Tag Archives: hospital

Tuesday 20th December 2016 – I MADE SURE …

… that I dropped off early to sleep last night.

What I did was to do something that I hadn’t done for quite a while, and that was that I got into bed and started to watch a film on the laptop. Sure enough, after only about 10 minutes or so, I was off.

But if I ever lay my hands on whoever it was who left the building at 02:40 this morning, slamming the door behind them, they they will know about it. Because I didn’t go back to sleep afterwards.

And it was just as well because the girl in the room next door was up and about at 06:00 and she wasn’t exactly quiet either. But then you can’t pick your housemates, can you?

Anyway, I was in at breakfast at 07:00 and out by 07:30 and back down here at work.

Meanwhile, I forgot to tell you about a couple of things that happened to me at the hospital yesterday.

For the benefit of those who don’t speak French, the sign on the back of the Fiat van says “Please don’t park within 3 metres …” of the rear doors, to allow the rear doors to open to admit a wheelchair.

And so the car behind is parked within 1 metre of it – right outside the entrance to a hospital.

I went up to the driver and asked him if a sign has to be written in both official languages (French and Flemish) to be legal, but as you might expect, my comment went clear over his head.

As Alfred Hitchcock once said to Kenneth Williams “it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners”, and reminds me of the spoof Open University course on “Understanding Irony”, which actually received several applicants.

But it’s a sad reflection of the selfish attitude of many Belgians, isn’t it?

But the second thing was even more unnerving.

I walked up to the reception desk and the woman looked at me and said “ahh, Mr Hall …” Yes, I’m even being recognised by the clerical staff in the hospital now. This is uncomfortable, isn’t it?

Another thing that I have forgotten to do is to post the photo of the stuff that I bought on Sunday at the English shop.

Working clockwise around, we have Linda McCartney vegan pies, a vegan Christmas pudding, Bisto vegan gravy browning, a bottle of ginger beer, a bottle of dandelion and burdock, a bag of Bombay mix, some custard powder and, pride of place, two boxes of vegan mince pies.

Now I’m all set up for Christmas.

Later this morning I went down to Caliburn to sort out some stuff to bring up here and then went down to the Carrefour. I came back with a baguette and some tomatoes, some seitan slices (for Christmas dinner), some potatoes, some carrots and some leeks as well as a couple of pots of fresh spices.

That was because, for tea, I had boiled potatoes with fresh mint, carrots with fresh rosemary, leeks and Linda McCartney vegan pie covered in thick Bisto gravy. It made such a change from my usual fare and it was absolutely delicious. It all worked out fine too, much better than my pizza did. I shall be doing more of this, as well as looking at the possibility of baked potatoes in the microwave here.

High time that I was organised.

This afternoon I crashed out for a while and also did some work on my web pages.

Another thing that I did was to walk into the (unlocked) bathroom just as my nubile next-door neighbour was wrapping herself in a towel after her shower. Serves her right for not closing the door!

So now we’ll have another go at an early night. And I’ll hope for better luck too.

Monday 19th December 2016 – AND SO …

… I went to the hospital this morning.

But if you think that this was exciting, you should have been here last night, for what a night that was!

I had crashed out well-and-truly by 22:00 and apart from two brief awakenings I remember nothing whatever until about 06:30 when I awoke bolt-upright.

Saying that I remember nothing is perhaps an understatement. I was on my travels again – and how!

We (a little group of us) were in a hotel at the seaside – a large expensive kind of hotel too but our room was dreadful – just a couple of big double beds and no other facilities. All of our stuff was lying around on the floor, on the beds, and we were planning to leave, chucking-out time was 11:00 and all of our stuff was still lying all over the place wit no urgency whatsoever.
From here I was in a car with Alison (her debut appearance on my nocturnal voyages, I believe) and we were driving along Thanet Way talking about my mother’s two Aunts – Auntie Dolly an Auntie Gertie – who lived there (we actually did have a discussion like this on Saturday). Auntie Dolly lived in Birchington and Auntie Gertie lived somwhere just off Thanet Way and I couldn’t remember the Aunt who lived in Ham Street who had the cats called Katapus and Redpus (it really was Greypus and it was Aunt Mabel by the way). But we stopped at a row of terraced houses on an embankment at the side of the road and eventually found our way to the one that we needed. A couple of hippie-types lived there and they showed me to a room, which was a very poorly furnished ground-floor room with an unused front door. I waited there for quite some time but nothing was happening so I forced the door open and went outside. There was a very early Austin A30 (or was it a A35?) saloon there with no number plates, and at the end of the front garden was the drop to the road but I couldn’t work my way down the bank so I went back. By now, some other male person had occupied my bed and had a baby with him so I went back to the main room, said how much I liked the car. We then discussed fetching my stuff. I had some modern up-market computer stuff and I didn’t want to bring it in but they were encouraging me to do so, telling me what equipment they had which would work with it. But their stuff was all out-of-date and wouldn’t be compatible with mine, and so I declined the offer.

I was thoroughly exhausted when I awoke, and that was a bad sign. In fact I had taken my medication up to the kitchen and forgot to take them – shows you just how confused I was.

But anyway the wal, up to the hospital did me some good and I wasn’t the least bit worn out when I arrived.

The place was crowded with people today and we even had bread rolls with the soup, that made a change. And as for the results, my blood count has improved to 9.7 and the protein loss has “decreased” to 1.96 (it should of course be less than O.15).

The doctor who saw me – well, she can come and inspect my kidneys any time she likes – tells me that I have to stop taking my protein supplements. She’s wondering if my body can’t absorb the proteins and that’s why it’s being excreted. It’s noted that the amount has gone up since I’ve been taking the bulghour and gone down when I’ve been at home or elsewhere where I’ve not been taking it.

The psychologist came to see me too and we had a chat,but she doesn’t seem to be adding to what I already know about my condition or my general state of health.

The upshot of all of this is that I have to come back in 2 weeks – 2nd January 2017. I’ve been asked if I’m going back home for Christmas but I’ve decided to stay here instead.

Liz was on line later and we had a video chat. I took her on a guided tour of the building so that she now knows where I live and how I’m living. And then I crashed out for a bit.

For tea, I threw something together quickly, for I have plans for the next few days as far as food goes. And quite right too!

So now it’s another early night. And I hope that my travels are as exciting as last night’s.

Thursday 15th December 2016 – JUST LIKE THE MATHEMATICIAN …

… called Hall, I’ve done three-fifths of five-eights of … err … nothing today.

I awoke yet again in the middle of the night to go off down the corridor, and was still asleep when the alarm went off this morning. But I was first up for breakfast and first back downstairs again. And then apart from a trip to the corner for my baguette, that was that.

We’ve had the builders in today. There’s been a leaky tap in the shower that’s been filtering into the bedroom at the side of it and today they came to sort it out.

They had to chisel off some of the tiles in the shower in order to access the leak, and they’ve repaired that. And then they chiselled off the damp plaster and put some tongue-and-grooving over it – with me giving some technical advice seeing that I’ve done rather a lot of this just recently.

But the plaster isn’t dry in the shower so we can’t use it and so that bathroom is closed off – which means that we have to go upstairs. That will be interesting at 03:00, that’s for sure.

I had a phone call today too – from the hospital. My appointment is on Monday at 11:10.

And i’m not looking forward to it.

Wednesday 14th December 2016 – IT’S NOT LOOKING …

… so good.

Blood count collapsed to 8.7 and protein loss dramatically risen to 2.4. And not only that, there might be a thrombosis in my lower right leg. All of this means that I have to go back – not in a fortnight, not in a week, but on Monday.

And I’ve had the stimulation injection too. That’s usually the last resort before the transfusions.

I am so fed up.

My sleep last night was disturbed. There wasn’t much of it and I had to go down the corridor too. but I’d been on my travels. Back in a relationship and back to Labrador. Clearly my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

My eye appointment was at 10:00 and my hospital appointment was at 11:10. but at 13:30 I was still having my eyes seen to. The bad news here is that my eyesight has deteriorated considerably with my illness – deteriorated to such an extent that they can’t give me a full prescription for the eyesight as my eyes wouldn’t take the dramatic change.

All in all, it’s not going to well.

Then up to the hospital and all of the shenanigans, including an echograph.

I have had my medicaments all changed and quantities adjusted, and that should see me through. And then back on Monday as I said.

I used my little wok tonight and it really was good. My tea worked out just fine.

Now I’m exhausted and I’m going to have an early night. i’m completely fed up with all of this

Wednesday 30th November 2016 – I’VE BEEN BACK …

… to the hospital as you might expect today.

I saw the doctor and he told me the news. Blood count is down to 10.0 from 10.6, although not as low as 9.7 as it was the other week.

We had a chat about the protein loss too. It’s supposed to be 0:15 and mine is 0:51. But that’s somewhat better than 1:11 that it was last week and nothing like what it was a while ago at 2:98. It seems to be that the higher the blood count, the higher the protein loss. The protein loss is as bad, apparently, as the blood count and a low blood count with low protein loss is as good as a high blood count with a high protein loss.

This is why they don’t seem to be too worried about my blood count right now because the protein loss thing seems to be working for now. They want to see how it goes for another couple of weeks.

One thing that they did say is that I don’t need to continue with a high-protein diet. But that’s not something that I’m going to abandon for now. It has its benefits, apart from keeping up the proteins in my body in the face of this excessive loss.

But anyway, they threw me out at about 14:00 and I have to go back in two weeks time – but I forgot to go to the reception to check on the time. I shall have to telephone them some time.

And so it took ages to go to sleep last night and to be honest, I didn’t think that I’d dropped off at all. But whatever I did or thought that I might have done, I didn’t move from my bed.

At least, so the story goes. I did leave the bed but only in a virtual fashion. I was off to Labrador last night among the Inuit,carrying out a few projects. But then I moved back to the west and I was trying to track down an Asian girl – one very much like the Vietnamese girl with whom I shared a house a few months ago. We’d managed to track her to a student house not so far away and I knew that one of her former house mates lived there. Off we went to this house – it was a modern, expensive type of place and when we arrived there was a big party going on in there; Loads of students about and I remember saying to whoever I was with that I wouldn’t like my house treated like this at all; Anyway we found the girl and she told us where the Asian girl could be found. We had a file of hers that needed to be given to her and so I was all for taking this file around to her new place but the others seemed to think that we should just put a white name tag in it and put it in a pouch that we could stick to the side window of the house where we were. A silly idea, if you ask me, but that was what we did.

I wasn’t alone at breakfast – there were the usual crowds – and then after I did a little work, I set off for the hospital. It was freezing outside – minus 3°C apparently – and it’s only going to become worse apparently.

After the hospital I came back here for a relax and a crash out for a while and then round about 16:00 I went off down to Caliburn to fetch some more stuff back. I remember the hair cutter but I forgot the nail scissors though – I’ll have to find them next time I’m down there.

There’s a good book that I discovered on the internet this afternoon.It’s called “Outlines of the Geography, Life and Customs of Newfoundland and Labrador” and it’s about 800 pages of observations of a Finnish expedition to Labrador and Newfoundland back in 1937 and 1939.

It’s full of observations from a most unusual group of people and contains a lot that is glossed over by more-mainstream historians. And I enjoy reading books like these because I can add the stuff into what I write and recirculate them, to make sure that they aren’t forgotten.

For tea, I finished off the lentil curry from last night and now it’s almost bed time.

I deserve a good sleep. It was quiet last night and the more of this that I can get, the better.

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 – PHEW! I’M WHACKED!

Yes, today was the day that I had to go to the hospital at Leuven.

And how difficult was it to haul myself out of bed at 07:00 to hit the road? You have no idea.

No breakfast of course, but what with having to wash and make myself pretty, it was 07:30 when I finally hit the road. Through the fog, the hanging cloud, the darkness and the drizzle to the motorway and then an uneventful drive all the way to Leuven. uneventful, of course, except for the tractor-trap in the suburbs of the city that slowed everyone up. It took me less than 2 hours all told.

Caliburn went into his hidey-hole and I walked up to the hospital to organise some breakfast. All done and dusted, checked in and in the waiting room long before the due time of 10:50.

I was out by 14:30 too. The highlight, or actually the lowlight of the day was the fact that they have stopped serving bread with the soup. That’s no good.

But apart from that, my blood has gone back up to 10.6 all on its own (although it doesn’t feel like it) and while my water retention has eased, my protein loss has accelerated. So – back in a week.

And as the professor is only there in the morning next week, it means that I have to postpone my eye test too.It’s a good job that I’m going back to stay in the hostel.

The drive back was even more uneventful.

There’s a Carrefour in Leuven as you know so I called there for bread and stuff but I was having a “fruit” moment so I bought a “reduced” fresh fruit salad thingy and a litre of 100% pineapple juice, and scoffed the lot on the car park. And there are grapes for tomorrow.

My route brought me back to Bouillon, which is a soup-er … "ohh, well-done" – ed … place and stopped to take a pile of photos in the dark, falling over the edge of the pavement and badly cutting my right knee.

There’s a falafel place in Bouillon so I had a decent tea as well.

And now I’m back here and seeing how tired I am, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see the photos of Bouillon.

I’m doing nothing more!

Wednesday 16th November 2016 – HOW STUPID …

… can you be?

I need to leave Belgium for a while for various reasons, and so I checked all around the area of Sedan, which is not too far away from here but across the border, and I found a place that looked absolutely perfect from my point of view. Isolated in the countryside miles from anywhere up a mountain and probably swathed in fog. And bed-and-breakfast at the same price as my hostel.

And here I am gazing across a river and over the river is in France, and here I am, stuck on the Belgian side of it all in the Hostellerie La Sapiniere at Vresse sur Semois.

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

So why aren’t I heading back to my house then? The answer is that while my blood count has gone up slightly to 10:0, the protein loss in my body is accelerating slightly and that’s causing them some concern. As a result, they’ve changed my medication and they want me back IN A WEEK to see how I’m doing.

And not only that, they have some more appointments for me in the haematology department in two weeks time, and so I’m stuck here yet again. But I don’t want to be stuck in Leuven – I need a change of scenery;

But returning to our moutons as the French say, the trouble with going to bed early is that everyone else comes in later. And so even if you do drop off to sleep by 22:30, then at 23:30 you are wide awake as people come back into the building. and that’s rather annoying, so say the least.

So having had a disturbed night (for many reasons) I was awake quite early as the alarm went off.

And I’d been on my travels too. I had to visit a town that was “just across the border” in some kind of Spanish-speaking area. I’d found a bus that would take me there and so I climbed on board. It wasn’t a journey of 10 minutes either as I was expecting, but one of hours and interminable hours. A woman on board the bus, small and dark-haired, tried to help me out – every ten minutes or so coming to reassure me (although I couldn’t understand what she was saying) and then as we reached the border I suddenly realised that I didn’t know where I was supposed to be going or at what stop I needed to alight, and I had no way of asking either.

There were the usual hordes at breakfast this morning, and we had a major problem with the kitchen area being flooded again. The skylight had been left open and we were in the middle of a torrential downpour.

Still, I’d breakfasted and even showered and back in my room again long before 07:55. THat’s something of a record, isn’t it? And once I’d tidied up and packed my rucksack I set off to the hospital, braving the driving rain.

I wasn’t feeling so good this morning either. All of the joints in my legs were aching and I didn’t have the puff to climb the hill. I had to stop on four or five occasions to get back my breath. This is the worst trip to the hospital that I have ever had.

I was there and registered by 08:30 and sitting in the waiting room. I was seen a little later than my 08:50 appointment , and given all of the tests and the like. My weight was stable which was bad news – I want to lose it all and I can’t do this as it’s all to do with the water retention issues that I’m having and that’s one of the issues that I need to resolve – hence the new medication.

By 11:30 they released me from the hospital and that was that. I went down to Caliburn and we all, Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and I set off for the wilderness.

The weather was pretty miserable – with rainstorms and the like all the way down to the Ardennes. And once I started to climb up into the mountains I was encased in hanging clouds just like home. In fact it made me feel quite at home.

The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav couldn’t find the hotel, which was hardly a surprise seeing as I was looking in the wrong country. I had a beautiful drive through the Ardennes and ended up in Sedan in the driving rain. I took the opportunity to do a huge pile of shopping at the Leclerc – what with food prices in France being much less than in Belgium – and then tracked down the hotel where I’m staying.

It’s a very impressive hotel from the outside but it’s all very 1960s from the inside. And there’s no internet in the bedroom which is very depressing to say the least. I’ll have to sort this out somehow but I’m quite tired after my drive. I made a butty (because I wasn’t able to check on what the surroundings had to offer) and had an early night instead.

Wednesday 9th November 2016- AT LEAST THE WEATHER …

… didn’t let me down today.

I was expecting the sun to be out and that we would have brilliant weather today seeing as I was leaving Oostende today. But instead, it was pouring down and windy just like the rest of the time that I had spent here.

As soon as the alarm went off I was up and about, even before the reminder. And I’d had a really good night’s sleep too, with nothing to disturb me whatever. A long time since I’d had such a deep and satisfying sleep, even though there was only six and a half hours of it.

after a quick shower and a change of clothes, I was downstairs for breakfast. First yet again although I was soon joined by others. And once I’d finished, I was back upstairs, packed and out of the door by 08:40.

I had plenty of time to wait for my train at the station, although it was cold there in the temporary waiting room. I wasn’t half pleased to be on the train. It was bang on time too and really comfortable, so much so that I cracked on with the work that I’ve been doing on my website.

It was still pouring down when I arrived in Leuven, and after gathering my wits I went off to Caliburn to drop off the stuff that I don’t need, and that was a long walk in the rain. And one thing that I did was to find the fleece lining for my rain jacket. I’d been freezing in Oostende.

Bang on time at the hospital, and I was quickly organised. They plugged a catheter in and took a blood sample. And my blood count is stable, as is my protein loss. That’s a surprise. I only wish that the blood was stable at 12.2, not 9.7.

And then – they forgot me yet again. And after reminding them, they finally got back to me at 17:45. It seems, in what can only be really bad news, they need to take two-weekly controls of my urine and kidneys for the next … errr … three months at least. And that’s before we start talking about the blood situation – for which I have an appointment next week.

You’ve no idea just how dismayed I am by all of this.

At least there’s a room free at the hostel and so I’m now back there for a week. And who knows? I might even be able to go home again after my appointment next week if there’s a fortnightly pause. But I want a place of my own. I can’t go on like this living out of a suitcase in a hostel room.

Alison came round later and we went out for a meal and a coffee. And a guided tour of Leuven as a new one-way system that’s been installed led us everywhere except where we wanted to go.

Now I’m off to bed. Thoroughly depressed, thoroughly fed up.

and if my next blog is from Mars or Uranus or somewhere like that, don’t be surprised. What is happening in the western world has filled me full of dismay for the last twenty years and the news this morning has made me want to emigrate to another planet somewhere.

Whatever is the world coming to?

Tuesday 8th November 2016 – I HAD A BIT …

… of a bad day today.

Not the night though. I had a really good sleep and knew nothing whatever about anything at all.

I was up and about before the second alarm went off, and after a shower and a shave I was down at breakfast even before opening time. A few minutes later I was joined by a crew of workers who seem to be staying here. It disturbed my solitude considerably.

I was back up here soon enough and then I started to have a little crisis. Nothing serious, but I couldn’t concentrate and I couldn’t focus on what I wanted to do. This might not seem significant, especially if I were to say that it’s rather like I’ve been for the last year or so, but it’s a considerable step back from the more dynamic me that has resurfaced over the past week or so.

I had a phone call too. They want to change my medication so we can do that tomorrow.

At 10:30, I struggled out of my room and went right across time to the Delhaize for my baguette and some grapes, and then a walk back along the promenade. I was tempted to go into one of these holiday letting agencies to see if they had any studios to let at a decent price. But I ruled that out when I saw the prices. Even off-season in the middle of winter it’s cheaper to stay in this hotel, and staying at that hostel in Leuven is a bargain. It looks as if I might be stuck there for the foreseeable future if I have to stay in Leuven.

After lunch, I crashed out for a good hour or so – really out of it too – and in the middle of a conversation with a friend too. and it was a struggle to bring myself round. And I certainly didn’t feel like going out for my afternoon coffee. And that’s how it’s been all day.

This evening, I had a major disappointment. That pizza place I visited on Sunday was advertising pasta dishes and they looked absolutely wonderful. I’d set my heart on one of them and I’d saved it for tonight as a farewell to Oostende. How I was looking forward it too and so I went round there tonight for my pasta … and it was closed.

Drat and double-drat!

I ended up with a salad bap and a bag of chips instead and it’s nothing like the same.

So now, being fed up and disappointed and not too well, I’m off to bed. I hope that I feel better tomorrow for I’m hitting the road for Leuven tomorrow.

I wonder what will happen at the hospital?

Thursday 3rd November 2016 – GRRRR!

Yes, you’ve guessed it. It’s not good news.

Last night was quite a disturbed night and I even sweated a great deal. Dunno whether it was concern about what today might bring me, but there we are. It was quite a struggle to leave the bed after the alarm went off and head off to breakfast, but there I was all the same. And by 07:30 I was out and on the road to the hospital.

The morning was a misty, foggy cold morning and so I walked briskly up to the hospital. By 07:50 I was at the registration desk and by 08:00 I was in the waiting room.

The wait was longer than it ought to have been but eventually I was seen and the blood pressure and blood samples were taken. and then I had another long wait until about 11:00 until the doctor saw me. He asked me all of the usual questions and I had the usual thorough examination, and then I had to wait again.

Lunch was the usual soup and bread, which didn’t take me too long to wolf down; And then I had to wait again.

The nephrologist saw me at 14:30. She said that the protein loss was slowly increasing, and they needed to make yet further tests. I had to go for another set of x-rays. And then I had to wait again.

By 17:30 I was fed up of waiting and so I asked what was going on. It appears that some nurse had told the nephrologist that I’d gone home. And so nothing had happened. The nephrologist told me eventually that she wanted me to come back in on … errr … Wednesday next week. So not even a week before my next appointment. How I’m fed up with all of this.

And my blood count? It’s down to 9.7. I’m pretty fed up of that as well.

I was fed up of all of the waiting too, but at least I was able to do tons of stuff on the web pages that I’m writing.

But it was far too late to do anything else so I booked a room at the Ibis Budget and went there via Caliburn to pick up some spare clothes. I had a good deal too at the Ibis.

After a shower, a shave and a change of clothes, Alison turned up and we went to the fritkot, for a meal and a good chin-wag.

Now I’m having an early night. For I have a cunning plan in the morning. Whatever it might be, you’ll have to wait and see.

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 – I’M MOVING ON …

… tomorrow, so I must organise myself quite rapidly today.

I had a bit of a bad night again last night and had something of a struggle to make it up to breakfast at 07:15. I was joined by the usual crowd of students who popped in, made some butties and then popped out again, and then I was back down here.

I had an hour or so working on the website again – the missing bit of Highway 138 in Quebec – and then I headed off to Kessel-Lo.

As luck would have it, and in a complete surprise, the Fortis Bank had my bank card ready and once they had reactivated it, it worked fine too. That’s even more of a surprise.

At Bio-Planet I picked up a baguette and then drove back. I prepared an envelope for the insurance claim form, picked some stuff for tea from the collection in the back of Caliburn, and then came back here. And here, I cracked on with the web-site.

after lunch, I phoned up the hospital to find out the time of my appointment. And I know that I had hoped for an early appointment but this is ridiculous. They want me there at 08:10 and it doesn’t come much earlier than this. I’ll have to change all of the alarms.

After lunch I went off to the Post Office and posted the claim form. That’s another job done. Then I came back and crashed out for a while.

I found the time to carry out an amendment to the website – I’m trying to update at least one page per day, although today’s amendment wasn’t anything considerable.

For tea I had a tin of vegetables with chick peas, tomato sauce and rice, to finish off a few bit that were lying around. And when the washing-up was done, I took everything down to Caliburn except for what I can take tomorrow to the hospital. And finally I had a shower.

Now I’m having an early night again, ready for tomorrow. And then we’ll see what happens. There are three choices – they could keep me in hospital. Or if I’m released for at least two weeks, I’ll be off home. But if it’s only for a week or so, I’m off to the seaside.

I can do with a holiday after all of this.

Thursday 27th October 2016 – THIS WAS NOT WHAT I WANTED

I went to hospital this afternoon for my tests. I had the usual catheter fitted and blood sample taken. And then I had to wait.

My blood pressure is up again and my legs are starting to swell up. That’s a couple of things to worry about, but the lymph nodes that have bedevilled me – the doctor can’t find them. If they really have gone, that will be the best news that I’ve had for ages.

I had an echograph this afternoon and my kidneys appear to be quite normal as far as their make-up goes, but there is still a problem in that according to the urine sample that I gave, the protein loss from my body is accelerating.

But the worst news is about my blood count. That’s now down to 10.0, a loss of 9% over the last two weeks. Considering that while I was away in Canada for – weeks, then over that period of time I lost 10% of my count – that’s about a third of the current rate of loss.

That is causing them a considerable amount of concern and so the upshot is that I have to come back … next Thursday!

Yes, just one week, and that’s not even enough time for me to go home and come back again. How I hate all of this. But at least my little room in the hostel hasn’t been taken so I’ve moved back in and I’ll stay here. But what I’m going to do next if i’m on weekly visits I have no idea.

I had a difficult night last night – it took me hours to drop off. And then I had a very disturbed sleep. I was off on my travels too but as usual I forgot absolutely everything as soon as I awoke.

After breakfast I tidied up my room and then had a good shower and a change of clothes. And once I’d organised myself I went off to fetch Caliburn to load him up with the stuff from here. And I nearly squidged a cyclist who rode straight out of a side street without even a pretence at a glance at oncoming traffic.

I sat in the lounge here until it was appointment time and then walked up to the hospital for my appointment with destiny. 14:15 was the time of my appointment, and I was seen at … errr … 14:10. A far cry from the situation in the UK
“I needed an urgent appointment, and the hospital has made a special effort to fit me in. They are going to see me at 20:20”
“You mean at twenty past eight in the evening?”
“No – I mean in four years time”
Such is life with the British Health Service.

And I made all of 20 yards down the corridor on the way home with my catheter today. I’m improving.

And now I’m having an early night. I’m exhausted.

And fed up too.

Wednesday 26th October 2016 – SO HERE I AM …

… my last night in Leuven.

For a while, I hope. But even if it’s only for two or three weeks, I’m leaving for home anyway as soon as I an discharged from the hospital. I have stuff that I need to do back there and I can’t leave it any longer. And now that I’ve had Caliburn’s wheel bearing fixed, there’s no reason for me to stay.

After last night’s perturbations it took me ages to go off to sleep. And I had to leave the bed twice for a trip down the corridor. Not only that, I’ve no idea if I went off on a ramble. I can’t recall a thing.

It was a struggle to leave the bed, as you might expect. And after breakfast I had one of these eye-closing sessions. I wasn’t away with the fairies, but it was near enough.

Once I’d had another coffee to wake me up, I started work on my website again. And now we have this page and this page on line. And if I don’t fall asleep before bedtime, there might be another page on line before the end of the day today.

I had a good chat on line with a couple of people while I was working, and I also crashed out for half an hour this afternoon. And that was really nice too. The sun is lower in the sky and now shines underneath the top of the window. It was gloriously sunny and warm, and the rays of sunshine were shining right on me. It was beautiful.

I’d had some good luck today when I was out buying my baguette. The supermarket had thrown a couple more plastic food-trays into the skip. I went out later in the evening after tea to have a look at them and apart from being rather dirty, they were in good condition – not damaged at all.

Anyway, they have now been added to the stock and I might even have enough for the little project that I have in mind that includes a visit to IKEA and the purchase of a pile of cardboard boxes.

All of this depends upon what the hospital has to tell me tomorrow. If I’m still on two-weekly visits I’ll be well-and-truly sunk without a doubt. But I’m hoping that it’ll be much better news than this.

And so i’m going to have an early night and see what tomorrow will bring me.

Tuesday 25th October 2016 – I WENT TO RESCUE CALIBURN …

… from the garage today. And I had to lie down in a darkened room to recover from the shock.

Mind you, I knew that it would be expensive so in the end I was prepared, I suppose. And it wasn’t just a case of the new bearing either but with it being a front-wheel drive, the disc is cast into the bearing housing so that needed to be replaced too, and that meant new brake pads as well.

Not only that, discs and brake pads are only sold in pairs and so I had to end up having the parts for the other side too, so they will go into store for the next occasion.

Finally, there were some bushes that were worn on the anti-roll bar which I’ve been meaning to do. But seeing as how they had Caliburn up on a hoist, I set them on the task. It may as well be done sooner rather than later and they have all the facilities.

I’d had a late night but a reasonable sleep, but even so I wasn’t all that happy about crawling out of bed. I’d been on my travels too during the night but as seems to be the norm these days, all memory of what I had been doing disappeared immediately.

After breakfast, I legged it out to the railway station with a nice brisk walk and as luck would have it, I walked into the station just as an Inter-City train to Brussels pulled in. And as I alighted at Bruxelles-Nord, a train to Namur, stopping at Bruxelles-Schuman, pulled in. Things like that don’t usually happen to me. Having left here at 08:00, I was sitting in Caliburn at 09:45.

Having fuelled up with diesel, I went off to IKEA to see what they had to offer. I have a cunning plan, as I mentioned yesterday, and IKEA plays a role in this. I’ve made quite a few notes about what I’ll be needing, but I also did a little shopping too. They had some cheap white-china plates and bowls – €0:49 each, a medium-sized saucepan of decent quality – €4:99, and a nice pyrex oven dish – €1:99.

As well as that, I bought a few cardboard boxes because I’ll be needing them in a couple of weeks time when I go back to France.

Best news though was at the restaurant. I had a bowl of chips, a plate of salad and a coffee, all of which would have entitled me to a decent discount had I had an IKEA family card. I have one, but I’d left it in Caliburn I wasn’t all that bothered by it. But when the cashier asked me if I had a card, and I told her my story, she gave me the discount anyway. That was nice of her.

This afternoon in between bouts of somnolence I did some more work on the web pages that I mentioned yesterday. They aren’t ready yet to go on line – there’s plenty more work to do, but progress is progress after all.

I had a beautiful tea tonight. Kidney beans, boulghour and vegetables, tomato sauce and chili powder with pasta. Just for a change, I had the chili powder just about right and it was delicious. And once the argument in the building dies down (another one of the tenants has been too close to the barmaid’s apron) I’ll be having an early night again.

It’s (hopefully) my last full day here tomorrow. Thursday I’m back in the hospital and then we’ll see what happens. I’m heading back to France regardless as soon as I’m released (now that I’ve had Caliburn’s wheel bearing fixed) but for how long, I’ve no idea.

Thursday 13th October 2016 – WELL, YOU MIGHT HAVE GUESSED.

Blood count is down. And protein loss is up. The result of all of that is that I have to go back in just two weeks.

This is a bitter blow to me of course. I need to move on and do things, and I was hoping for six months – or even three months would have done me. But not two weeks.

But I’m not surprised, because I had a horrible night.

I wasn’t in bed all that early, and even so I just couldn’t drop off at all. I gave up trying to sleep at 05:45 and started to read a book – and that had the desired effect, albeit 6 hours too late. It really was a struggle to crawl out of bed at 07:15.

And despite the small amount of sleep, I’m managed to go a-wandering. I was in a car driving down a lane and ended up crossing two railway lines, about 40 yards apart. I’d always believed that they were simply each track of a double-track line built by someone with a sense of humour, but the book that I bought on Sunday in Montreal convinced me that these were just another set of “parallel lines” laid by the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern Railway during the Canadian Great Railway Wars.

It’s funny how, even when I was asleep, I was able to think along logical lines like this, because it’s perfectly true. If you think that the Railway Wars between companies in the UK was savage, vicious and extremely wasteful, you haven’t seen anything until you read about what took place between the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian Nothern and the Grand Trunk Railroad. The useless infighting and unnecessary duplication of routes cost Canada millions of dollars and bankrupted a couple of the companies for no good purpose.

And so at 07:15 I crawled out of bed, at 07:30 I crawled out of the shower (so much for thinking that it would do me some good) and by 07:45 I was crammed like a sardine along with about 500 other people into an articulated bus, having grabbed a coffee on the way. I was decanted out at St Rafael so that I could go down to Caliburn to drop off the stuff that I had bought yesterday.

Having left all of my vegan cheese behind (that’s bad planning if they had decided to keep me in) I then boarded the wrong bus that led off in a completely different direction. I ended up having rather a long walk.

At the hospital, I had my blood test and a chat with the doctor. 2 hours later, the doctor came to see me. “It’s about yuor blood test …” she began. That sounded ominous, and no mistake. But she carried on to say that the blood testing machine had broken down and I would have to hang around for the results. Clogged up with root beer and maple syrup, I reckon.

Kaatje the Social Services girl came for a chat and I had to fill in a form. And having spent most of the morning reading Lord of the Rings I promptly wrote out “13th Orcober”. Yes, it’s getting to me, isn’t it, all of this?

Anyway, I managed just about to keep awake during the afternoon and about 16:30 they came back with the bad news.

With that ringing around in my ears, I went downstairs for a coffee and to make a phone call. And so here I am – back in the hostel where I stayed during the summer. There was a room available – not at the same good price that I was offered last time unfortunately – and so I took it. It’s cheaper that going back home and coming straight back and far less stressful. Stress – or the elimination of it – is quite important.

I set off for the hostel but within 20 minutes I was back in the Day Centre. Bane of Britain has, once again, gone off with his catheter still plugged in. You couldn’t make this up, could you?

And it’s good to be back on familiar territory with no pain at all. And I can have my old room back on Monday too. In the meantime, this one will do. I settled down for a while and then a bit later nipped down the road for a falafel butty for tea. I’ll rescue all of my supplies from Caliburn tomorrow.

Having organised that, I’m off to bed. Nice and early. Remember that I had a bad night last night.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality