mixed veg, rice and extra carrots for now.

In case you are wondering, it’s true that I’m feeling pretty disillusioned right now. Not with the hospital, which is doing everything that it reasonably can do to help me out, but with the way things are working. I was hoping that by now I would have shown some kind of improvement and would slowly be starting to get on top of everything, but it’s clearly not working out like I wanted. All of this is generally making me feel quite miserable and when I look back on all of the things that I was doing a year ago, or four years ago, or 10 years ago, it’s beginning to drag me down to think that I might never be doing that again.

So this afternoon I sat quietly (or as quietly as I could – only two visitors per patient are allowed at the bedside at any one time and so a huge family that has just come from Africa to see a relative is all crammed in the day room and as they rotate two-by-two they are creating something of a carnival atmosphere in here and I’m in no mood to enjoy it) and read a pile of stuff on the internet.

Still, tomorrow is another day. It’ll be quieter because there are no ancillary staff members on duty, but I don’t expect it to be any different.

0

Thursday 26th May 2016 – IT’S HARD …

… to think of what I’ve done today.

I know that my night last night was nothing like as good as last night. I didn’t drop off to sleep so early and I was awake by 04:00, much to my dismay. In fact, round about 15:00, I dropped off to sleep and was awoken at 17:00 by a nurse gently shaking my leg to tell me that my tea had arrived.

Another thing that I do remember about the night was that a girl who has been described in these pages as “the one that got away” came to visit me at some point.

So what have I done today then?

The answer is, basically, nothing. The doctor came to see me again and she examined me. She says that they will make a decision today about my chemotherapy (although, if they have done, I don’t know what it is) and she offered me an endoscopy to look into my stomach – something that I turned down flat as you might expect.

The dietician came along too. He told me that he’s going to prescribe a certain high-carbohydrate drink for me that has 300 calories per serving, and he would be back shortly after 14:00 with the first instalment. He didn’t put in an appearance either so I don’t know much more about that.

And really, nothing much more.

I have to take my stomach pills twice a day now, so I have been informed, because I still have the nausea, but the problem at the other end seems to have subsided, at least for the moment. Mind you, as we all know with chemotherapy, it won’t be long before it’s back.

Anyway, that’s your lot. I hope that tomorrow will be more exciting.

0

Wednesday 25th May 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I had a pretty good night’s sleep last night.

I was in bed by 22:00 and I don’t remember very much after that before I went to sleep, but apart from one or two trips to ride the porcelain horse, that was effectively that until about 07:30. It’s a long time since I’ve had a sleep quite like that in a hospital.

Today, I’ve had a couple of visits. Firstly, the doctor came in for a chat with me. She’s concerned about my general health, which I might have said the other day, but she’s even more concerned about my dramatic weight loss. I’ve lost 11.6kgs since all of this started and she’s worried that if it keeps on at this rate, I’ll be starting on the muscles and proteins and that could be serious. She did however mention that my blood count has gone up after my transfusion – it’s now 8.7.

a short while later, the dietician came to call. Not the usual one (she’s away for a couple of days) but another. he told me that the doctor had sent me and that they wanted to know much more about my eating habits.

He spent a great deal of time chatting to me and seemed to be very thorough in what he was trying to do. He didn’t, unfortunately, have any instant solutions (I would have been surprised had he done so) but he’s going to try to put together some kind of plan and he’ll get back to me tomorrow.

Apart from that, that’s all really. I’ve had a quiet, relaxing day of not doing very much at all, and I’ve managed to force some food down – to such an extent that you might say that I’ve had a couple of decent meals for once. They remembered to bring me biscottesinstead of bread for breakfast – but forgot the jam!I’m hoping that I can have a pretty good sleep tonight too and maybe feel a little better for tomorrow.

But what’s worrying me is that I’m feeling like this already and I haven’t even started the next lot of chemotherapy. Remembering how bad I felt last time once the chemotherapy was over (and that was starting from a good healthy position), whatever am I going to be like in a week’s time?

I shudder to think.

0

Tuesday 24th May 2016 – AND WE’RE BACK …

… and the same old hospital routine – the same one that we’ve experienced dozens of times before. Although it wasn’t an especially early night, by 03:30 I was awake again and that was how I stayed for much of the morning. I don’t remember going back to sleep at all. But luckily, my room-mate doesn’t seem to snore, which is a good thing.

We’re back on the hospital diet too and the smell of the food is putting me right off once more. I managed a banana for breakfast, some tomato soup and an apple for lunch, and for tea I had cheese butties and a soya yoghurt.

Yes, cheese butties. When my overnight drip-feed stuff ran out, I nipped down to Caliburn for my suitcase and this time I brought a few supplies with me too – biscuits and cheese and the like – so now I’m prepared for anything.

The dietician came to see me too and we managed to talk about my eating arrangements. I mentioned that I was having these kinds of dietary issues and she promised to do her best to see that I had stuff that I could actually eat.

Another visitor was the girl from the Social Services. She came to see how I was and to chat about my future accommodation, but that was rather pointless at the moment because I don’t know how long I’ll be staying here, so it’s clearly not possible for me right now to arrange appointments to see anyone.

We had the medical staff too, and the doctor gave me a good going-over. And it seems that some kind of decision about my treatment. The general consensus is that the chemotherapy that I’ve been having is too violent for my body, delicate little flower that I am, and they might have to think about giving me another form.

That will be the subject of discussion amongst the medical staff during the week, so it looks as if I’ll be staying here now until the next lot of treatment – due to start on Friday but may be postponed – is complete.

And my mobile phone has been located. Liz very kindly rang up the Premiere Classe Hotel in Soissons and asked them about it. Apparently they found it underneath the pillow in the bedroom. They’ll hang on to it until I’m released from hospital when I’ll go down and pick it up again. That’s not what I had planned to do, but it can’t be helped. Without an address, there’s no other way of receiving it any quicker.

0

Monday 23rd May 2016 – MY LIBERTY …

… didn’t last all that long, did it?

Here I am, back in the hospital, in a different ward, and here I’ll be staying, I imagine, until the cows come home. I’ve no idea.

And despite all of the money that I spent on some decent accommodation last night, I had something of a bad night. Having crashed out last night by 21:30, I was awake long before 03:00 and I don’t recall going back to sleep afterwards.

I had a visitor during the night too. A local farmer came to see me back at my place in France (it wasn’t my place in France, actually, but never mind). He complained that I’d been going too fast past his fields and he would appreciate it if I didn’t go so fast and that I didn’t take the short cut through the mountains. I didn’t recognise him so I asked him to show me which were his plots of land, and eventually he whipped out a map of the area, which turned out to be the Arran Peninsula in Scotland. After a good look, I could work out that there were parts of France marked on this map too but I was having difficulty trying to identify them. And while I was doing that, he was explaining that he was part of a committee that oversaw various rules and regulations and had the power to fine transgressors as much as three Euros for any breach thereof.

This morning it was lashing down with rain and there were traffic queues everywhere. Luckily the traffic going my way was moving steadily and I wasn’t delayed by much. In fact, I was at the hospital in the day centre by 09:15, 15 minutes before my appointment.

The place was crowded too and it took a while to be seen, but it wasn’t too long before I was stuffed into a side ward and given what looked like half a gallon of antibiotics. My blood count is down too (although this is no surprise) to 7.4 and so a transfusion is on the cards.

And what with one thing and another (and once you make a start, you’ve absolutely no idea how many other things there are) they’ve decided that rather than kick me out and call me back on Friday, they’ll be keeping me in. Still, focus on the positives – it means that I’m not having to pay any accommodation fees anywhere.

I had to wait ages, though, for a free bed and it wasn’t until 20:30 that I was wheeled upstairs. A different ward, as I said, and no-one speaks English here which is just as well for I need to stretch my Flemish.

I have a room-mate and he seems to be quite cheerful enough and, to my great delight, he doesn’t seem to snore. How I’ve longed for a room-mate like this.

So I’ll settle down for the night now and see how it goes, and I’ll give you all an update tomorrow. If ever I drop off to sleep, that is, because for some reason or other (possibly because I had something of a sleep during the afternoon) I’m not feeling in the least bit tired at the moment.

0

Sunday 22nd May 2016 – I’VE ARRIVED …

… back in Belgium this afternoon – but without my mobile phone which I somehow seem to have managed to leave behind at my hotel last night. I shall have to do something about that, and do it pretty quickly too.

It was grey, overcast and raining lightly when I went down to breakfast but strangely, even though I’d had no tea last night, I didn’t feel like eating. But apart from that, I felt much more “like it” than I have for a couple of days. Clearly a good night’s sleep has done me the world of good.

It rained, and quite heavily too at times, throughout the day but that was the only excitement about the journey. The trip was pretty straightforward and I was here at 13:45.

I had a bit of luck too about a hotel. I needed to find a hotel with parking within easy access of the hospital and by chance there was a special offer on at the IBIS hotel at the Heverlee motorway services – just €69:00 for a night which, although it might sound expensive at first sight, it’ll do me some good to have a little luxury before I start my chemotherapy sessions tomorrow.

I settled in quite quickly and crashed out for an hour or so this afternoon and I do have to say that I’m feeling a little better, strange as it may seem.

But last night was fairly exciting though.

When I checked in to my hotel last night I took a menu from the local fast food delivery place to order something to eat for tea. But I don’t remember a thing after about 20:15. I remember once or twice going down the corridor but apart from that, I was stark out until 08:03 exactly. It was the best night’s sleep that I have had in absolutely ages and if I’d been on a voyage during the night, I remember nothing whatever about it. I’d had an accident during the night however, but I’ll tell you more about that at a later date.

Now we’ll see how we get on through the night, and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

0

Friday 20th May 2016 – AND I’VE BEEN OUT TODAY TOO!

After breakfast I had a few things to organise and then round about 09:30 I hit the road for my place, calling at the Intermarché at Pionsat on the way in order to buy some bread for lunch.

At home I had a little rest of an hour or so and then I started to collect up the stuff that I need for Belgium (and also for Canada, just in case I have the possibility to go there later this year). A few things I couldn’t find, and a few things I forgot, but I’ll call there tomorrow on my way out to the motorway and finish off a few things.

This afternoon, I took it easy. I’ve cut my hair and had a shower – so I’m nice and clean and tidy ready for the journey back home. I’ve done a load of washing too and even as I speak, it’s going round and round in the dryer because there won’t be enough time to dry it properly.

I’ve not planned my food resources correctly because I have some mushroom and lentil curry and also some home-made vegan ice cream left over. I’ll just have to come back another time to finish it off.

And now I’m off for a very early night. There will be no alarm clock in the morning because I intend to have a good sleep if I can. I’ve a long way to drive tomorrow and I’m not really up to it. I’ll have to do my best and see what happens. I can’t expect too much in my state of health.

But what was nice was that I had an e-mail from the Social Services department asking me how I was feeling and whether I’d been able to manage the journey back. That was a very pleasant e-mail – it’s nice to know that they have been thinking about me.

I didn’t catch up on my last night’s voyages, I was off on a different track completely. While I was waiting yesterday for Caliburn to have his contole technique, I was reading the local paper and noticed a story concerning someone whom I know in Pionsat. He’s been fighting a complicated legal battle for the last five years and judging by the news story and his post on his Social Networking site last night, he’s finally been successful.

And so last night, on my travels, I was involved with him in some way. It’s pretty-much a truism to say that there are no winners amongst the civilian population in a lengthy court case because whoever comes out on top, his card is marked and the authorities are hell-bent on revenge. And this was the case last night. This boy was harassed and harassed by the authorities and in the end was carried off and convicted of something or other. He’d left some of his possessions with me while he was away and I discovered a secret compartment in his affairs and the contents of this compartment went to show that maybe he wasn’t as innocent as he liked to appear. But, then again, who is? As you probably know, I have a theory that all humans are pretty much the same in the grand, and some are caught and others are not and that is the big difference.
Later on during the night I went for a walk and came across a huge mansion-type place across a field and lake and through a forest of cherry trees laden with blossom. I didn’t have my camera with me so I went back for it and then walked through the lake (it wasn’t very deep at first but I ended up over my knees by the time I reached the other side) to take a photo but of course my camera wouldn’t work. It turned out that this was some kind of Girls’ Schools something along the lines of Ampleforth College,with the girls wearing red and white checked dresses. This all rang a bell with me because I’d sat on some kind of committee where some novel educational programmes submitted by various schools had been judged, and while the winner was from some kind of mainstream school, one that had particularly impressed the committee was one that had been submitted by a person who had since gone on to become a senior teacher at this school. I was therefore interested to see if any of these novel ideas had been applied at the school and after having presented myself to the headmistress, I was granted research facilities at the school to examine the teaching and the recreational activities. I quickly adopted a committee of three sixth-form girls. I was impressed with the keenness and throughness of these girls, but not so impressed with the fact that when the bell went for the end of the day they immediately deserted and left me to do the tidying up and that sometimes went on for quite a while. One one occasion I went round to their room and “swept them out” with a large-bristled brush. Another thing that impressed me about the school was the fact that all of the food was vegetarian, although I was unable to find out if there were vegan options.

0

Thursday 19th May 2016 -I WAS OFF …

… on my travels again today.

I started off at the Doctor’s this morning at &0:00, only to find that my doctor is on holiday and it was a locum in attendance. That means that most of what I wanted to discuss was pretty pointless but I handed over a few letters from the hospital and had a form signed, as well as a quick check-up. My heart-beat is high but apart from that, things seem to be quite normal for now.

Montlucon was the next port of call. I had to pay a bill at the laboratory that does my blood tests and then another bill at the tax office for all of the documents that the hospital gave me before I went off to Leuven. There’s nothing else outstanding that I cans ee for the moment, although I have a couple of bills to pay at Leuven when I return.

Once that was out of the way I went back home for an hour, most of which was spent chatting to Nicolette whom I encountered in the lane. She seemed to be quite concerned about my health, which is nice of her.

Caliburn had his controle technique at 15:OO and the garage had forgotten that I was coming. But they squeezed us in and of course Caliburn passed with flying colours. And then we nipped off to the other side of St Gervais d’Auvergne for his service. So he’s all done and dusted now and ready for the road.

Back here, I crashed out for an hour and then made tea. Microwaved potatoes and mushroom and lentil curry was on the menu followed by some of Liz’s home-made vegan ice-cream. And now I’m off to bed. I’m feeling even worse than yesterday and to make matters worse, my “upset stomach” has returned.

I’ll see if I can pick up where I left off last night because I was off on a few travels too. The first part involved my being somewhere on the continent – it may have been in Occupied Europe or a neutral country during the war but it was a big tower-block kind of building. I was talking to a woman there who was expressing her surprise that the top floor was occupied by the British Royal Air Force Bomber Command which was using the premises to direct the bombing attacks against Germany, whereas just a couple of floors down, the German Luftwaffe had offices used to direct fighter control against the British bombers. I replied that that wasn’t the only thing that was unusual – out in the grounds was a military hospital where half the staff was British and half was German and they were dealing with wounded soldiers of both armies.
From there, I found myself in Crewe in a huge traffic queue trying to go over Edleston Road bridge. I was in a driverless car – a while Volkswagen Karmann Ghia – and so I left the car to see how it would do. And it advanced quite nicely in the traffic, except that it was going too fast for me to walk after and with my illness I wasn’t able to run after it – and this really had be worried. I remember that on the bridge was an end-terraced house with the door round the side (which actually fronted onto Edleston Road) and it was actually my house. I was reminiscing about how many of these houses used to be built on the bridges in Crewe.
We haven’t finished yet, because there was a football match taking place between one of Pionsat’s teams and a team that consisted mainly of females and which only had 10 players. Pionsat were however struggling to get on top in this game and on one occasion they broke clean though the defence and the player had a shot but a defender stuck out a foot and diverted it out onto the post and out for a corner. From the corner the ball came in and the keeper missed it but a Pionsat player headed the ball in off the post for a goal. There were three Pionsat players in an offside position but they weren’t interfering with play so there was no reason why the goal should be disallowed but one of the defenders, a young man, argued so much with the referee that in the end he was sent off the field, which tilted the game even further into Pionsat’s favour.

I’ll see if I can pick it up from there.

0

Friday 13th May 2016 – NOW, THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!

Last night, I dropped off to sleep during the middle of one of the Boris Karloff “Mr Wong” films, and apart from a trip down the corridor in the small hours, that was all that I remember until 06:25. It was one of the best nights’ sleeps that I’ve had since I left France and I enjoyed it so much.

I’d been on my travels too, playing bass in a rock band somewhere and we had a concert to play, part of a huge music festival. And although we were set up and ready, our drummer (a friend of mine from way back) hadn’t turned up. He hadn’t sent a message or anything to say where he was or what he was doing, and because we weren’t therefore ready, our spot at this festival was slowly being whittled away by the organisers. And with him being my friend, my bandmates were having a little whittle at me about it. Everything was here from this drummer – his tent, his drums, even the roller skates for his roller skate hire business – everything except him.

So breakfast all eaten and done long before the alarm went off, a nice warm shower and clean clothes long before 08:30, even time to spend on doing some more blog updating before hitting the road at 09:30. And I apologise to Pellenberg for some of the things about it. Not because they aren’t true, but because it’s only half the price (like €10:00 per night) to stay here. I’m prepared to put up with the inconvenience at €10:00 per night.

First stop was the bank, where I had business to perform. And I learnt a thing or two there that I didn’t know either and that made me feel bettertoo. And afterwards, I went to LIDL where I bought myself a set of three new toys – some 800mm (massive) SDS drill bits, 16, 18 and 24mm, at €9:00 (for three, not for one) and these are so impressive.

Next stop was to Spit. This is a charity shop in Leuven that sells books, records, clothes and tons of furniture. It’s huge and full of stuff and I spent a pleasant hour in there looking for stuff. Not buying anything, of course, just looking. But I could have bought several items had I been of such a mind. There was some good stuff in there.

Lunch was at the fritkot at the Jacobsplein, and then off to the hospital for my check-up.

I gave a blood sample and it came back as 8.1. And that, surprisingly, is quite stable for the last couple of weeks. In fact, since I’ve been undergoing treatment, the blood count hasn’t dropped below 7.8. They reckon that I can go for a week without a transfusion because they are keen to see how I hold up. I explained that I’ll be doing a lot of driving but they seem to think that I’ll be fine.

I do like their optimism.

So they heaved me out at 16:00 – minus the transfusion – and I hit the road for home. And I don’t mean “home” as in Pellenberg but “home” as in the Auvergne because I’m coming back for a week. I need more clothes, more books, more stuff in general if I’m to stay here until September and I reckon I should grab it while the grabbing is good. My next appointment is Monday 23rd so I have a little 10-day window to do it.

But it was horrendous coming back. Totally horrendous. The traffic queue started just outside Leuven and lasted until well after Valenciennes. And then there were all kinds of perturbations on the Francilienne. All in all, a journey of less than 4 hours to Melun took just under six hours to complete. Ironically, before I set out, I was toying with the idea of going back via the old road to Auxerre but I reckoned the motorway would be less stressful.

Ohh woe is me!

If this isn’t bad enough, the Première Classe Motel where I’m spending the night (in view of my state of health I’m doing the trip back in easy stages and in comfort) isn’t actually in Melun, it’s in the neighbouring commune. However, there’s a street of the same name in Melun so that when you programme the street name and “Melun” into your GPS like someone around here did, you end up in the middle of some rather insalubrious council estate somewhere. That took me a good 20 minutes to sort myself out.

But as the legendary Marechal MacMahon once said – “j’y suis, j’y reste” or “here I am and here I’ll stay”. Or as Martin Luther put it – “hier stehe ich – ich Kann night anders” or “I’m staying here – I can’t do anything else”.

I’ve had enough for one day.

0

Wednesday 11th May 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I had something of a better night last night, falling asleep in the middle of a film at 22:15 and managing just one wander down the alleyway. I’d done some tossing and turning while I was in bed but nothing like as much as recently, and by 05:45 I was pretty much awake. 07:00 saw me with a coffee and a laptop, doing some work, and when was the previous time that you had ever heard of this?

It gave me an opportunity to write down where I’d been during the night before I forgot most of it (an experience that has been far too common this last week or so), and here we go.

There was a bunch of us in the Lion and Swan (the Boddingtons pub in West Street, Crewe) and it was after hours so all of the doors were locked. There was a banging from the window and someone from outside asking “I’m looking for a job. Is there any work available?”. The landlady went out to see and it turned out that it was some man, an Irish guy, who was doing the rounds trying to find work. The landlady made a few enquiries and found out that this person was under some kind of obligation to stay in Ireland and she was wondering whether the relevant people knew that he was now turning up in Crewe looking for work as if he intended to stay here.
From there, I rambled off into some James Bond-esque kind of adventure (we’ve been doing a bit of this just recently) involving some person who had gone missing. This involved a search of several places, some of which were quite impressive houses of the type that you would only find in Mayfair, but searched they were just the same. One of these houses was occupied by some kind of dowager-type of woman who dressed in keeping with her status and property and she allowed the search to take place but at one point, she simply disappeared. The hero made an inspection and discovered that there seemed to be a false panel in the wall and he reasoned that she had slipped behind it. He simply loitered in the vicinity because he was sure that she would reappear. And sure enough, she slipped out from behind the panel (where there was a stairway leading to a secret part of the house). As her head came into view he hit her so had in the face that the term “a glass jaw” was never ever more appropriate because you could hear the crash and tinkle right the way through the house.

bird strike window u z leuven pellenberg belgiumWhile I was down at the kettle making my coffee, I noticed that we seem to have had a bird-strike during the night. I don’t remember seeing this outline on the window yesterday. And this looks very much owl-like if you ask me, poor thing.

But this brings me back to something else that I have been saying for 20 years.There are some foolish, misguided people who object to wind turbines on the grounds that birds fly into the blades and die. And there are other foolish and misguided people who object to wind turbines on the grounds that they make too much noise. But I’ve always wondered about if they make so much noise, why do birds fly into them? One would have thought that the birds would have heard the noise (and felt the turbulence too). But here, we have “living” proof that glass window panes are very hermful to the health of birds. Do these people then refuse to fit glass windows into their houses, or are they the typical, usual NIMBY hypocrites?

I think we should be told.

weight and price of baguette spar lubbeek belgiumOnce breakfast was out of the way, I needed to go off and organise my baguette for lunch. This involved, as usual, a trek of about 100 miles to the Spar shop at Lubbeek because there doesn’t appear to be anywhere closer

This is the baguette here, and those of you with eagle eyes will notice the weight of the baguette on the label because it’s going to be quite important in a very short minute.

weight and price of demi baguette spar lubbeek belgiumRegular readers of this rubbish will recall that Belgium is “special” and Belgian maths are no different in this respect.

And so here’s a question – if a whole baguette weighs 250 grams, how much do you think half a baguette weighs?

And now check your answer with the weight shown in this photo just here and see if you are correct according to Belgian mathematics. How did you get on?

And so apart from that, I’ve been bashing out the blog – or, at least, the month of April 2011 – to make it conform to the new in-house standards. This has been quite a complicated month to do, and for a couple of reasons too.

Firstly I had to completely revise several entries for that month. Some entries were done in haste and would benefit from a complete revision. Not only that, a couple of them were quite important, if not significant, and so it was quite important that they were as complete and coherent as possible with as many photos as possible too.

Secondly, some blog entries didn’t exist. Back in the older days of this blog, if I were on the road I would blog whenever I had the opportunity, incorporating two, three, or sometimes many, many days into one entry. More recently though, I’ve been blogging every night (or sometimes, first thing the following morning) and if there was no internet access , I’d save them as text files and add them individually at the next opportunity. This is how I want my blog to be and so I’ve had to revise a pile of entries in order to reflect the “day-to-day” nature of the blog.

All of that has taken me all of the day, believe it or not, and I’ve not long finished. I did however have a little cheat and crashed out for over an hour at 16:00. And while I was “away”, I was watching a film, Carry on Christmas (and I don’t mean the cameo TV programmes but what passed as a real full-length feature film) in the company of the girl who has been described on these pages as “the one that got away”.

I spoke to Liz on the internet for ages too, and had a repeat of the delicious tea that I had last night – and it tasted even better too.

So tonight I’ll have an early night, watch a film, and prepare for an early start again tomorrow.

Nighty-night!

0

Tuesday 10th May 2016 – SO, WHAT ARE THE NEW DIGS LIKE, THEN?

universitair ziekenhuis pellenberg leuven belgiumFirst of all, it made a pleasant change to wake up and hear the birds singing. For the last few weeks I’ve been waking up to hear the birds coughing.

My room looks out towards the west, away from the campus, and I have the sun streaming in here towards the end of the afternoon and all of that is quite nice.

And that, I’m afraid, is about that.

Firstly, there’s no private toilet. I have to wander off down the corridor which, three or four times during the night, is going to be rather inconvenient to say the least.

Having had a bad night’s sleep yet again (I just can’t get comfy these days) and totally forgetting a dream that I was having, I staggered off in search of breakfast only to be told that … errr … there isn’t any. It’s not supplied.

Neither is coffee. And there’s nothing to cook on, no water fountain, no laundry room, no absolutely nothing.

universitair ziekenhuis pellenberg leuven belgiumThe building itself is fairly modern – 1960s or 1970s I reckon, and has the air of being some kind of isolation hospital. And in the 50 or whatever years since it’s been built, I reckon that it hasn’t seen a lick of paint or an ounce of modernisation in the areas that I saw.

However, you can’t argue with the setting and if it’s peace and quiet that you want, then you can’t go far wrong here because there isn’t going to be anything to disturb you.

universitair ziekenhuis pellenberg leuven belgiumIt’s set in huge grounds that have the appearance of having once been landscaped, and on peering through the trees there’s a really impressive chateau down there surrounded by a lake – or moat even.

I was tempted to go for a good browse around and to see what gives at the chateau but it was raining quite heavily on and off and so I’ve taken a rain-check on that and I’ll be looking into this at a later date.

So the first thing to do was to sort out some food for breakfast.

Alison had given me some dry-toasted biscuits and I had some strawberry jam. There was some grapefruit juice that I had bought last night and I had fetched some coffee from home. So that was breakfast all properly organised.

As for lunch; I nipped out in Caliburn to look for a baguette and ended up having to drive about a hundred blasted miles to Lubbeek before I found anywhere. And there wasn’t a single fritkot or cheapo fast food place anywhere on the way.

So what did I do for tea then?

Well, there’s a camping stove, some water, a saucepan, some pasta, some tins of mushrooms, some tins of mixed veg and a few jars of tomato sauce and so I cooked in the back of Caliburn like I did in France two years ago when I was in those digs in Rennes-les-Bains where there was no restaurant open. Some slices of that spicy cake with soya cream and I had a meal for for a King.

The secret of all of these matters is “preparation”. If you prepare for the problems, they don’t become problems, do they?

And how have I occupied my time?

Apart from tiptoeing through the tulip … errr … raindrops, I’ve been working on the blog again bringing it further up-to-date. I’ve probably done another 10 days today so I’m making a fair bit of progress.

And I’ve been on the phone to the bank (which took me about an hour and I shudder to thing how much that will cost me) for I’ve mislaid my bank card. I can’t find it anywhere at the moment and I need to order it because if I do go back home for a week, it needs to be there when I’m there so that I can bring it back with me.

My plans of finding a little studio or flat have come to nothing too. It seems that no-one will consider a lease for less than a year, so a four-month lease is out of the question for me. Good job that I have a Plan C, as well a plan B.

So now, I’m going to have an early night and see if I can remember what happens while I’m on my travels. I’m rather letting the side down right at the moment.

0

Monday 9th May 2016 – WA-HEYYYYYYY!

Yes, folks, I’m free!

I’ve been expelled from the hospital this evening, and I definitely heard at least one nurse say “if he comes back, I’m leaving!”.

Apparently everything is as it should be (but I forgot to ask about the blood count)and there’s no reason now for me to stay. I promptly gathered up my things and cleared off. You’ve no idea just how pleased Caliburn and Strawberry Moose were to see me, and we all quickly headed off into the sunset (well, it wasn’t THAT late, but it’s a nice piece of prose).

Earlier on in the day when I’d gone down to make my cheese butty, I went to the reception desk. Seeing that I was trailing a perfusion drip machine behind me, these seemed like a good time to go and negotiate the car-park situation – no-one could doubt my bona fides with all of that – and sure enough, I was given a free pass.

But when our Three Mustgetbeers went to use it at the exit barrier we succeeded in jamming up the machine completely. And by the time that someone came to unjam it (I had beaten a hasty retreat by this time) there was a queue a mile long at the barrier. Ahh well!

I nipped to Sint Pieters for the stuff that I had left behind and ended up having something of a “discussion” with the woman in reception. I’d parked Caliburn on the ramp outside the door of the hospital and my intention was to mention it to the receptionist in case she was wondering whose it was, and to say that I would be back in two minutes.

As simple as that, hey? But as you know, in anything in which I am involved, the facts are quite often different and the explanations that I was forced to give (all in Flemish too) took a darn sight longer than two minutes. It would have been quicker to have said nothing at all.

And it was all a waste of time too because they had cleared out my part of the fridge and everything had long-since been binned, including about €20-worth of sliced vegan cheese! I’m furious about all of this!

I did however stop at a huge supermarket on the edge of Leuven for a pile of shopping, including at long last, a decent pair of headphones instead of these rubbishy in-ear ones that are falling to pieces already, and then I made my way out (and I do mean “out”) of town into the countryside to the campus at Pellenberg where I’m staying until Friday.

But let’s return to the events since the last time I spoke to you all. I’ll tell you all about Pellenberg tomorrow after I’ve had a good prowl around.

When I went back into my romm last night it was absolutely stifling in there. So much so that I came back out here and watched a film on the laptop until about 22:30. And by then, it was much better back in the bedroom.
Memo to self – close sunblind first thing in the morning to keep out the heat

I slept a little better too, although the night was full of awakenings. Nothing like the previous one though, thank heavens, and I don’t recall the night-nurse (except for one occasion but I was awake anyway so that doesn’t really count).

I’d had some mega-rambles too and some of these (the bits that I remember anyway) are quite impressive.
Further memo to self – remember to charge up the dictaphone

I started off with a Sherlock Holmes adventure and it really was an adventure too. Nothing at all like Conan Doyle’s books but a huge Gothic horror ramble too that took us through the by-wys and alleyways of London, haunted houses in the countryside, graveyards and the like. Something very much akin to”Sherlock Holmes meets the Son of Dracula”. It was loosely based on a Sherlock Holmes story something like “The Engineer’s Thumb” but I don’t now recall exactly which one it was.
From here, we went on to have another cameo appearance from my Greek friend Maria. I was in Northampton, in a fourth-floor apartment looking out over a T-junction and one of the roads, the road to the right, was labelled something like “take this road to a better future”. This inspired me somewhat so off I set. But when I arrived down at the junction, the traffic lights changed to red. “This is an auspicious start” I thought to myself. But eventually I could continue along my way and I did notice that the road looked no different than any other street heading out of town. We did however come to a kind of sales room where there was an auction taking place. I arrived just as the last lot was being sold off – a 1940s-type of motorcycle and there were only two bidders. The price wasn’t all that high either but as usual, I had come totally unprepared, with no money or anything and so I had to pass up the opportunity. I did make a mental note, though, that I’d be back with plenty of cash if this is the kind of thing that goes on around here. And it was here that Maria put in an appearance too. It’s been … ohhh … 14 years since I’ve seen her in real life (but only about 2 weeks on here, I reckon) so we had plenty to discuss and tons of news to exchange.
But by now I was back home (wherever that might have been) in a rural environment with Nerina. We had an appointment in half an hour and I’d been working so I was dirty, and this is when I discovered that the hot water had been turned off, so no bath. I had to light the boiler and hope that 15 minutes would be enough to at least heat it up so that I could have a quick plunge. But that didn’t work out as it should so we cancelled that, and I missed the appointment in the end. But then I started to tidy up outside the house – trimming the edges of the driveway and in the end the place looked beautiful out there (I wish that I could do this at my house) so I carried on inside. There were all kinds of weeds and the like growing on the floor of the bedroom so I attacked those too and by the time that I had finished, the bedroom floor was so clean and shiny with nice brown parquet floor. It looked so beautiful. Even Nerina and a third person (I can’t remember who he was now) who was with us passed a comment and I felt so proud.

That took me up until 06:00, and by 06:45 I’d polished off the orange left over from yesterday, drunk some water and performed my toilet. And at 07:00 I was in the comfy chair in the day room, beating the sun by a good 10 minutes. Now that I’ve worked out how to make the comfy chairs recline, it was my intention to stay there until either the laptop battery or the coffee machine ran dry, whichever was the first, but I had failed to take into account the persistence of the nurses who did everything in their power to disturb me, such as giving me medication, changing my perfusion, taking my temperature and blood pressure, taking my weight (I’ve gained 1kg, by the way).

That’s not all either.

The doctor and the professor came in for a lengthy chat with me and this was followed by the girl from the Social Services department to discuss accommodation for me. It seems that a place has been found for me at Pellenberg until Friday morning for when I leave here, which (as you have seen already, I did today).

Later on, I was told that I had to go for an ear examination. The appointment had been arranged at 13:30 but was at Sint Rafaël across town so I needed to go there. This meant being picked up by the shuttle at 12:30. So at 13:00 I boarded the shuttle, having been pushed in a wheelchair about 20 miles around the campus here, had my appointment at 14:00 (and I have a hearing loss in the treble ranges of my left ear and telling jokes to foreigners, as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock once said, is indeed “a total waste of time” because the doctor sat there pasty-faced when I explained that that was probably why I play bass guitar) and then had to wait for the shuttle at … errr … 15:00.

All in all, it was 15:45 by the time that I arrived and had they been more organised, told me earlier that I could leave, and disconnected me from the pipes and tubes, I could have waked there and back in half the time.

But the examination itself was horrible. I had all kinds of stuff including, at one stage, a camera, stuffed up my nose and in my ear and I felt dreadful.

And upon my return, I found that I had a new room-mate too. So it’s a good job that I was leaving, wasn’t it?

It was on this note, starving to death and totally fed up, that I went off to make myself a cheese butty. And you know the rest of the story.

0

Sunday 8th May 2016 – I WAS A BIT PREMATURE …

… in my thoughts that I could turn of the air-conditioning in my room. By the time that I went back there at the end of the day, the thing had started up again and that was that. The night-nurse had a play with it later but he could only manage to slow it down rather than switch it off and so that was that.

It didn’t make a blind bit of difference though because firstly, the one right outside the door started off full-tilt a little later and secondly, we had an “incident” during the night. I’m not sure what it was but a group of family members which had stayed well-past the end of official visiting hours until the small hours of the morning suddenly upped sticks and went outside the room and two nurses came down, who promptly closed the security curtains around everyone else’s room entrances. One can only speculate.

I was awake until long after 01:00, again at 04:00, again at 05:30, again at 06:00 and I gave it up for good at about 07:00. By 07:45 I was encamped in the window seat in the day-room although with much less sun than before and with a nice pleasant breeze blowing in through the open door. But judging by the grief-stricken faces of the German-speaking family in there this morning, my speculation about the events of last night can only be correct. And later on, a nurse confirmed it when I asked her, although she was clearly unhappy to tell me.

I’d been on my travels too for quite a while during the night (so it can’t be the antibiotics that’s causing those then, can it?). I started off at home with my mother and my elder sister and we were as usual having a dispute. I needed everyone’s co-operation (and the chances of that every happening in our family were about zero, as anyone who has ever read any of this rubbish will realise) to be somewhere at 14:00. It was now 12:45 and nothing had happened and everyone seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. In the end I stormed out of the house, went off to a group of people – long-haired motorcyclists whom I knew – and we promptly all came back to my family’s garage-cum-service station (because last night that’s what we owned and that’s where we lived) and smashed the place and everything in it to smithereens and then burnt it down to the ground in an orgy of anger and destruction. It didn’t solve the problem of course but you’ve absolutely no idea how much better it felt.
Later, a friend and I were actually involved in the running of some kind of informal garage service. We’d taken over a derelict site that was still in working order (not the family one of course) and set ourselves up in business. I was dishing out the fuel from these dilapidated petrol pumps but I couldn’t let the cars go (there were only three of them anyway) because my colleague hadn’t come back with the paperwork that I needed (as you all know, I have a “thing” about recording fuel consumption, mileages and so on). When he did finally put in his appearance he had forgotten to bring the stuff with him so my plans were all of a waste of time. But then a car (a black Capri) appeared and asked for fuel, and an air line because the front offside (a RHD car) tyre was flat. My colleague said that the wheel bearing on that side had gone and needed to change it. The driver stuck his head over the wing of the car and asked if we needed to take the wheel off so I replied in the affirmative. He said “to blow the tyre up?” to which I answered that I thought that he was talking about the wheel bearing – you don’t need to remove the wheel to blow up the tyre.
A short while later, I was off a-wandering on the bank up to the railway station at the top end of Winsford. I don’t remember who was with me but one person might well have been Nerina (although I can’t be sure now) and the other was someone who was something of a long-term unemployed man who had to scratch around to make a living (reminding me very much of someone whom I used to know in Crewe in the early 1970s). We were walking up the bank and an aeroplane – a huge Guppy-type thing – passed right over our heads and descended even lower, passing over a village in the valley at less-than-rooftop height as it went into land at Manchester Airport (this is a good flight-path, I can tell you). The plane itself was painted white and belonged to the parcels carrier whose livery is white with dark red stripes and a kind of script writing (and whose name I will remember as soon as I press “Publish”). I asked our companion whether the planes flying as low as this overhead bothered him, to which he replied that these don’t, but the two that come over at 10:30 and 16:00 are devastating. We ended up back in his house and Nerina (or whoever) went into the kitchen to make food or something. The guy had been out for a while and came back, counting a sum of money which I reckoned to be about £120:00. This seemed to be his share of his “dole” money after his rent and other stuff had been paid. He told me that if I were to look in my jacket pocket I would find “a couple of quid”. This was intended to be for whoever was in the kitchen, for everything that she was doing for him, and he would be grateful if I could pass it on to her at a convenient moment.

Alison said that she would come to see me so I wandered back to my room to get prettied up ready for her visit – after all, I have to look my best, don’t I? And in my room I found a banana and a bottle of lemonade too. It’s like a hotel here and I’m so lucky.

When Alison turned up, she brought a few surprises with her. Such as, a pot of almond-based ice-cream, two cans of fiery ginger beer, two packets of dry toasts, one pack of rice cakes, two soya vanilla desserts, some strawberries, one partridge and one pear tree. The ice cream disappeared without trace right in front of her eyes and after she had gone, one of the vanilla desserts, the strawberries and some rice cakes went as well. And after she went, I went and made myself another cheese butty. My appetite is back and raging, isn’t it?

It was lovely to see Alison, though. A bright, cheerful, smiling face to match the sunshine outside. She stayed for almost two hours too which, at the price of parking here at the hospital, shows a major sacrifice. We had plenty of time to discuss my latest plans which, as you know, change with the weather (or, more likely, my state of health).

And if you think that that food was enough to be going on, that really isn’t all. My favourite little nursey, hearing that I couldn’t eat the bread on offer, went off and toasted a couple of rounds for me which was really nice of her. She even brought me an ice-cold bottle of lemonade afterwards so I must be clearly in her good books.

But apart from all of that, what else have I been up to today?

The answer is “loads and loads”.

I’ve finally been in the right frame of mind to have a huge attack at updating my blog.

You might remember that when I brought my blog in-house in 2013 all of the tags and links were missing, and the photos didn’t set right. I started a little plan of attack to correct it, which I have continued in a desultory kind of fashion but today I crashed right on, did the whole of April 2012 and some of July 2012 too (May and June need “special consideration” for which I need to concentrate). I just hope that I can maintain the momentum for the rest of the site.

So now I’m going to prepare for an early night. If I am being ejected tomorrow, I need to be on form. And furthermore, I need to know where I’m going to be living too because the girl at the Social Services was absent last week.

Good job that I have the fold-up bed and single quilt in the back of Caliburn, isn’t it?

0

Saturday 7th May 2016 – I DIDN’T FORGET …

… my spicy loaf thing after all that. It was actually in my rucksack where I hadn’t thought to look. It was about midnight when I suddenly remembered where it was, so I ended up with a midnight snack, and didn’t it go down well!

But a midnight snack will tell you something about yet another night here. Here I am all on my own in my room and once more I’m wide awake at silly o’clock not being able to go to sleep. We even had – and who in their right mind would ever engage – a night-nurse with a deep booming voice? He can’t whisper to the patients – you can hear him all down the corridor. I ended up closing my bedroom door, which is something that I hate to do here.

It seems to be that it’s the noise of the air-conditioning that’s making the racket that keeps me awake, so I made a few investigations this morning and I think I know how I can switch it off. I’ll try that tonight, which will mean that it will then be too hot to sleep.

Just wait and see.

But I did drop off to sleep at some point because although I do remember 01:00, the next thing that I remember was 06:30 and it seemed to be continuous too as far as I know, with not even a trip down the corridor this time. That’s progress, I reckon.

And while I was out, I was off back to Nantwich and my old school, and to something of a sex scandal, where someone was accused of sending indecent messages to a young girl pupil there. All of this was splashed over the BBC and questions were being asked everywhere. However, I happened to be watching a Polish sports programme on TV and they had a news broadcast at half-time, and this featured this particular story. It went into much more detail, saying that the girl was Polish and the messages consisted of words such as “Katya (or whatever her name was), go 20 paces forward” and “Katya (or whatever …) go ten paces left”, all like the instructions in The Musgrave Ritual and nothing like the innuendo that the BBC was implying at all. All it showed was how short of news the BBC was that it was blowing up out of all proportions a harmless media nothingness.

In fact, this bears a startling parallel to something that had actually occurred to me 30 years or so ago. In those days, the BBC finished broadcasting its radio programmes at 02:00, ending with a news broadcast, and when I was driving taxis through the night, I always listened to it. But a quick turn of the dial at 02:00 brought into reception Radio Free Bulgaria , the Communist-supported English-language radio broadcasts,and they always started at 02:00 with a news broadcast. It would have the same broadcasts using the same vocabulary, but by changing the stresses of the words and by changing the punctuation, it could make it sound totally different and, in many cases, mean exactly the opposite.

That was my first encounter with “propaganda” because even back in those days I was never so naïve as to believe that whatever the BBC was telling us was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and hearing the same news being told from a completely opposite viewpoint made that news sound just as credible as the BBC reports. So who was right?

Like I said, I was never so naïve enough to entirely believe the BBC and my cynicism has just gone worse over the intervening years.

So today we have made outstanding progress.

I was up and about and in my window for 08:00, basking in the sun for a couple of hours, and I scavenged a pile of fruit, a few bottles of lemonade, the rest of the biscuits and some spicy loaf too throughout the day. That kept me out of mischief.

But the highlight was definitely my permission. Being given leave to wander around the hospital for an hour, I went for a slow walk this afternoon. I ended up with a big hunk of bread and some of my cheese slices from Caliburn ending up with a huge cheese butty in the sunshine. It was the most delicious thing that I have eaten for ages.

A long chat on the internet with Liz followed and we discussed a cunning plan, more of which anon.

So now I’m winding down for the evening and I’ll have an early night hoping to catch up with my sleep. If it’s true that I’m being ejected on Monday, then there are just two more nights to go so I want to make the most of whatever time I have left here to catch up on my sleep.

But Alison is coming to see me tomorrow, so that will be nice. Especially as she will be bringing some vegan ice cream with her. I do hope that she remembers to bring a spoon with her.

0