Tag Archives: hospital

Friday 6th May 2016 – NOW, I WONDER …

… about the allergy tests that I did at Montlucon just before I came away.

They gave me the tests, apparently, to see whether I was allergic to a new medication that they were proposing for me, but the tests came up with reactions so they didn’t proceed. After chemotherapy they started me off on a course of antibiotics – 2 huge pills that look like torpedoes – and that more-or-less coincided with my violent attacks of nausea and … err … other stuff. However they took the decision yesterday to suspend the antibiotics and strangely enough, I haven’t been to the bathroom once after an early-morning session.

Furthermore, during the course of the day, I managed to nibble down about 10 dry biscuits, one apple and two bottles of lemonade and, to date, they have not yet upped sticks and left. I would have had a couple of slices of spicy cake stuff too but for some unaccountable reason I seem to have left that behind in Caliburn.

Of course there’s a long way to go but it’s a rather optimistic sign, and I’m wondering if I had maybe an allergy to this antibiotic treatment that has caused all of this. It could also be that, given the shape of the things, I’ve been taking them the wrong way, of course.

And that does remind me of the story about the doctor visiting his patient and asked him “did those suppositories I gave you ease your piles any?”
To which the patient replied “to be honest, doctor, for all the good that they did me, I may as well have shoved them up my a**e”.
Mind you, with my face of course, it’s a mistake easily made.

I was really looking forward to last night having a room to myself but as you might have been expecting, it didn’t work out quite like that at all for I was still unable to go to sleep. And when I did, it was full of fits and starts and tossing and turning.

But it did mean that I was up early. And when I went for a little walk I noticed the sun streaming in through the window of the common room so I grabbed the laptop and settled down in the window to enjoy it. It didn’t last long though but nevertheless, with the heat pouring in down the back of my neck it left me feeling a new man, which is just as well because I’m fed up of this one.

The doctor came to see me and we had a very lengthy chat. And she’s clearly concerned because she went off and came back with the Professor. They were honest and admitted that they had never seen a chemotherapy reaction quite like mine but they seemed honestly to believe that I would triumph over it in the long term. They’ve prescribed a course of steroids for me to help me control my body mass, with my weight drifting away even as I speak.

They said that they are intending to keep me in until Monday at least which I suppose isn’t such bad news, for it means that I can go straight from here back to Sint Pieters which is more convenient for me and in any case it all saves me €20 per night while I’m here. We must focus on the positives.

Another thing that was mentioned was the subject of my dreams. Being curious about things of this nature, I asked whether or not there was any combination of medicines that would provoke such wild wanderings. She confirmed that it is not unknown, but no-one has ever done a study into it. So maybe there’s an opening for me here – I’m certainly being a pace setter, if not a trend-setter … "or an Irish Setter" – ed .

It came to prominence where apart from appearing personally in two episodes of the Clitheroe Kid, I went off on two of the most astonishing and vivid voyages that I have ever had. And true to form, when I awoke – bolt-upright – at 07:00, every last vestige of them vanished for ever. You’ve no idea just how disappointed I was about that.

So now, I’ll settle down for the night and hope that my little improvement will finally give me a really good night. I deserve one, and need one too, especially as I’m once more on my own tonight.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed and see what happens, hey?

0

Thursday 5th May 2016 – ONE THING THAT I HAVE LEARNT …

… from these most extraordinary nocturnal rambles that I’ve been having is that when you lash out in the middle of the night, you really do lash out.

There I was, in Stalbridge Road in Crewe having a crafty little doze at the side of the road in Caliburn when someone’s hand sneaked in through the open window to grab a small box that was on the passenger seat beside me. I grabbed hold of the hand, broke a finger, exited via the door of Caliburn and gave this person a resounding kick up the backside, which sent my perfusion support, side table and empty bottle of Sprite flying across my little hospital room – and hurting me on the foot in the process.

And so we learn. And this might also explain a few of the cut and bruises that I find upon myself every now and again.

This wasn’t all that happened in the night either. Nerina and I were walking along Rope Lane in Shavington near to the Vine Inn, disagreeing with each other as usual, when this monstrous kind of animal turned up and started harassing me. I chased it away much to Nerina’s disappointment, but this animal quickly showed us why it was so monstrous and as you are probably eating your breakfast right now, I won’t go into details.

As for my day today, this morning was as usual. Dozing in bed and going to the bathroom was how I spent much of my day. And in answer to a question posed by a keen reader, I have been weighed this morning, and I’ve lost 8 kilos. I don’t recommend this illness, whatever it is that I have, as a weight loss remedy however

By though lunchtime, we were off again, and I do mean off. The meals came round and the very smell of the cooking is enough to set me off again and so I beat a hasty retreat into the small common room here.

A nurse brought me another Sprite (last night’s was delicious and I enjoyed it so much) and here I stayed until about 15:30. And strangely enough, I felt so much better and that three hours was probably amongst the most pleasant that I have had since I arrived here last week.

Eventually though, I needed the bathroom and so off I went back to my room. However, the atmosphere was quite oppressive all the same and so by 17:00 I was back again in the common room. I stuck it out for about two hours before I had to go back to the bathroom and by then I had come apart again and I was so depressed.

But at least one thing is clear, and that is that there’s some kind of odour or atmosphere in my room and that’s what’s making me feel like this. When I’m elsewhere (like in the common room) I feel so much brighter and so much more alive, and so I’m going to decamp to there tomorrow as soon as I awake, and see how I feel. If it doesn’t work, then I’m no worse off but I reckon that the change of scenery – any change of scenery – will do me good.

My room-mate left hospital today so I’m on my own tonight. I’m looking forward to a decent night’s sleep (at long last) which will make me feel even better, but I bet that something will come along to muck it all about.

0

Wednesday 4th May 2016 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY EVERYONE

May the fourth be with you.

Well, it’s certainly not with me because I’ve had yet another horrible day. Basically, just transpose everything, including the bad bits of it, onto today and you will have everything that you need to know.

There were however a couple of slight changes. Firstly, I was on my travels again, to the ear specialist for her to look inside my ear with this bubble thing that I have inside. It’s definitely a little water in the middle ear so they are going to give me a spray to hopefully clear it. But it’s sad that I’m not in that section of the hospital on a permanent basis because there are some nurses there who are stunners! Any one of them could soothe my fevered brow.

There’s a doctor who is the spitting image of Harry Potter in that section, but I don’t fancy the idea of him getting out his wand and waving about all over me.

Secondly, I ate a little today. Half a dozen dry biscuits of the sort that I bought in the Netherlands the other week. They slowed everything down, but unfortunately didn’t stop it. But still, I had to try it.

Thirdly, as I type this entry, I’m drinking a freezing cold (and I know that it is because it’s crammed full of ice cubes) lemonade drink. I probably shouldn’t, but the way I look at it, nothing else is staying in so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t try this. But I really had a craving (and no, Rhys, I’m not pregnant).

They are quite worried about me, so it seems. Not eating and drinking goes against their principles and I’ve been coupled up to a perfusion of a glucose-base to try to give me some nutrients and liquids. But, as you might have guessed …

Last night’s travels (because we seem to be back in it again) were quite interesting as they all revolved around transport. At one stage (and I’m not sure when and why) I was running (yes, running!) for a bus and it was one of those ultra-realistic moments that I found hard to understand wasn’t a dream when I awoke. But that must be a good sign if I feel like running, even in the dead of night.
My father put in an appearance too. It was winter and there was snow everywhere and his car had broken down but a friend had fixed it and he was now mobile. He came round to see me for something and we were go go out in my car, which was a blue and white Mark III Zodiac but for some reason it wouldn’t start. “I know a good mechanic” said father, but then we realised that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for this guy was the police mechanic and we were up to stuff that we didn’t want the police to know.
I was also in Canada and a friend and I were working on a car. He told me of the dangers of lying on tools and things underneath cars but he lay down right on my keys, the snap-hook broke and the pointy bit pierced him in the thigh. I piled him (and his daughter and a friend of hers) into my car, a red Mark I Escort, and we had to reverse out of a tight corner of a cul-de-sac. I heard a bang, looked behind me and there was an old 1930s Austin 7 on the pavement. At first I thought that I had reversed into it, but then I saw that a dent that it had, marked in red paint, was a good few inches higher than the protruding bits of my car so I realised that it couldn’t have been me, I had just hit the kerb. And so I drove off but this road took me right through the middle of a street party. I had to slow right down and my passenger got out of the car to speak to people, as he is wont to do. He began to tell everyone what had gone on down at the end of the cul-de-sac and I rather wished that he hadn’t as I was absolutely convinced that it was nothing to do with me.

And the lemonade was delicious. I’ll tell you tomorrow if it was worth it.

0

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 – AND JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT …

… that things couldn’t be any worse, we had today.

I woke up at about 07:00 and my fist stop was the bathroom where, to go with the vomiting sessions that I’ve had, the other end is now doing the same. And so all that I’ve done is to alternate between sleeping and dashing to the bathroom for one reason or another.

And eating? On the basis of what can’t come out if it doesn’t go in, I’ve eaten (and drunk) nothing today – just a few sips of water. But that’s not worked at all well. I’ve had loads of people come to see me, had loads of pills and tablets, but none of this has worked. I had to give a “stool sample” so they handed me a little container. Now I know that I’m good, but I’m not that good – reminiscing about the sign that I once saw in a public lavatory somewhere –
“we aim to please. You aim too, please”
but skill counted for nothing and in the end they gave me the missing part of the appliance.

With all of this going on, I’m still here. They won’t be heaving me out for a bit, I reckon. Not until I’m feeling more like it anyway. I shall have to make the best of it I suppose.

I was on my travels again too. I knew a little trick about how to make a Ford Cortina Mark IV shorter without cutting the chassis, and I’d done a blue one. So now I was doing a beige one and filming it for the TV but somewhere along the line I’d made a mistake and whilst the front had gone okay I had messed up at the back end and this wasn’t too impressive for television.
I also had the dubious pleasure of watching my chimney fall down. I was looking at it thinking that this won’t be long for this world and it will make a mess when it falls when suddenly the chimney pots slid off. I was half-expecting to hear a crunch as they fell onto a passing car but instead I heard the reassuring crash as they fell into the roadway. And then the two pillars fell, sliding down the roof into the passageway at the side. I looked over the wall into the street and there were two policemen on pushbikes eyeing it up – we were on Chester Bridge in Crewe as it happened. I knew that I had to go down and clear it up and admit that it was all mine and the sooner that I did it the better.
I was also in my house too but it was laid out more like Lieneke’s. I heard a big diesel engine come up to my house so I went into the front room to see. It was a big digger passing by between my house and my barn so I wondered what was going on. I nipped out to see but to my surprise it wasn’t the outside of my house but somewhere that I didn’t recognise at all.

0

Monday 2nd May 2016 – I’M BACK …

… on the antibiotics again.

And by pure coincidence, I’m back on my nocturnal rambles too.

Last night I started off in my house (but really it was the kitchen and back room of our old house in Vine Tree Avenue). I was in the kitchen with our old collie, Jessie, and my mother and brother were in the other room. I Wished that they would both clear off because I wanted to go to bed for it was late. But clear off they just would not and time drew on and on and eventually the stove burnt out, with just a red glow from the embers.
From here I found myself back in Nantwich, Market Street to be precise, and James Bond was there following a lady up the street for some good reason. I’m not sure why, but it ended up with her turning on hand the pair of them having a good old scrap in which, for once, Bond was not having the upper hand.
Still in Nantwich, there were three girls called Liz who used to hang around together (as if life isn’t confusing enough) and I knew them all very well because in my early 20s I was engaged to one of them and the second had a brother who had a big Velocette motorcycle who once rang me up to apologise when he bought a Honda 4 instead. But returning to our ramble, the one who was interesting me last night and I’ve no idea why was the quiet little blond of the three.
Harry Potter featured in it too at one stage. He was with Tom Riddle and Riddle had put something in Potter’s luggage chest – a weird thing called love, and this was confusing Potter who didn’t understand the feeling, and confused Riddle too who of course having never experienced it himself, didn’t understand the power of the emotion

And talking of nocturnal rambles, I must have broken all records with the number of rambles that I made down the corridor last night. I lost count at about 10.

As for the rest of the day, it can’t be far off the worst of my life. I didn’t eat breakfast, only barely managed lunch and then left my tea tea. I passed most of the day asleep or dozing totally oblivious to whatever was going on.

Round about 19:30 I came to realise who grateful I was that I hadn’t eaten much because whatever had gone in then came out in the most dramatic fashion – with me ending up calling the boys on the great white telephone.

So basically, that was that. A horrible day and it goes without saying that I haven’t gone home yet. They are keeping me in for observation and there’s a lot to be observing right now.

And I do feel ill.

0

Sunday 1st May 2016 – THEY FINISHED …

… the second round of chemo much earlier yesterday and so at about 22:30 I was able to settle down to go to sleep. In fact, I fell asleep halfway through one of the James Lee Wong films starring Boris Karloff in the title role.

But I wasn’t asleep for long. Not just tossing and turning either but my right had swelled up quite dramatically and there was a procession of nurses and doctors who came to see it. But I can do without all of this, I can tell you.

I’ve also developed a kind of air-bubble in my left ear too. I’ve no idea where that has come from but they will get a specialist to look at it tomorrow.

By breakfast time, the swelling had gone down enough that I could at least make a fist, but I’m off my food yet again. Jam and soya drinks are now on my proscribed list so you can see that things are definitely looking down. Lunch however was quorn fillets with potatoes in a tomato and mushroom sauce, and I enjoyed that very much.

I also enjoyed the shower that I had although we are going through another session of where I don’t want to look in the mirror to see what they have done to me.

This afternoon, it goes without saying that I crashed out. That’s the usual procedure following chemotherapy as I know from last time. But they did wake me up to give me two pochettes of blood. I suppose they think that that might revitalise me but the way that I’m feeling, it’s going to take more than two pochettes of blood.

They have given me a tablet to prevent bits of me swelling up, but what it is in fact is a diuretic. Every time I drink something, then 5 minutes later I have to dash to the bathroom. What a silly thing to give me so close to bed-time.

So if things go according to plan, I’ll be leaving here tomorrow so I’d better have an early night if I can. But we’ve all heard about plans before, haven’t we, so I’m saying nothing at all.

0

Saturday 30th April 2016 – BY THE TIME …

… that they had finished with my chemotherapy last night it was 01:30. And then slowly but intermittently I could drift off to sleep.

In between a couple of trips down the corridor I remember going on a nocturnal ramble or two with some of my 3D characters. Clearly they are all feeling lonely and left out these days.

But this morning I had the nausea, a fever and the dizzy spells, to such an extent that I didn’t feel like my breakfast. And you know that there must be something seriously wrong with me if I’m off my food. In fact it took me until about 11:30 until I started to feel better and just half an hour later I managed to demolish my lunch. Clearly much better.

This afternoon I’ve been drifting in and out of sleep, presumably to make up for the couple of bad nights that I’ve been having. I’ve not done very much at all. But now, even as we speak, I’m on the second round of chemotherapy so I hope that this all goes according to plan.

So what will tomorrow bring? Not a lot, I reckon. It’s Sunday and a day of rest.

0

Friday 29th April 2016 – JUST AS I EXPECTED …

… I didn’t have a wink of sleep last night.

My room-mate does snore, but nothing like as loudly as my previous ones. It was quite an acceptable level in fact. But he fell asleep with his television on and that meant that I didn’t drop off, and then I lay awake all night thinking about my operation.

I remember 07:00 coming along but then, as you might expect, with zero hour of 08:00 coming along, I dropped off to sleep. So I was rudely awakened. They offered me a wheelchair which I accepted, and then I was pushed for miles and miles around the hospital to the operating theatre.

I managed to avoid a panic attack although it was quite interesting watching the heartbeat monitor go up from 89 to, at one stage, 116. But I was draped in covers so I couldn’t see what was going on and apart from two small occasions, I didn’t feel a thing. In fact, if I were honest, it was much less painful than fitting a drain.

But here’s a thing. I asked them what would happen about taking it out when it’s all over and the answer is that they don’t. It’s here for life “just in case”, and it will need cleaning every three months. So my GP is going to have her work cut out with me.

Another thing that I found out is that if I have sex, I need to wear a condom otherwise I’ll be giving my partner a chemotherapy injection. Mind you, the chances of that ever happening, as I explained to the social worker who came to see me, are somewhat less than zero so it’s not going to be an issue.

She also mentioned that when I leave here, I won’t be going back to Sint Pieters but to the Pellenberg campus which is well out of town in the countryside. Nice and clean and green, but miles away from all facilities. I hope that there’s at least a supermarket and a fritkot nearby.

The chemotherapy was a nightmare (or, should I say, is a nightmare because I’m still plugged in right now). They start off slowly and gradually increase the pace, and I told them not to go beyond 50ml per hour because of the horrible side-effects that I had last time. But of course, no-one listens to an idiot and they soon had it wound up to 90ml/hour. And sure enough, I had the freezing cold, the violent shakes and the nausea and they had to come a-running to deal with the issues because I wasn’t prepared for it to drag on like last time.

They had to disconnect me for a couple of hours so that I could calm down and let my body resettle, and then start up with a limit of 50ml/hour. So it’s going to take ages for the stuff to filter into me but it’s their own fault; had they stuck to the 50ml/hour they wouldn’t have had the couple of hours interruptions.

Once things were back under way, I crashed out for a couple of hours and missed my tea. But they did bring it round later once I’d woken up so that was OK.

But I didn’t mention lunch. I had the dietician around this morning too and we had a good long chat. So for lunch I had boiled potatoes with a huge plate of vegetables, a bowl of vegetable soup and some soya desserts. It was delicious too – I really have an appetite for boiled potatoes these days.

So I’m not sure when the chemotherapy will finish, but I’m going to bed now to watch a film. I saw Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday last night but I’ve no idea what I’ll be seeing tonight. But here’s a thing. I had a close look at the three Inspector Hornleigh films and in each one, some young girl of about 11 or 12 has a walk-on part. And it’s the same girl in each film. She’s not credited in the cast, but I was wondering whether she’s the daughter of the producer or somebody similar. That kind of thing is not uncommon in the acting world – after all, Christopher Columbus’ daughters, Eleanor and Violet, had walk-on roles in several of the Harry Potter films.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day and we’ll see what that brings me. It surely can’t be as bad as today, can it.

0

Thursday 28th April 2016 – IT LOOKS AS IF …

… we’re getting back in the old routine again, at least as far as sleeping goes. I had yet another night of tossing and turning and only intermittent sleep and that’s disappointed me.

And I was thinking too, the other day, that with having stopped the Montlucon medication, these exotic, vivid and somewhat outrageous dreams that I’ve been having just recently have stopped too. But that’s not the case, because I was off again. And a welcome “hello” to Caroline who made her debut last night, accompanying me on a visit to a huge house on the edge of town (although I’ve no idea which town) in connection with someone who has appealed against a rating assessment on the grounds that she had been assessed as the occupier of a discrete property rather than part of a joint property. And so we went round, and it’s true to say that there was a big house that was divided into flats, and she was the occupier of one of those flats. However, there was an individual house there that caught my eye, not because of the house itself, but parked outside and clearly the worse for having stood for 30 years or so, was an old white Mini. In fact, it wasn’t a Mini at all but an Austin Seven, which was what the original Minis were called when they first came on the market and its registration number (576BMR) showed it, according to my 1958 Motor Dealer handbook which I had somehow managed to bring with me on my travels during the night (it’s actually upstairs in the attic of my place in France right now) showed that it had been registered in 1957, which meant that it was actually a pre-production factory demonstrator, as rare as hen’s teeth, so you’ve no idea just how excited I was by this find and I was determined to buy it.
And as we have said once or twice, sometimes, after a trip down the corridor or whatever, I can step right back into a nocturnal ramble right where I left off at a previous moment. And sure enough, there were Caroline and I in a car spares shop, buying plugs, points, a condenser, plug leads, distributor cap and all kinds of things for the car ready to have a good go at starting it up.

For breakfast, I didn’t have any fruit juice or soya yoghurt, but I finished off the last of the soya dessert instead. And then I came back, had a good wash and packed all of my possessions ready to leave. I paid the bill for my accommodation but I couldn’t get into the shower as it seemed to be in constant use.

On the bus on the way here, I realised that I’ve forgotten all of the stuff that was in the fridge back at Sint Pieters. I’ll have to remember all of that for when they throw me out of here, and go back to pick it up.

I’m now installed in my room with a much more sociable companion than last time (I’ll tell you tomorrow whether he snores or not) and I’ve been for my x-rays. They sent a wheelchair for me but badger that for a game of soldiers – I’m not dead or dying quite yet so I insisted on walking.

Much to my dismay, I have a male nurse looking after me – no young and nubile Danish student nurse unfortunately. Things had better start looking up for me tomorrow or I’ll be insisting on a change of hospital. What’s the point of being in a hospital if you aren’t going to be surrounded by a bevy of beautiful student nurses? But Hannelore the doctor is in charge of me again so that’s one thing for which I’m grateful because she can soothe my fevered brow any time she likes, and I’ve had several visits from other members of staff already. I’m certainly not going to be lonely.

But tomorrow morning at 08:30 is D-Day. This is when I’m having my operation so I mustn’t eat or drink anything after midnight. I’m not looking forward to this one little bit and I wish that I didn’t have to go through it. Everyone is doing their best to reassure me but I’m probably going to have a panic attack or something – I can feel it coming on already.

0

Wednesday 27th April 2016 – TODAY DIDN’T GO …

… according to plan.

And I suspected that from the very beginning with having gone back to the restless nights again. I didn’t have a very good sleep and I was in and out of the bathroom a couple of times too.

I vaguely remember going on a little ramble during the night too – I was in Crewe up at the junction between Nantwich Road and Gresty Road with my mother and my youngest sister – although it wasn’t her at all but Zero, she who has featured on these pages a couple of times. But what we were all doing there I have no idea at all.

The coffee this morning wasn’t as good as it usually is and so I confined myself to just one mug. And I forgot one of my pills today so I had to take it later. I hope that that’s not going to cause a problem.

And once breakfast was over, I collected my now-dry washing from the laundry room and then came back here to tidy up my room. I’ve thrown out tons of stuff and I’m now back to having stuff of more-manageable proportions.

At 13:15 I set off to the hospital for my interview with the girl at Social Services. But that didn’t go according to plan either. That’s because I found out that I’ve been summoned back to the hospital tomorrow for 14:00. They need to x-ray my chest before they fit the chemo port and as my surgery is timed for 08:30 on Friday, then it’s Thursday afternoon. I have to stay the night too, so this means that I’ll be leaving here tomorrow morning. There won’t be enough time to start searching for accommodation, so they are going to negotiate for me to come back here for two weeks.

Actually, that will fit in nicely with my plans. My friend Hans is coming to Brussels for a week at the beginning of May so I’ll be here to meet him. And it will also give me an opportunity to recover from the extremes of the treatment. And then for the remaining two weeks of the month I can go back to France and fetch a few things that I need. I’ll be struggling for clothes of course but there’s a washing machine here and I’m sure that I’ll manage.

So having walked all of the way to the hospital, I turned round and walked all the way back, stopping to buy some fruit on the way.

For tea tonight I had another one of those falafel bread things with a portion of chips. And that was rather chaotic. Just one person working in there tonight and there were about 12 people in the seating bit and 5 of us at the takeaway counter. The poor guy was running around like a headless chicken and ended up by burning the chips and having to start again. But at €5:50 for a huge tea like they serve up there, it was worth waiting for.

I also had the same pudding as last night – four slices of the ginger spicy cake thing topped with the soya cream stuff. And it was just as delicious as it was yesterday.

So tonight I’ll be having an early night. And then after breakfast I’ll have a shower and change my clothes. I need to look pretty for tomorrow at the hospital. After all, the girl at Social Services told me today how sweet and nice I was. I mustn’t disappoint her, even though she clearly doesn’t know me very well.

0

Tuesday 26th April 2016 – I DIDN’T HAVE …

… such a good night last night as I did the previous night. Mind you, having said that, compared to some that I’ve had in the recent past, it was a dramatic improvement and two or three weeks ago, I would have been quite happy with a night like last night.

I didn’t go to bed too early, and didn’t watch a film. I was asleep quite quickly but spent some of the night tossing and turning around trying to find a comfortable position. I had a stroll down the corridor at some time during the night but it didn’t inconvenience me too much and I was wide awake by 07:30.

After breakfast (and two cups of really nice coffee again) I came back here but was unceremoniously thrown out of my room for 15 minutes by the cleaner who wanted to give my room a good going-over. I went to the office and gave my notice in for Friday morning when I’m heading back to the hospital for the next session of chemo.

And I’m not looking forward to that in the slightest. That’s because I’m feeling quite well at the moment and the chemo sessions will knock me back again. But as I said the other day, I’ll just have to get used to it.

I bought a token for the washing machine too and did all of the washing that’s been building up. Hopefully it’ll all be dry by Friday morning so I’ll have clean clothes to go into hospital with.

Down to the shops for lunchtime and I did remember the spicy sliced cake. They didn’t have any of the soya vanilla custard substitute but instead I bought a pack of four of these vanilla-flavoured soya desserts. For pudding tonight, I had four slices of the cake and tipped one of these pots of vanilla over the top – and it was delicious. I’ll eat that again. It went down nicely after my stir-fry vegetables and rice. A meal fit for a King, and you can tell that I’m feeling much better with my appetite being back, and in spades too!

As for the house-hunting, nothing happened today. That’s because I’ve been summoned to see the Social Services people tomorrow. After everything that I said yesterday, it seems that they have a couple of possibilities for me and we have to discuss them.

So things might be starting to happen in that direction. Watch this space.

0

Thursday 21st April 2016 – BACK IN THE HOSPITAL AGAIN!

But I nearly wasn’t! I vaguely remember the alarm going off at 08:00 and had it not had a snooze setting to ring again 10 minutes later I would be still asleep now, I reckon.

Mind you, this isn’t a surprise. Although I was soon asleep after watching another Bulldog Drummond film, I was awake again at 00:35 and once more at 03:00. And that time, I was awake for hours, even watching dawn slowly filter its way through the curtains. But I must have gone back to sleep at some point, if only to sleep through the alarm.

Mind you, I was on my travels during the night, and strangely enough, I wasn’t appearing in my first voyage. I vaguely remember a young, rather inept parish priest who was continually having difficulties with life in his parish, to such an extent that his bishop and a canon came down to see him. At some time during the proceedings the bishop and his canon ended up locked in the police cells due to something that had happened involving the priest, and it was up to the priest to convince the authorities to release them, not that anyone had any optimism that he might be successful based upon his track record to date.
But once I had gone back to sleep during the morning, I found myself with my brother (and I do wish that my family would stop becoming involved in my adventures). He had a BMC 1300, the same metallic green colour of my Vanden Plas and it had broken down somewhere in a small French town. He’d pushed it into the town square and left it outside some friendly person’s house and that was where it stayed. I was then roped into have a look at it. The first time that we went down there to see it, I had a good poke around and couldn’t find any reason why it wouldn’t go – it all seemed fine to me – and the friendly neighbour made us both a cup of coffee. The second time we went, I could still find nothing wrong with it and this time someone (a friend of ours but I don’t know who it was) brought us a couple of huge plates of macaroni. There was so much that I hardly made a dent in mine and in the end we left out plates on the dinner table of this neighbour. On making enquiries of my brother, it turned out that what had happened to the car was that one of the driveshafts – the left-hand one – had tightened up. I immediately suspected the CV joint but that wasn’t something that we were going to fix then and there, so I needed to go and fetch my trailer and hope that wecould winch it aboard. I reached in through the window of this house for our plates, passing my brother’s plate to him, but I upset mine and half of the macaroni went all over the floor.I apologised to the neighbour about that but he was quite OK about it, which was quite nice of him. And then I asked my brother about what he intended to do about thanking the neighbour who had kept an eye on his car for him, made us both coffee and so on. My brother didn’t think that he needed to do anything about it, which I thought was rather mean of him. I reckoned that a bottle of whisky was a good idea, but then again, it wasn’t really a concern of mine.

At breakfast this morning, we were a strange crowd. There was only one person whom I recognised, and all oth the others seemed to be quite young couples. We seem to have had a dramatic change of inhabitants overnight. And whoever made the coffee this morning – it was nothing like as good as usual.

I was on the bus at 09:45, sitting next to the girl with the viola whom I had seen on the bus last time that I’d come here. And by 10:10 I was at the reception. It didn’t take them long to see me either and I’ve had a drain fitted in my arm. They also weighed me, and it seems that I’ve gained 3 kg since last time. That doesn’t sound right to me.

They gave me a blood test and while waiting for the results, Sophie the trainee doctor who had seen me last week called me in to see her. After giving me a good going-over (including another feel of my groin) she told me that I need to come back next Thursday 28th April. They’ll give me a series of X-rays and fit a chemo port in my chest, then on Friday I’ll start my next session of chemotherapy. I’ll be here, apparently, until the following Monday and believe me, I’m not looking forward to all of that – not in the least. 5 days – and 4 nights – in hospital. I hope I have a room-mate who doesn’t snore!

Another task that needed to be done was to give me a scan of my legs. This swelling isn’t improving and they are worried that I might have another nomadic blood clot. But it seems to be a problem about water retention. Perhaps I should ask Terry to give me a tap on the ankles.

But although it doesn’t seem much like it, there is good news. Firstly, my blood count is at 9.1 and so I didn’t need a transfusion. That cheered me up a little. As did the news that the mouth-wash and the anti-biotics can be stopped as soon as the supplies run out, which will be in about 2 days, I reckon.

I wasn’t in the mood for jam butties for lunch so I settled on a visit to the shop in the foyer. They have a selection, would you believe, of vegan food and although the chick pea salad looked vaguely interesting, I settled on a vegan spiced loaf. I ate half of it and the rest I can add to the supplies up here.

On the way back here (I walked back, by the way) I found a wallet on the car park. I was tempted to take it to the police but I’m trying to keep a very low profile while I’m here because, as regular readers of this rubbish will remember, I’ve had more than my fair share of run-ins with Belgium’s finest in the past so I don’t want to go looking for interaction, so I brought it into the hospital downstairs and handed it in at the desk, giving a little white lie that I had found it outside. The net result will be the same, in that seeing as the owner’s identity card is in there, it will find its way home eventually. But just without my involvement.

Leuven was packed tonight, I don’t know why, and I had to wait 25 minutes for my pizza to be cooked, such was the pressure in the kitchen. And it wasn’t as good as usual either, but I suppose that they were rather rushed.

So once again, it’s an early night for me and then a relaxing day with nothing planned for tomorrow. So I’ll have a nice quiet day totally free of interruptions. Just you watch someone come along now and spoil it.

0

Tuesday 19th April 2016 – LAST NIGHT …

… as predicted, I settled down to watch one of my Inspector Hornleigh films. And, as anyone who has been a regular reader of this rubbish for any length of time would have predicted, I fell asleep before the end. The film was still running and it was a scream from one of the performers that awoke me, right near the end. I was in half a mind to go back to where I fell asleep and watch the film from that point but instead, I turned off the laptop and went back to sleep. That seemed to be a much better idea.

It seems that last night’s subject was cats – or, at least, it was during the early part of the night. I was back at Vine Tree Avenue again and everyone had come round to see me – all kinds of the usual suspects whom you have seen making appearances in these nocturnal rambles – and everyone brought a cat with them. All of the cats were put in the hall while we had a little “do” and then when the evening was over, I opened the door between the kitchen and the hall and all of the cats came in. All kinds of cats there were, all different colours, and to my surprise we hadn’t had a single moment of squabbling like you get when you usually put a bunch of cats (or children) together.
Talking of children, I was in Neston a little later with the daughter of a friend, and we were looking for my cats (whatever they might be doing in Neston I really have no idea). We managed to find three of them but Tuppence was being stubborn (like she sometimes was) and this young girl made some kind of comment about her.
I don’t know what it was that woke me so dramatically at 04:30 but I was soon back to sleep, and I’d moved back to Crewe by now. Up near the Liberal Club in fact. And I was parading with the Home Guard, Captain Mainwaring’s platoon in fact, and the issue of the gun cropped up. For those of you who don’t know the film, there’s a scene in there where an elderly man turns up on parade with a shotgun, the only weapon the troop has, and Mainwaring insists that he should have it. I’ve always thought that that was rather a silly decision, not the least reason being that because he would have been the only person with a gun, he would have been the only person firing at the Germans, so they would naturally fire back at him and that would remove the head of command from the Home Guard troops (with Mainwaring, that wouldn’t have been much of a loss, but there you go). Anyway, last night, there I was, and there the subject cropped up again. I suggested making the owner of the gun a Lance-Corporal, giving him two privates to assist him (all of which would have enhanced his ego and brought him on board) and thus forming a ready-made light artillery section whenever more substantial weapons appeared on the scene. I’d seen some builders and they had a stack of about two dozen trenching shovels – very thin-bladed shovels on long pole handles – and I’d fancied liberating one of those for use on the farm. But here I was on parade with a three-metre pole with a spoon on the end (with no idea what I would do with this). I was sent off to patrol around the corner of Richard Moon Street (which bore no resemblance whatever to the real Richard Moon Street) and down there was an ancient garage that I had never seen before. It had a bodyshell of an old Lotus Elan and the bodyshell of an old 105E Ford Anglia, both white, both covered with dust and green mould from standing for so long and both on sale at £100. Behind them was what remained of an old Mark II Ford Zodiac, yellow, and which was also for sale. But this place was a treasure trove. There were the remains of a 1920s hand-cranked petrol pump and all kinds of things like that, all overgrown and abandoned and I would have loved to have spent a day or two going through everything that was here.

But then the shower down the corridor woke me up again. 06:35 this time, so it looks as if these early-risers are in for the duration. So much so that when I went down the corridor for breakfast, there were just two of us there. Judging by the amount of bread left in the bread container, everyone else had been and gone already.

Back in my room, I had a nice relaxing morning not doing all that much but as the time drew on, I went and had a good shower and changed my clothes. I need to look my best (and smell my best too) for the Social Services department.

I went off on foot to the fritkot as I fancied chips for lunch. When I arrived, they were just closing even though it was still 5 minutes to 2. But I persuaded them to make me a portion, which they did, and then, seeing as it was a nice day, I took my courage in both hands and set off to walk to the hospital.

And I made it too, despite it being uphill all the way, and I was early too. That gave me enough time to have a drink, which I reckoned that I deserved too.

But the Social Services weren’t really all that helpful, in the sense that they haven’t really come up with something definite as yet. They’ll be “in touch” but they could be in touch anyway without me having to go all that way there. There is however some talk about a place in a … would you believe … monastery, just as I predicted. I hope that they have a good laundry where I can get rid of some of my dirty habits, but they need to improve the monotonous food. Regular readers of this rubbish know that there are only two brothers who work in the kitchen of a monastery – the chip monk and the fish friar.

Once I’d organised that, I went off to the Day Hospital to find out when my next appointment is – and it’s on Thursday – this Thursday – at 10:30. It’s a good job that I went to enquire.

Caliburn was next, and I moved him around the car park and rescued the shampoo and the toothpaste. I’ll have more stuff here than I will at home at this rate. And then, seeing as the afternoon was even nicer, I walked back here, all the way. And I know that I have done it too, but then this time last week I had difficulty walking to the bathroom so it’s a major step forward and I can be quite pleased with myself. It’s not quite a 10-mile hike around Montreal but I’m getting there.

Tonight for tea, I had a vegetable stir-fry with rice. A huge helping for just €5:00. And now I’m ready for bed.

But I did watch an interesting film that I found on the laptop. It’s a story about logging in Russia and they had all of the lorries doing things like driving along rivers with huge bow waves swamping the bonnets, and with the cabs almost totally under water. It’s frightening stuff and puts into perspective how easy the road is around Labrador, especially now that they are improving it.

So I have a day off tomorrow. I’ll be taking it easy I reckon because that walk is making me ache all over. Still, I’m proud of what I managed to do today.

0

Friday 15th April 2016 – THE EXERTIONS OF YESTERDAY …

… were clearly far too much for me.

I managed to keep on going until about 16:40 and then I had to crash out. And I was out until 20:25 – stark out too. Far too late to go to fetch something to eat but luckily I had brought down here from Caliburn a packet of the Rich Tea biscuits that I had bought in Zoutelande the other week, so I polished those off instead. But I didn’t feel in the least bit like it, I do have to say.

But yesterday, I’d kept going until about 23:00 without an afternoon kip and this might explain some of the problems that I had this afternoon, although I did have a reasonable sleep. I don’t remember much about where I went during the night, except that I had some exciting company. I was in a pub where I’d gone to meet someone whom I knew, but when I arrived, I found that this person was sitting at a table with a couple whom I’ve known for 40 years. It was very nice to see them, that’s for sure – in fact it’s always nice to see friends, make no mistake – but I was hoping to have an intense chat with this person but was unable to do so with these other people there.
And later on, I was with two people whom I know who live in Germany. I was working for that weird American company again and so were these two people, and this time, I’d managed to make the company work like it should have done and people were amazingly co-operative. Not like that place at all.

I had toast again for breakfast, and the coffee was just as good as always, and then I had a quiet hour or two in my room until the cleaner threw me out. That gave me the opportunity to go off and do some shopping as well as visit the pharmacie to sort out the prescriptions.

I’ve also seen the manager of the accommodation here. I told them what is going on about my stay in Leuven and they have told me that I can settle up when I leave – that seems like a good plan. And I have an appointment with the Social Services at the hospital on Tuesday so we may well know more after that.

I enjoyed my lunch – I had a healthy appetite for once and soon made a mess of that, and then I had my mega-crash-out this afternoon.

But all in all, I wish that I could put an end to all of this. I don’t have the energy to do anything and, what is even worse, I don’t have the inclination.

That’s what hurts the most in all of this.

0

Thursday 14th April 2016 – TODAY’S THE DAY …

… when I find out if the first lot of chemotherapy worked or not. I hope that it did, because I don’t want to go through too much more of it. Horrible, nasty stuff!

And so I celebrated by finding the toaster (in the cupboard under the sink), and had toast for breakfast. and a second mug of coffee too, seeing as how it was so nice. I dunno who makes the coffee at this place but they can come and make it for me any time they like.

I needed it too because I’d been well away on my travels during the night. It was something of a disturbed night, tossing and turning and waking up, and so much of what happened and where I went to has long since disappeared into the mists, but what I remember of it was all pretty exciting enough.

I started out with Nerina yet again and we were on our travels in Europe. There was a magnificent site that, to me, could only be an Iron-Age hill-fort but no-one else seemed to agree with me, and some of it had been demolished. I took Nerina to see it and gave her something of a lecture about it, explaining that it was maybe dating from the Visigoth or more likely, perhaps the Merovingian era (although neither lived in hill-forts, but we mustn’t go letting facts get in the way of a good nocturnal ramble now, must we), and that regardless of any rumour or speculation (because the Merovingians have always throughout history been treated as something quite different, even by the Church, and some have even speculated that they might have been spacemen) were just another unknown wandering Eastern tribe that finally collided with Western “civilisation” during the great Western migrations. And I pointed out loads of things that related to the hill-fort that had caught my eye. I didn’t realise it at the time that my “lecture” had drawn quite a crowd and a family came over to me afterwards and asked me to give them a guided tour. I explained that I knew nothing and was merely interpreting, as an amateur, what I was seeing, but they were most insistent.
A little later, I was in Crewe, right down the end of West Street by where Barlow Brothers scrapyard used to be, and I had a pick-up that was towing a trailer. I was out of the vehicle doing something on the verge when a huge lorry went past and the draught sucked my pick-up off down the road. I was sure that I’d applied the handbrake and left the pick-up in gear, but there it was – going off down the road. I ran after it but it was long-gone, and suddenly it burst into flames, going faster and faster down the street. A horse of mine (now, what would I be doing with a horse?) leapt off the trailer and ran back towards me. It was on fire, and quite badly too by the looks of things, but a passer-by threw some water on it and doused the flames. I had a look at the horse and although the hair was charred, the skin looked okay and so I debated as to whether I should call a vet as I put it back in my back garden. But my pick-up was long-gone by now.
And even later, I was driving along a dual-carriageway, “my” side of which was under heavy repair and the road was limited to one lane and was in dreadful condition, so most vehicles were driving the wrong way along the outer lane of the other carriageway. I attempted to do the same but was cut up by a big van so had to continue trudging along, and at the next break in the central reservation, the same big van cut me up yet again. I ended up at my doctor’s, on the second floor of a tall terraced house, right by the side of this dual-carriageway and by now the road had deteriorated into one massive construction site and vehicles were picking their way through it as best as they could. Some young boy in a souped-up American sports saloon of the 1970s was driving like a maniac and as we watched, he clipped a small car coming the other way and turned it over, and spun into a pick-up and totally flattened it. He, of course, escaped unhurt. The small car that was on its side, the construction workers used one of their machines to try to turn it right-side up but they dropped it into a water tank and had to fish it out with a fork-lift truck. After all of this, a small woman with a shaven head emerged from the car. All of her worldly belongings were in the car, ruined by now, and she was destitute. She looked quite shaken and so I beckoned her up to the doctor’s. When she arrived, I explained that the doctor was busy but we would let her go in next for a check-up. She was clearly upset, and was going on about her car and her goods and however was she going to find a mortgage to replace everything?

Having resolved the issue of breakfast, off I toddled to the hospital. My appointment was at 10:50, and do you know what time I was seen? Anyone from the UK would never ever guess correctly – they would be at least a day or two out – but I was seen at 10:50 precisely – bang on time.

They took a blood test from me and fitted a drain in me, and then I was told to wait in the waiting room. And wait I did – for all of about half an hour when I was summoned to see the doctor – a nice young female trainee who can soothe my fevered brow any time she likes. I told her everything – about my arm, about the compression in my chest, about the loss of appetite, the fatigue, the nausea – absolutely everything, and she poked and prodded me just about everywhere – right at the end she asked me “may I feel your groin?”. Well, who am I to argue with that?.

She then went off to consult her professor, and came back 10 minutes later. “We need an ecography of your stomach”.
“When is this likely to take place?”
“14:15” she replied. You can see that we are clearly not in the UK. That was only 90 minutes, not 90 days away.

So I had my ecography and then went back to hear the news.

And I suppose that you are all dying to hear what is going on, aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you, but it doesn’t make pleasant reading – not for me and probably not for many others either. But here we go.

Basically, the embolism is back in the right arm. It seems that the veins in there are not good enough to support a drain. This means that everything will have to happen in the left arm, and the veins aren’t all that much better in that arm either and they are worried. In view of everything else that is likely to happen to me, more of which anon, they propose to fit a catheter port in my chest. This news (the catheter in the chest, not the embolism) has filled me with complete dismay.

Secondly, they have detected some gallstones. These are by no means a problem but they are blocking a good view of my intestines. They are talking about sending a camera down, but this, I assure you, they will do over my dead body. I’ll suffer like this before I suffer like that.

Thirdly, the chemo hasn’t worked as well as has been expected and so I have to have another transfusion. I had one pochette on the spot then and there, as well as an injection to stimulate the red blood cells.

Fourthly, I have to go back for more chemotherapy, and that’s fixed for 29th April. This is after the end of the 15-day period during which I’m allowed to stay here, so something needs to be done. Those of you with long memories may recall that I was given “advice” by that guy in the European Union’s Social Services department, but the net result of that as been zero. He hasn’t even bothered to reply to my e-mail, never mind do anything about the issues involved. What a waste of time that was!

However, the girl from the Social Services at the hospital seems much more helpful – she sought me out today at the hospital and we had a little chat, and she thinks that once she knows what the programme is, she might be able to help me find somewhere to stay in the neighbourhood. That’s the ideal solution – she seemed to know what she was doing while all of this was going on.

So beaten, battered and bewildered, I left the hospital and went to move Caliburn around the car park and to rescue the clean clothes that I forgot the other day. And then, I took the bus back here.

I did have a pleasant surprise tonight though. I’m limited with what I can eat right now as my taste buds are out of order and I still have some nausea. I seem to be limited to pizza and to the cheapo pasta shop up the road and round the corner. But tonight, looking for a change of diet, I found an Asian take-away. They did a huge portion of vegetable stir-fry and rice for just €5:00.

I’m not a big fan of food from the Chinese end of Asia, but I did cheer up when he started chopping up half a broccoli. And I do have to say that this was one of the nicest commercial stir-fry meals that I have ever eaten (I stress the “commercial” because nothing whatever can match Liz’s stir-fry). I shall add this place to my list.

So tomorrow I need to start work. I need to sort out this accommodation question because I reckon that I’m going to be here for the duration, so I may as well come to terms with it.

0