Tag Archives: hospital

Monday 1st August 2016 – AHH WELL!

Yes, here I am, still here in the hospital.

I had a blood test this morning and while the doctor couldn’t remember the red blood cells count, there’s too much infection in my blood to give me the Mapthera. So here I have to stay while the infection goes down and, according to the doctor, it could be any length of time.

I have a new doctor too, apparently. I don’t know what happened to Hermione – maybe I’ve frightened her away – but this one doesn’t seem quite as friendly. I could be wrong, of course, but time will tell.

There’s been plenty of other bad news too. Firstly, I have a new room-mate. I thought that being on my own was too good to last for any length of time. He seems to be quite quiet, which is good news. I hope that he doesn’t snore.

And I’ve also had the Police here too. Someone has reported Caliburn as being abandoned (which is of course far from the truth, but there you go). The Police made all sorts of enquiries and actually asking the hospital if there was a patient of my name in residence didn’t occur to them until their enquiries were almost complete(ly failed). Anyway, they turned up this afternoon, asked me a couple of questions, and then cleared off, rather red-faced.

But it seems that I will have to do something about finding a new home for Caliburn. That will have to be top of my priorities when I’m thrown out of here. Last thing that I wanted was any interaction with the Belgian farces of law and order. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few occasions over the years …

I had the usual messed-up night and I did go off for a nocturnal ramble, but don’t ask me where to now. It’s gone completely out of my head.

07:40 was when I saw the light of day, thoroughly exhausted but brought to life, such as it is these days, by the clatter in the corridor now that everyone has started work after the weekend. The blood test was before breakfast nad, apart from lunch, that was the highlight of the day. I’ve not done anything else – hardly in the mood.

Having to stay here is depressing me, though. I want to go home, or, at least, back to my little room. The people here are very nice and very friendly, but it’s not a patch on being chez soi. I hope that I don’t have to stay here too long.

But there is some good news. The nurse has just this minute come by for a chat, and it seems that my blood count is now a record 10.5. It’s never been this high before since I’ve been ill, and certainly not under its own steam, and that’s something to celebrate.

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Sunday 31st July 2016 – I HAVE DONE SOMETHING …

… totally and utterly decadent today.

That’s right – after breakfast, I went back to bed. And there I slept until they brought the lunch around and awoke me. It’s a long time since I’ve done anything quite like that, but ask me if I care.

Mind you, I had a different kind of night last night. What I mean by that is that I didn’t go to sleep for ages and ages. It was certainly long-after 01:30 because I was still awake then. And then I had a restless night as usual, up and down on several occasions.

I was on my travels too – back in France at a building that I had converted into apartments and one of the tenants was being difficult. Someone else there knew him and remembered him being difficult at the last place where he was living.

I struggled awake all on my own at about 07:40 without the help of the nurse, but I wasn’t awake for long. Just long enough to stuff my breakfast down my throat.

After lunch, I did absolutely … err … badger all, just talking to a couple of people on the internet. I did manage a trip to the shower at about 16:20 – a good wash and brush up and a change of undies did me the world of good and I’m now ready for anything, even a visit this evening from Alison who brought me a packet of rice crackers. That was really nice of her.

It’s a long time since I’ve had such a leisurely Sunday and I reckon that it did me the world of good. The only issue now is whether or not I can go back to sleep this evening or will I still be awake like last night, long after midnight.

But with a bit of luck, this will be my last night there, if I don’t have a bad reaction to the Mapthera tomorrow. I’m on my own yet again tonight, so I ought to make the most of it.

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Saturday 30th July 2016 – MORE OF THE SAME.

That’s the best way to describe last night. Almost exactly the same as every other night just recently – going to sleep quite late and being interrupted on regular occasions through the night. But at least I didn’t have to lie half-asleep listening to a room-mate snoring or talking to himself in his sleep. I enjoyed being on my own.

As usual, the best part of the sleep that I had was the bit between 06:00 and being awoken by the nurse at 07:40. I really was in a tremendously deep sleep just then and she had quite a task to wake me up.

And no surprise either. I’ve talked quite often about a girl whom I call “the one that got away” and she once more featured quite prominently in my little nocturnal ramble last night. And she didn’t get away last night – ohhh no, not ‘arf she didn’t! What was even more interesting is that I had to leave my bed to go to walk the parapet somewhere during the middle of this ramble, and when I returned to bed and went back to sleep, I found that I had stepped back right into the very position from where I had stepped out. This is something that’s happened to me quite a few times now – it’s not such a rare occurrence as you might think.

The irony of all of this is that after I had had breakfast, I switched on the laptop to find that I had been left a message by the afore-mentioned, and right almost at the time that she was appearing over here during the night. And it was something of a cry for help too. We ended up spending most of the morning having a lengthy chat. It seems that mine isn’t the only subconscious that’s pulling in the waves from 500 miles away. As you ought to know by now, I fully believe in the existence of the transmission and reception of human thought waves and over the years, I’ve had many interesting encounters and first-hand experiences with the phenomenon.

After lunch, I crashed out. And I was away with the fairies for a good couple of hours too. I did manage to awaken in time for tea, which I followed up with some of the strawberries that Alison had brought me the other day. And very delicious they were too.

So now, even though it’s early, I’m going to have an early night. I probably won’t be able to sleep very much but never mind – I can always catch up with my sleep during the day.

Yes, my life is rather upside-down right now, isn’t it?

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Friday 29th July 2016 – LAST NIGHT …

… was very much like the other nights just recently. Going to sleep fairly early and then waking up at regular intervals during the night. This is wearing me out and how I long for a really good sleep.

I did however fit in a little nocturnal ramble somewhere. I don’t remember too much about it except that it involved FC Pionsat St Hilaire, a shot at goal that hit the post and rebounded back into play and then the backspin on it that took it just over the bar and onto the roof of the net.

And I learnt something new about my room-mate – not only does he snore occasionally, he talks in his sleep too. But then I shan’t be troubled by any of that tonight because he left hospital this afternoon. I’m on my own tonight so I hope that I’ll be able to take advantage of it.

07:30 was when I awoke this morning, thoroughly exhausted, and it took me a good hour or so to come round. I had my breakfast much later than everyone else – apparently they wanted me to have a blood test this morning.

Hermione the doctor came to see me a little later on. The infection is going down now so they are going to keep me on the antibiotics until Monday. On Monday I can have yet another session of Mapthera and provided that there are no unpleasant side-effects, I can go back to my little room in town.

Talking of little rooms, the girl from Social Services came to see me a little later this morning. And she had quite a job because, as tired as I was, I was absolutely stark out. Well and truly crashed. She’s come up with another option of a place to stay. It’s further out from the centre where I want to be, but it seems to have private facilities (and kitchenette) and it’s slightly cheaper than where I am now. I shall follow that up in due course when I’m out of here.

I managed a good lunch, except for the diced swedes that were in a cheesy milk sauce and the soup which tasted of nothing but salt. I seem to be eating a little better now, which is good news.

This afternoon I had a chat with Liz and with Rosemary on the internet. Rosemary has invited me to England for a few days which is really nice of her. But I’ll need to be in good shape if I go. I don’t want to take a pile of microbes and viruses with me.

Later on after tea I crashed out again, only to be awoken by a nurse who wanted to take my temperature. This is what usually happens when I make myself comfortable – someone always comes along to spoil it. And I had a couple of attacks of nausea this evening. I don’t know why that was.

And so I’m on my own tonight. No room mate to distract me, keep me awake or to awaken me after I’ve dropped off. What this means in real terms is that there will be half a dozen nurses coming along to awaken me instead.

That’s what usually happens, isn’t it?

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Thursday 28th July 2016 – WHAT A DEPRESSING …

… night that was. I can’t remember now how many times I had to leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit to go off down the corridor, but it was certainly more than three or four. It’s that kind of thing that’s making me feel so fed up right now, as well as the perpetual coughing and the streaming cold.

Mind you, I did find the time to go on a nocturnal ramble. Firstly, I remember seeing a young black girl walking along the street and we ended up having quite a chat about something although I can’t remember what it was now. From here I went off to my hotel room, which actually had two beds, and the second bed was now occupied by some guy from Eastern Europe. The rooms were small and poorly-furnished but the sheets and the quilt were white. There was one shelf, which was over my bed, to put suitcases and this other guy was going through some weird acrobatics in order to put his suitcase up there – standing on the windowsill, on the foot of the bed, anything except putting his foot on the bedding. I then had to go off to the bathroom but there was quite a queue and I was in something of a rush, so I was very glad when it came to my turn. When the person before me came out, I made some kind of light-hearted comment about having to wait, and of course it was totally misunderstood, as you might expect. As for the bathroom itself, the only word that comes to my mind was “disgusting”. It really was quite poor and I was dismayed by that.

It’s not the only thing that I’m dismayed about right now either. I had a lengthy chat with Hermione this morning. The good news is that there’s no problem with the lymph nodes in my stomach, according to the scan, but there is still plenty of infection in my lungs. And not only that, the treatment that I was told initially would be over by mid-September is the chemotherapy treatment that is too violent for me and which they stopped. This new treatment has quite a different time-scale and they can’t say for how long it will go on.

Not only that, I’m going to have to be followed up by the hospital for the rest of my life. I did ask what she meant by this – did she mean once every six months (which I could cope with without too many problems) or did she mean once per week, which would be devastating for me – but she couldn’t give me an answer to that until she sees how the treatment progresses.

But anyway, it looks as if my idyllic life in my rural retreat is rapidly coming to an end and you have absolutely no idea just how gutted I am about that. I can see my regular voyages to Canada coming to an end too and that will be just about the end.

The hospital seems to be taking it quite seriously too because after lunch I had a visit from the hospital psychiatrist. She wanted to have a good chat to me about my future and unfortunately I wasn’t able to say very much. Without knowing what the hospital has in store for me for the future, I can’t make any plans at all, as I explained to her. We ended up having a desultory kind of chat about not very much, which was finished when she said “well, see you next week”. That sounded rather ominous to me – I’m hoping to be out of here in a day or two.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, no matter what it might sound like. I managed to eat a good lunch and they were so impressed by that that they have taken me off the intravenous drip. Now, I’m not connected to anything at all which is good news for me.

Furthermore, Alison came to see me for a chat. She brought me a couple of packets of vegan crisps and a bag-full of clothes. She had taken the time to do my dirty washing for me, something that I found really nice of her and which I appreciated a great deal. I may not have many friends, but of the ones that I have are the best in the world.

So that’s enough of this rubbish. I’m going to knock off and spend the rest of the evening worrying about my future – if I have one, that is. I really am dismayed by the news today.

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Tuesday 26th July 2016 – “OHHH MR HALL!”

“It’s so difficult to treat you. First it’s one thing, and then it’s something else!”.

Inspiring words from Hermione the Doctor this morning when she came to see me. And it’s no surprise because after being in here something like half a day, my feet and legs have swollen up again. We had a very lengthy chat about how I was feeling and I told her everything that I thought she might like to know. The result of this is that I’m going to be in here for a bit, I reckon, while they try to work out what to do next.

“Next” is definitely a CAT scan. That’s organised for tomorrow apparently, and they are going to give my chest and lungs a right going-over. But as I have said before, this kind of thing is just a peripheral issue. Mind you, with my blood count having stabilised over the last 5 or 6 weeks, I suppose that there are grounds for cautious optimism.

I eventually drifted off to a real sleep at about 02:00 this morning. There were no church bells, no alarms, no nothing at all and so consequently I awoke at 07:00 precisely. Dunno if I went anywhere but if I did I certainly remember nothing about it.

I managed some breakfast too. I didn’t enjoy it all that much but I do have to eat whenever I can. This intravenous drip stuff is not the answer to everything. And later on, after Hermione had been and gone, the dietician put in an appearance and we had a good chat again about my diet.

Lunch was disgusting. Well, I suppose that it wasn’t but I was in no mood for it. The vegetable soup tasted of nothing but salt and I couldn’t even stomach the thought of the mashed potatoes and chili beans. That was a washout.

After lunch, I crashed out a couple of times – once while I was riding the porcelain horse and the second time lying on the bed, when I promptly fell off.

There was a nice surprise this afternoon. Alison was here in the hospital, and she came for a chat when she had finished whatever she was doing. And here we conjured up a cunning plan. Alison volunteered to go down into town and my little room to bring me a pile of stuff that I might need if I’m staying for a while.

Alison didn’t just bring me my stuff, she also came with a packet of soya dessert and a supply of fruit. Consequently, as you might expect, for my tea tonight the hospital supplied me with soya dessert and fruit salad.

The nurse took my temperature on several occasions during the day and that slowly went down with the passage of time. We started off with 37.7°C and by evening it was 36.9°C.

I’m now going to have an early night if I can. My room-mate likes his television (so Alison fetched the headphones for my laptop) and while he’s not the worst room-mate that I’ve had from a snoring point of view, he’s not the best either. But then I can’t expect too much.

But it was really nice of Alison to fetch my stuff for me. I appreciated that very much.

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Monday 25th July 2016 – IT REALLY COMES TO SOMETHING …

… when you arrive at the hospital day centre and the nurse takes one look at you and says, in a horrified tone, “But Mr Hall – you look dreadful”. But that really is an understatement of just how I’m feeling at the moment.

I didn’t sleep too badly last night, I have to admit, and round about midnight I was feeling reasonably lucid which makes a change from how I was feeling when I went to bed after my pizza. I was soon back asleep again though, with one or two of the usual interruptions. I’d been on quite a few vivid voyages too, but the only one that I can remember concerns two extended-cab pickups. One was red, rather like a Ford Cortina estate but a pick-up, and the other one was a real pickup coloured a sort-of light lime green and with a black interior. Although I had arrived at this spot in the red one, I found myself spread out on the rear seats of the yellow one, half-asleep, with someone whom I didn’t recognise at all in the front.

The alarm went off at 07:15 but there was no way that I was going to leave my bed at that time of morning. In fact I went back to sleep again and awoke at 07:30 when the second one went off. I crawled upstairs to the kitchen and made myself a small breakfast as I’m still not all that hungry, and then off for a shower. If I’m going to have nurses poking and probing me, they would expect me to be clean and tidy.

For the next half hour we played “hunt the keys” for Caliburn. I didn’t find them but by this time it was far too late to do anything about it. I staggered off for the bus (remembering on the way to the bus stop that my keys are in my sac banane) and off to the hospital.

While the nurse took my blood sample I poured out my woes to her and repeated the story to the doctor. Not Hermione though – the one who replaces her when she’s not there. The Social Services girl came to see me and I told her everything too.

The doctor came back to see me a little later. The good news is that my blood count is still 10.0. It’s not gone up any for the last four weeks, but it’s also not gone down any and considering how ill I’m feeling, that’s really quite remarkable. It’s also quite remarkable that I haven’t had a blood transfusion for … ohhhh … weeks and weeks.

The bad news is that I have a raging chest infection. They packed me off for an x-ray (I’ve not had the results back yet) and then they reached a decision – that they are going to keep me in hospital for “a few days” so that they can give me some liquid food, some steroids and some medication for the infection.

So here I am, up on a ward,with a raging temperature of 39.5°C, sweating everywhere, and hopefully going to be cured – at least of this infection. But as it has been said so often, I’m at risk from all kinds of illnesses now that my my spleen has been removed, and while the lymphoma probably won’t kill me, I could be wiped out by something that I catch and won’t be able to fight off.

I hope that my room-mate here doesn’t snore. But he has enough to put up with with me coughing.

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Monday 18th July 2016 – I WENT TO THE HOSPITAL …

… this morning, and just for a change, seeing as how I’m not too well, I went up on the bus. I definitely can’t be feeling up to it if I’m having to travel by bus and spend €1:40.

Just for a change I’d had the best night’s sleep that I’d had for ages. Apart from one trip down the corridor, I was out like a light until the alarm went off at 07:00, and then promptly went back to sleep until the alarm went off again at 07:15.

I’d been on my travels too. Back driving a coach tour along the North Cornwall coast. The holiday had come to an end and we were ready to go home. The advertised way was down across the county to Exeter and then up the M5, but the prettier way, even if it was a longer way, was along the coast and so I asked the passengers if they would like to go that way. Many of the passengers had been with me last year when we had gone along the coast too. They were having a discussion about that and so I decided to move the coach off to a safer spot. However I had a hell of a time getting the coach to start and when it finally did start there were clouds of white smoke everywhere and the coach wouldn’t accelerate. This was a bad start to the final day’s holiday and I was hoping that the passengers hadn’t noticed.

I had another go at having a decent breakfast ready for my long day, but I ended up leaving half of it. I’m still not up to it, I reckon. And it was scorching outside, even at 08:00. I’m glad that I had decided to take the bus.

At the check-in at the day care centre I was taken by surprise. I was sent straight to a little room instead of having to go through all of the preliminaries downstairs. That didn’t sound too good. And I had a nurse who had exactly the same accent as Goldmember. That was worrying too. She fitted me with a drain and took a blood sample. And I have to give a urine sample too and that’s taking the p155.

My weight has gone down by 3kgs, which is probably normal seeing as how little I’ve been eating just recently.

The Doctor came to see me – not Hermione unfortunately – but the other one and we had a good time discussing everything that has been going on with me just recently. She’ll know more when she has the results of the blood test later today but to her it sounds as if I have caught an infection and it will soon pass through. I hope that she’s right.

She did however send me to have my chest x-rayed. Done on the spot!

Strangely enough, in between the blood test and the visit of the doctor, I’d suddenly started to feel so much better. How is that for an irony? I managed the soup and bread for lunch, as well as a large packet of crisps that Alison had bought me and which I’d taken along for emergencies.

The perfusion was ready quite quickly and didn’t take long. By about 14:45 it was all finished. The doctor came back with a prescription for the medication that I had finished off, and told me some good news. My blood count is 10.0 – exactly the same as it was 2 weeks ago. And given all that I’ve done and all that I’ve been through this last 2 weeks, that’s quite impressive. I’m very pleased with that.

And when was the last time that I have had a blood transfusion?

She told me that I do have an infection too. She’s not too worried about it and it’s one of the things to which I’ll have to become accustomed giving the loss of my spleen, but she wants me back next week (instead of in two weeks time) to see what is happening.

She did offer me the chance to stay at the hospital. Had I been living anywhere else that I had during the last three months, I might well have taken her up on it. But I’m comparatively comfortable here so I decided to come back home. I must be feeling better.

Having paid the odd account or two, I set off home – on foot too – and ended up in town at the supermarket buying a few bits and pieces. I’ve even eaten tonight – nothing special or exotic but proper food. And three good meals too.

And not only that – it’s now 23:45 and I’m still awake and not in the least but tired despite my full, exhausting day.

Things are looking up.

Ans we’ve had more excitement in Parliament today. During the debate on the new Trident replacement, the new Prime Minister, Theresa May, attacked Green MP Caroline Lucas for speaking against the proposals, saying that Lucas was “defending the UK’s enemies”.

Now have a close look at this speech – “Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Did you notice the bit about “denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger” which has clearly influenced Theresa May’s speech? The speech that I quoted just now was one given by none other than Hermann Goering.

Having had the B Liar paraphrasing the Nazi speeches during his period in office, it looks now as if we’ve got yet more Nazi clones in charge in Drowning Street.

That’s a frightening thought now, isn’t it? Or were we all expecting it?

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Monday 11th July 2016 – I’M BACK …

… in the Auvergne, would you believe. And at Liz and Terry’s too (well, Terry’s, actually because Liz is stuck in Normandy right now).

What has happened is that there is some urgent sorting out that needs to be done and I’m the only person who can do it. and it has to be done before July 28th. And seeing as how I don’t have Caliburn’s new insurance documents (these are essential of course) and there are a few other bits and pieces required, then the sooner I reacted the better.

Hence, at 10:03 this morning I was on a train in Leuven station.

That’s not all, of course. I was awake at 06:20, packed and sorted shortly afterwards, and upstairs having breakfast when the alarm went off at 07:00. I had a beautiful shower too in my new en-suite shower room (must take advantage of the benefits) and then I was off to the hospital.

I took no chances and went on the bus. The back door of the hospital was actually open this morning so I quickly nipped through onto the car park and over to Caliburn to grab my passport; Then I was back down to the front entrance and back on another bus to the station.

My train was at 10:03 as I said, and I was there for 08:45.It hadn’t taken long and there was plenty of time to sit and read a book.

They even have beggars on the trains now, so it seems, and as you know, that’s something that annoys me intensely.

At Bruxelles-Midi I didn’t have time to hang about. I found my train, found my seat and we piddled off almost immediately. The booking people had cut it that fine.

And it was a good job that I had gone to pick up my passport because (as I expected) there was a police control on board and someone unable to produce her passport had a very hard time of it.

The train was packed out too – hardly an empty seat anywhere.

At Paris gare du Nord I had to wait ages in a queue for a Metro ticket but the person at the counter put me right and finding the Paris-Austerlitz station for the next leg of my journey was quite straightforward (it’s about 10 stops directly down the Porte d’Italie line). We had another beggar on the metro who was going on about how hard it was to find a place to live and a job to do so I gave him a right royal piece of my mind, to a round of applause from the other passengers, and he piddled off elsewhere too.

At Austerlitz I needed to buy the ticket for my return. And there was a huge queue. 15 desks in the travel office, 8 of them manned … "PERSONNED" – ed …personned and only two of those people working. There’s a Subway sandwich place around the corner which was where I was planning to go for lunch, but badger that seeing as how the situation was in the ticket office. I was lucky to catch my train.

This train was packed too – with a mere handful of empty seats. I crammed myself in and attacked the packet of biscuits that I had brought with me for an emergency (such as this one).

Terry met me at Chateauroux as he was passing by on his way from Normandy back home. He was early at the station and so the rain was, as you might expect, late. And now I’m back here.

I’m having an early night here too because I have a lot to do tomorrow so I need an early start. But it’s all “go” right here at the moment, isn’t it?

And on Wednesday morning, at Silly o’clock, I’m back on the road (or should I say “the rails”) to head back to Leuven.

I’ll be meeting myself coming back if I keep going like this. And I’m supposed to be ill too!

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Sunday 10th July 2016 – I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT I’VE JUST DONE THIS!

Well, actually, yes I can because, believe me, this is par for the course as you all know.

I’m on the move tomorrow and so I need my passport which is in Caliburn up at the hospital. And so this evening at about 18:30 I set off in the early evening heat (because it was hot) up to the hospital to undertake this simple task.

It didn’t take me too long to arrive there, and I passed through the hospital to the back door to the Car Park where Caliburn is parked. And this was where I discovered that the door was locked.

From here, I must have spent about an hour or so walking through the bowels of the hospital looking for another way out (and what was quite interesting was that I spent all of this time in a “restricted” area and I wasn’t accosted once) and eventually, after much binding in the marsh, to find a way out. This involved something of an escalade, but never mind. I had (eventually) arrived.

First job was to start up Caliburn and take him for a little run around so that he doesn’t seize up. And then I tidied him up somewhat, found a tote bag that I need to go with me tomorrow, threw a pile of tinned food and other stuff into the tote bag, and eventually set off home.

On the way back I stopped off at the pizza place for a pizza (I had the sliced vegan cheese with me) and took it back to my new little room where I sat and ate it. And this was where I realised that I had forgotten the passport, which is still in Calburn!

D’ohhh!

And so tomorrow, instead of having a lie-in to gather my wits (not that there are so many that it takes me very long) I’ll be having an early breakfast and then staggering back to the hospital for the passport.

I hope that the back door will be open!

Yes – new little room. i’m back at the ranch again.

Last night in yonder house by the station I had a night that was not so good. It’s true that the kids were quite noisy for a while but the bad night was more to do with me than anything else. No breakfast of course, and so I had a (beautiful) shower and then set out to walk back to my place. I’d been on my travels too during the night but I’ve no idea where or who with.

It was a lovely morning and I discovered bits of Leuven that I didn’t know existed. I was also impressed by the total absence of littler on the streets, especially considering that the music festival is taking place. I stopped off at the boulangerie to buy a baguette for lunch and then finally arrived chez moi where I helped myself to breakfast. I consider that i’m entitled to it.

My room wasn’t ready so I sat outside on a chair and read a book for the rest of the morning, and ate my lunchtime butty while I was at it. 14:00 more-or-less was when my room was finished and so I nipped inside and closed the door.

It’s right on the ground floor right next to the door so I imagine that I’ll be awoken every five minutes by people coming and going, but it’s en-suite with the weirdest bathroom that I have ever seen. But on the whole, it’s not too bad. I even crashed out for an hour or so – the armchair there is extremely comfortable.

And then we had the performance with the passport, or lack thereof.

Now, I’m fed and watered (the pizza was lovely) and I’m off to be. I have a lot to do tomorrow and so I need to be at my best.

Not to mention this early start.

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Monday 4th July 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Friday 1st July 2016 – I’M WHACKED!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I can’t wait.

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Wednesday 29th June 2016 – MY DOCTOR …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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