Tag Archives: belgium

Wednesday 9th November 2022 – WE HAVE HAD …

… all kinds of people wandering around the hospital today.

As well as the usual run of nurses, doctors and all kinds of ancillary staff, we had one of the professors putting his sooty foot inside my little room.

“There will be some student doctors on the wards later this morning” he said. “Is it OK if they come and check up on you?”

Here I am in a teaching hospital with all kinds of nice young students, whether nurses or doctors, so why would I not want to be examined by them?

Consequently I agreed and so much of the morning was spent with me being poked and prodded around. In fact it was all very reminiscent of something out of DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, especially when two of them had to come back because they had forgotten to ask me for some basic information..

Last night I was in bed quite early the way things have been going just recently, and I slept right the way through to the alarm. No-one seems to be disturbing me during the night these days.

Although I was awake, I wasn’t that much awake and here and there, now and then, a nurse had to shake me awake.

Plenty of stuff on the dictaphone too from during the night and the odd sleepy moment later. I was doing something that involved supervising a couple of companies (as in groups of people) moving across the desert towards a new life somewhere in a new fort or whatever. One party was particularly difficult because we kept running out of everything, including the ginger beer that we were supposed to drink, and that was difficult. We had a really savage guard dog that patrolled the limits of the camp. Each time one of our members of staff appeared or one of the people who was travelling, we had to go to rein in this guard dog so that the people could come through. It was all quite savage in a way. One of the guys had actually baked some fairy cakes so one breakfast we had fairy cakes. There was the usual ribbing about either he hadn’t baked them himself or whatever. In the end we decided that the only way to prove that he’d baked them himself was next Saturday to have an open house baking session where he’d bake in front of anyone who cared to watch.

There was something about being in a group last night, a group of us. I can’t recall what we were doing but there was a lot of drawing etc in it. Right at the end I asked my brother what were the objects that he was picking. He replied that it was some fruit or vegetable of some description so we wanted to know what was the fur on the face of it, whether it was some kind of rottenness or whether it was actually supposed to be there. He said that he’s on his way to the car now so he’ll pick a few and have a closer look. But I couldn’t see where he was going to fit them because he had his arms full and he couldn’t be carrying anything more than he already had

One of the nurses changed the needle in my catheter port on the grounds that it’s been in there nearly two weeks. I made sure that my little student nurse watched closely because I told her that she’s going to change the next one.

Later on this afternoon they took me down deep into the bowels of the hospital where I’ve never been before. There were two people sticking pins in my leg and sending electric shocks up and down it. They haven’t told me any results but coupled with the tests that they have been carrying out, they are of the conclusion that there’s a definite problem with the right leg and information so far suggests that it’s a lower back problem although I fail to see the connection.

After tea Alison put in an appearance. She brought me some of that banana-flavoured soya drink that I like and some vegan crisps.

We had a good chat for well over an hour while the nurses were trying to pump some plasma substance into me.

So now that I’m on my own, everyone has gone home and the place is in darkness, I’m going to put myself in darkness too. But I’m relieved that they are at last taking some of my complaints seriously. It’s been a long time since I’ve been waiting for them to do something – since March 2021 in fact – and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve been quite fed up with the lack of action.

So here’s hoping that they’ll be able to do something about my problems. It won’t be before time either.

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Tuesday 8th November 2022 – I REALLY DON’T …

… know what happened to me today.

When the alarm went off at 06:30 today I was sound asleep. One of the deepest sleeps that I’ve had for a while. And when it went off at 06:35 it awoke me again

When breakfast came round at 08:00 the nurse awoke me to eat it, and a relentless chain of nurses, doctors, specialists and the like continually awoke me throughout the day.

On the way in my bed down to an ECG scan I fell asleep twice as well.

In fact I’ve been in a deep sleep for most of the day today. Right now I just want to go to sleep again and I really don’t know why.

But at least after the panic last night when I had a relapse they are taking things seriously. They have examined my chest thoroughly, carried out a few examinations on my right leg and checked over a few other things

There was the dictaphone to check over too I was in hospital last night being seen to because of this problem that I have with the chest. They were busy arranging me and I was trying to make myself comfortable. There were some temporary blankets that somehow ended up on fire and some of the blankets fell off. I realised that I wasn’t as cold as I had been so I must be improving. I went out past the office where people like my friend from Munich would sit but it was empty. I was gradually being brought downstairs, I thought, presumably for another examination but I didn’t really know

We all also went to Vire last night, to the cathedral, but it was nothing at all like the real Vire. We drove there, drove through the town to see the sights. We had to follow the road round. We thought that this would be where all the signs were for various things and sure enough there was a sign for the cathedral. We went that way and parked, got out and then walked al the way down these steps to where the cathedral was and began to have a good look round

There have been so many people in here today interrupting me that it’s only now that I’m on my own.

My Welsh class today was a fiasco. There were far too many interruptions for me to concentrate on what was happening in the lesson.

Apart from that it’s been a busy day and I’m hopeful that they will eventually find out what’s going on with my body.

However I’m not to hopeful. It seems to me that with my underlying illness, my body is slowly breaking down and it may shortly be beyond repair. That’s really disappointing but it’s inevitable that this would happen.

With Waldenstrohn’s Disease, no-one has survived more than 11 years. I was diagnosed 7 years ago and I probably had it a year or 18 months before that.

My only regret is, as you know, the fact that they have taken so long to deal with this breathing issue – 18 months, in fact, but even that has been overtaken by events with my mobility issues.

There’s really no end to it.

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MONDAY 7th November 2022 – I’VE HAS A …

… relapse today.

And I was doing so well too.

This afternoon I started to shiver and it seemed as if someone was standing on my chest and I can hardly breathe. It’s no use trying to cough either because I can’t without hurting myself.

The nurse checked my temperature and blood pressure and she decided that I have a fever with a temperature of over 38°C, a far cry from a few hours ago when it was 36.2°C

Last night I slept all the way through from about 00:20 until the alarm went off at 06:30.. And there’s stuff on the dictaphone from last night too. I can’t remember much about it except that there was something about being in hospital and a kitten, and I can’t remember whether I had to get better first before I could stroke the kitten or whether I had to stroke the kitten before I could get better. I know that when the alarm went off at 06:30 this morning I was looking for a kitten rather than the telephone to switch it off so I dunno

After I’d washed and changed I sat in the chair where I fell asleep several times, usually to be awoken by a doctor who wanted to examine me. And they seem to have taken seriously the problem of my knee. No fewer than two doctors plan to give it a full examination.

There were other doctors too who examined other bits and pieces of me too. It looks as if things are moving rapidly, but this was before the relapse.

Alison came in the middle of everything and was unlucky to catch me in a right state. She’s bought me some vegan chocolate which was really nice,

After she went they took a blood sample and later on in the evening another cute female houseman came to see me and examined me.

So now I’m off to bed, unless the houseman comes back again. And I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I can’t feel much worse than I do right now.

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Sunday 6th November 2022 – MEANWHILE, IN CASTLE ANTHRAX …

…Cute Student Nurse – “Have you washed yourself this morning?”
Our Hero – “yes I have”
CSN – “have you changed your nightgown?”
OH – “yes I have”
CSN – “then I’ll change your bedding and you’ll smell like roses”
OH – “it’ll take more than whatever the hospital has to make me smell like roses”.”

Once more I went to sleep without a sleeping pill. I was off with the fairies round about midnight. And if anyone came to check up on me during the small hours I really didn’t notice..

Round about 03:30 I awoke for a while and even had my early morning orange but I was soon back asleep.

Even though it was a Sunday there was an alarm set, and at 06:30 too, and it was that which awoke me this morning.

Plenty of stuff on the dictaphone from during the night. Once again I was having a dream and was away on my travels. I seem to have awoken and completely forgotten everything to do about it. It was to do with Shavington and I was meeting someone on the train, a girl. It was the terminus of the railway station, something like Kew Gardens. She came into the station on a train and I was waiting there to carry her packages for her which she thought was extremely sweet and told me so. We went to a café for something to eat. She ordered something but I didn’t. When her meal came she said something like “go on, Eric, you’ll have to eat something”. I decided that I’d order a couple of rounds of toast. The waitress said that she didn’t have a pen to write it down so I reached in my pocket to find a pen. She then came up with another excuse. I looked closely at her, and she was a girl whom I knew from my childhood in Shavington when we all lived together on the same council estate. In the end it was quite clear that she wasn’t going to order anything at all for me and wandered away. A few minutes later the manageress came past so we buttonholed her and I explained the story of the strange behaviour of the waitress. She asked for a reason for it. I said that we both grew up as kids in the same kind of environment but some of us managed to drag ourselves out of the hole but others like her were unable to do so. It’s probably some kind of jealousy.

There was also something like going camping or similar last night. I should have been in bed and should have been up early next morning but when the alarm went off I still hadn’t gone to bed because there was still some kind of intense discussion going on. We hadn’t been able to go to bed because of it. Later on I was back at work again in this recurring dream where I had to give some of my work to someone else. I had work piled up everywhere that I hadn’t done. When I went back into this office where my work had been, there was a girl there lying in bed with an adding machine going through piles of paperwork. There was an awful amount of additional papers on her bed and she exclaimed “ohh look! Here’s one that you’ve added up correctly”. I replied “give me some of the ones that are wrong and I’ll go through and redo them” but she didn’t seem to pay much attention to that. Instead she went and rummaged through the paperwork and was asking someone else in connection with one of these slips some advice about if someone had a new bathroom installed would there really be a large amount for a new bathroom window or is this incorrect?

After breakfast we had the interchange as mentioned above and she also bought me a small bucket with a lid. Apparently I have an appointment with the nephrologist on Monday so he needs a … errr … 24-hour sample.

The doctor has been round again to check up on me. I talked mainly about my knee because that’s my priority right now but he didn’t seem to be all that interested. In fact I have the impression that the doctors here at weekend are just here basically to make sure that the patients are still alive – and that they stay alive until Monday.

The rest of the day I’ve been left to my own devices, apart from the odd visit from a nurse with food and medication, and for a couple of chats here and there on the internet. As a result I’ve been catching up on a few bits and pieces that I’ve let go for a while.

But as I seem to be feeling better in certain respects I’m going to make a start tomorrow on catching up on more important things that I’ve let go just recently.

But how much time will I have?

It looks as if I’m going to be busy for the next couple of days.

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Saturday 5th November 2022 – IT’S BEEN A …

… really strange kind of day today.

In fact it was the morning that was the strangest part of it because for some reason or other that I can’t explain, I seem to have slept through most of it and for the rest of the morning I certainly wasn’t anywhere on this planet.

When a nurse came by at one point to take my temperature, not only was I deep in the arms of Morpheus, I was off on a really exciting nocturnal voyage but, regrettably, as soon as she finally managed to awaken me, then “strong>PFAFF” – it just disappeared like a balloon that had been popped and I remember not a thing at all about it.

It’s not as if I’d had a bad night either. Even though I didn’t have my sleeping pill yet again last night, I was still away with the fairies at some point before midnight and if there wee any of the usual nocturnal stampedes around the rooms by the nursing staff taking temperatures and blood pressure and so on, I don’t recall anything at all about them coming in here.

By about 03:30 I was awake again and stayed awake for a while, long enough even to eat my early-morning orange, but I ended up going back to sleep again until about 06:00.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this amount of sleep doesn’t sound like a lot compared to how things usually are back at home but it’s not as if I’m actually rushed around off my feet here. I seem to spend almost all of my day either in bed or propped up in a chair.

The duty doctor came to see me this morning too. He wasn’t particularly expansive and didn’t say very much at all. It was difficult to extract any information from him so I gave up after a while. I’m none-the-wiser and I’m certainly not better-informed either.

Apart from everything else, I’ve had a good wash and shave, a nice lengthy chat with Liz and eaten some nice food. I do have to say that for industrial food, this stuff is pretty good.

While I was talking to Liz my “hospital app” on my ‘phone pinged with a message. Apparently I have been given an appointment with the Neurology department here on Thursday late afternoon. So I’m still going to be in Leuven, if not in the hospital itself, until then at least.

And while we’re on the subject, there’s a story going round that among the latest stages of development of the hospital site is a hotel-style accommodation for people who need to stay in the vicinity of the hospital without actually being hospitalised.

It goes without saying that I shall make further enquiries in this respect for the future.

Later on this evening, I saw some football on a very spluttering and cache-y slow internet connection. TNS swept aside a poor Cardiff Metro side 4-0 and Cardiff Metro can count themselves lucky to get “nil”. TNS must have had at least 80% of the play and I can’t recall the Met having a single shot on goal, on target or not.

So tonight I’m going to have another go at going to sleep without a sleeping pill and see how I get on. Tomorrow there will be the usual routine of temperature and blood pressure and eye drops and all of that, and a visit from the housemen, but no tests or examinations until Monday as the lab and scientific staff aren’t at work on the weekend.

But I won’t have my Sunday lie-in though. And I’ll certainly miss that.

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Friday 4th November 2022 – RUMOUR HAS IT …

… that there’s a new sound engineer twiddling the knobs in our new recording studio at the Centre Pierre et Marie Curie in Granville.

No description has been published so far other than the fact that he has a pair of rather large antlers

Another rumour that is circulating right now is that it’s raining in Caliburn through the gap in the windscreen thanks to that mess of an installation last year that I had to patch up on my way home from Germany.

A third rumour that is circulating is that they are about to throw me out into the big, wild world.

That’s rather worrying because while it’s certainly true that this virus has improved considerably (but not by any means 100%) nothing has happened about my right knee, the pain in which is getting worse and worse.

As well as that, I now have pain in the right side of my groin whenever I move my right leg.

And as I have told the medical staff here on numerous occasions, I would trade absolutely everything to have my right knee fixed.

This morning I mentioned it yet again to the doctor who came to see me and do you know what he told me?
“Mr Hall” he said, “you are lucky to be alive. When you came in here on Thursday last week we didn’t think that you would survive.”.

That’s as maybe but what I really need to be done is this knee issue that has brought my activities to a dead stop.

And then there’s the breathing issue, more of which anon.

Last night, once again, I fell asleep without any artificial aids whatsoever. And whether anyone came and checked me for anything during the night as usual, I really don’t know. I felt nothing whatsoever.

At about 04:00 I awoke but despite taking advantage of a stray orange that was loitering about I was nothing like as lively as I was yesterday. It took until the arrival of breakfast before I was in possession of all my faculties.

During the day I fell asleep a couple of times and on one occasion I had some notes to add to the dictaphone notes that were already there from the night.

There was something about me travelling to somewhere in Canada last night to meet a girl who was the daughter of someone. Someone else had gone before me. I was on a specific train. The arrangement was that somehow I’d sit in a special waiting room for these strange people and somehow she’d be able to identify me. I can’t remember very much about this at all except that once she had done, virtually the same thing happened again but this time I was leaving rather than arriving and the trains were on a very tight schedule. I was afraid that if I missed this one due to me running late it would throw my entire plans right out of the window

I fell asleep in mid-afternoon and found myself playing bass with the Gibson in a group with a young Peter Telford there playing a guitar with the machine heads in the body and several other older guys. They’d made all kinds of notes in pencil of the chords on pieces of music for me to make a start to follow. They were talking about some old guy who had been their mentor and had mentored some of the group and was possibly responsible for bringing everyone including me together for this first-night practice.

In fact many years ago I did play bass in a group with Peter Telford, but that’s another story.

On another occasion I was shaken awake by a hospital porter who wanted to take me for an examination.

This one was a cardiac examination where they gave me the same set of tests that they gave me last time, with, rather predictably, the same results.

This interview took place in Flemish, which was good. But when I asked him what he examination showed, he replied “there’s nothing wrong. Everything is normal”.

So her I am, back to where I was 6 months ago, and 18 months ago with no identification of my illness in sight. I’m beginning to think that this breathing issue is imaginary and I’m going to ask for counselling about my imaginary illness.

It’s Ingrid’s birthday today and although it took me a while I finally made contact with her and we had a good chat for 45 minutes.

My e-mail account was busy too. As well as helping one of my colleagues with a project, the Post Office had contacted me again with rather more urgency so as another of my colleagues works in a building nearby, I arranged with him to go and rescue the perishing.

In between everything I’ve also had plenty to read.

At first I stumbled upon a report by a Board of Trade examiner about A TRAIN FIRE AT BEATTOCK in 1950 that has many interesting facts about the outbreak and spread of fire.

As well as that, I’ve finally managed to track down a downloadable copy of THE OLD STRAIGHT TRACK for later perusal. This book is really the meanderings of the mind of a rather eccentric elderly gentleman in the 1920s and which were picked up by the “New Age” movement and popularised as “Ley Lines”. That’s my reading for my return journey, if ever there is such a thing.

On that point I’m packing up and going to try to sleep, without a sleeping pill if I can. And see what tomorrow will bring. There won’t be any examinations this weekend as all of the specialists have the weekend off. I’ll have to gather my strength for the onslaught on Monday.

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Thursday 3rd November 2022 – I CAN’T REMEMBER ..

… how many times I’ve been out of my room today for an examination of one sort or another nut I’m sure that the wheelchair folded up in the corner of he room knows its own way across the campus to the clinical part of the hospital.

And in a wheelchair too, not fenced into the bed and being pushed lock, stock and barrel. Things must be looking up.

All of this is in fact very reminiscent of the old days when I had my taxi company in the 80s.

There’s a dispatching office and a crew of about 50 porters here, each porter with a tablet-type of computer.
A specialist will ring up the ward to say “patient X needs to come to such-and-such an examination at such a time”
The ward sister will ring up Dispatching to say “Patient X needs to go to such and such an examination at such and such a time”
Dispatching then sends a message to the nearest porter to pick up patient X and take him to such-and-such an examination
Porter then goes to the ward to pick up Patient X and take him to is examination.
Porter then tells the Dispatcher that he’s free
Dispatcher sends porter off on his next pick-up.

It’s all very reminiscent of having a very busy fleet of taxis.

Last night was rather busy too.

To my own great surprise, and probably to yours too, I fell asleep without actually taking a sleeping pill. Every now and again I awoke to find myself being poked and prodded by various members of the medical staff but I went back to sleep quite quickly.

By the time 03:30 came around I couldn’t go back to sleep and when the alarm went off at 06:30 I was already up and working, having had a really nice orange to start the day.

Breakfast was late today because at 08:00 I was dragged off for the first of the many examinations that I had.

On one of the examinations that I had, round about lunchtime, they wanted to put a camera up my nose and down my throat. “Over my dead body” I said but the doctor was very persuasive and insistent and you have absolutely no idea of how much I suffered, physically and also mentally

This particular examination took place in a very out-of-the-way part of the hospital and it took an absolute positive age for someone to come and pick me up to take me back to my room.

Another visit was to have my throat investigated by one of these Stargate time-travelling things. Not one made by General Electric, my former employer. All of those have been replaced, so I was told. That company has really gone downhill since I stopped working there.

As for the other examinations, there were probably more. I really can’t remember.

Examinations aside, I had several visits from various doctors and specialists

And also a dietician who told me that I’m eating too much fruit and salad and that’s something else that will surprise you just as much as it surprises me.

Good news is that I’ve had a telephone call from the Post Office. Apparently they tried to deliver a “parcel” but there was no reply. So we chatted about it and they said that if it’s not claimed within 14 days it will be returned “to Roissy” which, for those of you who don’t know, is where Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport is situated.

And so it looks as if STRAWBERRY MOOSE has finished his wanderings and wants to come home. But if my friend Thierry doesn’t get a move on and reply to me, His Nibs might be off on yet more wanderings.

But the only wanderings that I’m going to do right now is to wander off to bed. It’s almost 23:00 and I’m going to try once more to go to sleep without a sleeping pill.

There’ll be a nice little stock of those in my drawer here by the time that I’m finished if I’m not careful.

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Wednesday 2nd November 2022 – THERE’S A NOTICE …

… on the end of my bed that says Valrisico.

Just in case your Flemish is deficient, that means “risk of falling” and so it’s nice to know that they are at last taking notice of the other ailments that I have.

In fact, this afternoon I was taken down to the ground floor where they performed a scan on my right knee.

Mind you, I wasn’t impressed with them down there. The technician called the Professor for a closer look so the very helpful Yours Truly asked the Professor if he would like to hear the history of my right knee because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, my right knee DOES have quite a history.

His response was “I would but I don’t have the time” and he strode off with an air of arrogance that I didn’t quite understand or appreciate.

And I was only trying to help him with his diagnosis.

They took so long that I was pressed with an urgent need which is embarrassing. My trolley-pusher had to make a detour so that we can pick up a bottle.

And it was just as well.

While we’re on this subject I have been making regular trips to ride the porcelain horse. And of the 5kg that I put on with all of these perfusions, I’ve lost half of that already.

Last night round about 22:00 I fell asleep of my own free will. Not too much use unfortunately because through the night they kept on coming into my room to measure my temperature, take my blood pressure and a few other things.

At about 01:30 I gave up trying to go back to sleep and lay there suffering. Once everything finally quietened down, I took my sleeping pill and that was that until about 05:00.

When I awoke I had a really dry throat to I ate one of the oranges in the stock of fruit that I’m creating and it was the most delicious thing that I’ve eaten.

During the night I was in North America, in my niece’s house, sitting in the living room. I was the only one in the house because I was ill. Suddenly I heard footsteps outside, the door opened, someone came in and went upstairs. There was a lot of moving around up there, then they came back downstairs again. My niece who had appeared from nowhere said something to whoever it was and whoever snapped back in a most disrespectful way to her.

Today I had a good wash and shave and then a doctor came to see me about my leg. While he was at it he mentioned these viruses and infections and I gather that I’m likely to be here for a while yet.

He didn’t say much about my knee but he obviously saw enough to arrange for a scan for me. But we’ll have to see what unfolds.

The food was good again and the staff are quite friendly as I have said before.

But right now even if it’s only 21:00 I’m off to settle down in bed. There’s a sleeping pill here but I’ll try to go to sleep naturally. It’s a shame to waste the sleeping pill in the midnight stampede.

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Tuesday 1st November 2022 – AND IT REALLY IS

… a bad news day today.

A doctor has been to visit me to say that I’m seriously ill

This is the problem with this lack of immunity. People have been catching this and feeling much better three days later. I’ve been seriously ill for 13 days and in intensive care for 6 days and any improvement is “slight”

Basically they are astonished that I travelled so far and in such strange conditions with this illness that is engulfing me, and frankly, so am I.

For a change, last night was much better They gave me a different sleeping pill that I took at 20:00 and the next thig that I remember was that i was 00:30. That was definitely one of Bill Oddie’s “powders that would paralyse a bear” and I’ll take a few more of those.

Later on I was back to sleep for a few hours and there’s even something on the dictaphone too. I was with Maria and Nicole last night. We were on our way somewhere and met a group of young boys. Eventually we arrived at her place of work. It was a job involving slicing carrots. They were working quite hard but every hour or so someone would bring them an ice-cream. I thought that this was a really good place to work by the looks of things because we were new in Canada and any job would be good so we decided that we’d ask. In the meantime Nicole was lying down on a bench and the supervisor went over to her to find out why. She said that she hadn’t been given any carrots for a few minutes. The supervisor didn’t say anything. We went over to see the guy. I told him of my qualifications. He said that with an HGV you need to be certified in Canada. In the meantime as a part-time thing I’d be driving the coach for them taking people home after their shift. I’d done it a few times but he obviously didn’t know. He came back once in the coach, and old Plaxton Elite. They were all hanging around out of the back of the building where I wanted to put the bus so we began to talk about some rally that was taking place – “did I know so-and-so from Evans Radio who was coming in a steam roller?”. That rang a bell with me because I knew someone else who was going to come in a steam roller so we chatted about that for a while

Later on I was with TOTGA. She was dating someone else whom I knew. The three of us were walking somewhere. She was smoking a lot that annoyed me a little. We wandered off on this walk and came to this fertiliser, salt and other chemical distribution place with piles and piles of sacks. I’d visited this place in the past. She went first and the lights came on so she ran back. I told her “come on, there’s no problem” and we walked through here down towards the canal where she stopped to have a cigarette. I’d walked this path dozens of times all the way down to the next bridge and back. On occasion I’d continued over the hills to the end and round over there for ages on some of the hills I’d roamed upon in the past during a dream

There was far more to it than this but you don’t really want to know about it.

When the alarm went off at 06:30 I was already working and I kept that going for a few hours. Not for long though and by 14:00 I was back in bed.

A couple of doctors have seen me (it’s Bank Holiday here)and they have finally taken out the perfusions and the ports that they put in. And with all of the intravenous stuff I’ve been having, I’ve gained 5kg in 5 days and that’s really depressing

There’s a downside to having finished my perfusions. They were placed on a portable stand which was good for clinging on to. Now it’s gone along with the perfusions so it’s a desperate stagger across the room and I’m sure that it will end in tears.

But anyway it might only be 19:30 but seeing that I’m in bed already, I’m going to try to sleep.

Tomorrow is another day

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Monday 31st October 2022 – I’M FED UP ….

… of being used as a pin cushion.

At the moment I have two catheters, one in the back of my hand, and I won’t tell you how many goes these two student nurse had trying to stick it in me because even I’ve lost count. Eventually they sent for an experienced nurse and she fixed it for them.

The catheter port in my chest was blocked after the other night’s excitement and that why they haven’t used it. However they sent a whole possee of people to fix it, one of whom was extremely rough and hurt me immeasurably. But now it works but they have still left the catheters in my hands.

So I’m all wired up to a large collection of tubes and pipes and that spells disaster.

Last night was another night where sleep was hard to come by. That sleeping pill that they gave me was a waste of time. Tossing and turning, crawling to the bathroom and so on

There was a few moments when I did go off to sleep and there’s even something on the dictaphone. I was doing something last night that involved a railway line but that’s all that I remember of this dream. Everything else went out of my head as soon as I awoke. (…this is when I was really ill and I couldn’t understand most of it …)

And then I was asked to go to make some sandwiches for a group of people. I took a tin of tuna, opened it, put the contents in a bowl and mashed it all up with a dollop of my vegan mayonnaise to add to it so that it would spread on these sandwiches. That’s all that I remember.

During the day I dozed in the morning in between all of the visits that I had from various departments. The general opinion is that I have a fever (38.8°C), that I’m very weak and that this virus is still raging.

There were even a couple of visits in the afternoon and at teatime j had an x-ray of my head. Presumably to make sure that I still have a brain, which is very doubtful.

But I do feel really bad, there’s no escaping that. If they were to throw me out I wouldn’t even make it to the bus stop outside.

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Sunday 30th October 2022 – I’VE LEFT MY BED …

… just half a dozen times today, each time just to visit the bathroom.

The reason why this virus is atypical is because it’s one that they have never seen before and don’t recognise.

That’s probably because I picked it up in Canada.

As a result I’m confined to my room and not allowed to mix with the other patients because they don’t want this spreading around the hospital and then the rest of Europe, which I understand.

In fact they had me locked in my bed by raising the bedrails and during the night I had to call them to lift me out. Sometimes they either took an age or didn’t even come at all and that let to a rather embarrassing and humiliating incident on one occasion.

Finally during the night I went to try to squeeze out of the gap at the end but my tubes were tangled up in the rails and I ended up pulling the pipes out. This led to something of an argument. They wanted me to use a bedpan but I flatly refused. In the end they let me go to the bathroom.

One of the nurses then put a catheter in my arm and coupled me up but my arm swelled up like a balloon She’d missed the vein and the stuff was just going into my arm. Another nurse put a catheter in the back of my hand and that seems to work.

With all of the excitement during the night, you’ll be surprised to learn that I’d taken a sleeping pill but that didn’t work at all. I’m coughing far too much and too loudly to sleep so I watched the clock go round and round.

However my little stand-off worked and they took down the railings so that I can leave my bed whenever I like.

The day was much quieter. The nurses washed me, changed my clothes and bedding and did all kinds of nurse things such as taking my temperature (it’s 38.8° right now), my blood pressure and my oxygen content.

As well as giving me pills, tablets, oxygen and so on.

A couple of doctors came to see me too. They examined me and one of them admitted that my condition is serious.

As for food I managed half a plate of pasta and salad and a couple of sandwiches so it seems that my appetite is slowly returning.

So tonight I have another sleeping pill and I hope that it works this time as apparently I’ll be having a busy day tomorrow when the specialists are back at work.

And I’m curious to see how things pan out.

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Saturday 29th October 2022 – NO ONE IS …

… more surprised than me to see the football results come scrolling along my newsfeed today.

It took quite a lot of convincing, and I’m still not sure, that it’s Saturday. Whatever happened to Friday? I know that I asked for one of Bill Oddie’s “powders that would paralyse a bear” but have I really slept for 29 hours instead of the 5 hours that I thought?

Today anyway, I haven’t undergone any tests, maybe because it really is Saturday, and in fact I only left my bed once for the usual reason and that was embarrassing and humiliating so we’ll pass over that.

There was no breakfast for me today but I managed some lunch, leaving aside the meat of course, and had decent tea.

However I have found my way into the kitchen menu and I’ve ordered my own meals as from tomorrow so maybe I’ll have some decent food. It’s quite good as bulk-cooked food goes except of course the vegan options are few and far between.

At some point during the afternoon I’d been off on my travels. I’m not sure if this counts as a dream or not but I was certainly well away with the fairies. I was carving graffiti into the walls of this underground railway station. I’d been with my elder sister for a walk but separated. I found myself facing this wall so I carved a couple of really long entries about two different people and their entourage. My sister came back and told me that I really ought to put my finger in the sea, the sea there where we were staying. I could go up to the coast and cut a hole in the ice to push my finger through and that would probably do it good. In the end I found myself by this block of ice working on these two pieces of graffiti (…this is when I was really ill and I couldn’t understand most of it …)

So I’m going to ask for another one of these sleeping pills and see what happens next. But it’s totally worrying me that I’ve missed a while day somewhere.

What on earth is happening to me?

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Thursday 27th October 2022 – HERE I ALL AM …

… not sitting in a rainbow but lying in a hospital bed. They took one look at me during my second examination and that was that;

But anyway, the hotel was nice and comfortable and I actually managed a couple of hours sleep at some point. During the night I dreamt that my missing parcel had turned up last night. There was a note on it “delayed due to suspicious contents”. I was wondering whether it was the nutmeg in it that had attracted their attention or not.

1817 sncb class 18 gare du midi brussels belgium Canada Eric Hall photo 27th October 2022At about 07:00 I set out for the station, hobbling all the way down there to the ticket machine where I bought my ticket for the 07:24 express to Leuven.

It’s one of the pushme-pullu trains powered by a Class 18 electric locomotive, number 1817 as you can see.

With it being a double-decker there are steps up into the carriage and I’m beginning to have difficulty climbing in now. I hope that that isn’t a portent of things to come. I shall be having real difficulty if I do because many of the “Leuven” trains are like this

sunrise flanders belgium Eric Hall photo 27th October 2022You can see how early it is that I’ve set out this morning. As I hurtle across the Flanders plain, the sun is only slowly beginning to rise and dawn is slowly breaking

And we all know the old saying –
“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight
Red sky in the morning, Leuven’s ablaze.

Although the train was on time it was held up on a couple of occasions and ran at a snail’s pace all the way Consequently we were 15 minutes late arriving.

Added to that the buses were all in chaos and the one that I wanted didn’t arrive. I had to wait 10 minutes for the next and as a result I was very late arriving at the check-in.

The first test was a breathing exercise which I failed miserably, coughing everywhere. In the end she didn’t bother with the final test.

The second exam was my nephrology test. There I poured out all my woes, not just about this illness but about everything that is affecting me too. They gave me several tests of all kinds of things, including a balance test where I had to walk by putting one foot in front of the other. And I forget how many times they had to grab me to stop me falling over.

That was enough for them. They telephoned to arrange a room for me. And here I am.

The rest of the day was spent being pushed around in my bed for a pile of examinations.

One of then was to push a camera down my throat to check my lungs. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s the kind of thing that will happen over my dead body, as I explained. Despite their assurances, I was still unwilling so they gave me a pill to “relax” me.

Three hours later I regained consciousness with the examination completed. They told me that I have an atypical viral pneumonia.

This kind of thing they tell me usually clears itself after a week or so but with me having no immune system it’s anyone’s guess when it will clear. Consequently I’m here for a while being pumped full of antibiotics in the hope that something might work

So right now here I am. I’ve asked for and been given a sleeping pill and I’m hoping for a really good sleep.

And I might even have one too.

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Wednesday 26th October 2022 – STRAWBERRY MOOSE …

…. is missing!

He and the rest of my luggage failed to meet up with me in the baggage claim area of the airport this morning.

The fact is that he’s probably aware of the fact that this was our last great adventure together and seeing that Canada has always been a happy hunting ground for him, he’s stolen all of my equipment, made good his escape and gone off adventuring on his own account.

Anyway, even as we speak, enquiries are being made.

Mind you, strange as it might seem, in the peculiar circumstances of the moment my luggage not arriving at the airport is something positive. It means that I don’t have to maul that huge suitcase around with me for the final stages of my journey.

To be honest, I’m totally done in. This was one journey too many and one journey too far in my state of health right now.

It was another night when I had had no sleep whatsoever. How many is this now over the last week? I coughed and spluttered through every minute of the long flight, and it was long too because despite leaving only a handful of minutes late, we were 1:20 late landing in Paris.

And shame on Air Canada who wouldn’t pay for a proper terminal but wanted to decant us in the middle of the runway. And on a greasy, slippery set of metal stairs too.

There was no chance whatever of my making that with my backpack full of heavy electrical equipment. I sat inside with the other disabled people (this is how I’m seeing myself now) waiting for the wheelchair lift.

That promptly broke down so in the end I was helped down by one assistant while another carried my bag.

My helper passed me through the express route into France, where presenting my carte de séjour at the same time as presenting my passport means that I don’t need my passport to be stamped. And then the eternal waiting in vain for STRAWBERRY MOOSE

Eventually I filed a lost luggage complaint and then crawled wearily the entire length of the airport (and you’ve no idea how long the airport is) to the railway station.

TGV Réseau 38000 tri-volt 4520 pba gare tgv paris charles de gaulle france Eric Hall photo 26th October 2022Here was just about my only bit of luck for today. The TGV from Rennes to Brussels was running over an hour late which meant that it would be here in 7 minutes. Just time enough for me to buy a ticket and get to the platform.

Sure enough, just as I made it down to the platform, it pulled in. One of the Tri-volt PBA (Paris – Brussels – Amsterdam) trainsets that leaves Rennes at the crack of dawn to to go to Brussels direct without passing by Paris.

Once or twice I’d thought about catching this train from Rennes. It would certainly be more convenient for me except that it departs too early for a connection with trains from Granville. But I never thought that I’d be catching it from here.

Once on board the train, I had a beautiful, blissful sleep of all of about 5 minutes.

hotel de france boulevard jamar brussels belgium Eric Hall photo 26th October 2022At Brussels-Midi I bought some banana-fjavoured soya milk, a couple of bricks, and then walked to my hotel. It’s 400 metres from the railway station yet it took me 20 minutes and I almost fell over twice.

It’s a different hotel than usual. Slightly more expensive but much more luxurious and better finished. I stayed here one a good few years ago. And I’m not disappointed either. Luckily even though I was early, my room was ready for me, and it’s a nice room.

First thing was to have a shower and wash my clothes. The only clothes that I have with me are the ones in which I’ve been travelling and I’m very mindful of something Rosemary once said to me. After I’d been on the road for a couple of days once she told me that I looked like a tramp. And to be honest, today I knew that I did. With my hospital visits tomorrow I have at least to make a pretence of civilisation.

Having done that I came in here, crashed out on the bed and went away with the fairies for three hours.

When I awoke, I had a packet of crisps and then got into bed ready to wait until tomorrow morning.

Talking of eating, do you want to know what I’ve eaten since Thursday lunchtime last week? well, 2 bananas, half a baguette, 2 slices of pizza, one airline meal and a packet of crisps

My appetite has gone completely, and so will I if this carries on much longer.

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