Tag Archives: blood test

Friday 18th October 2019 – I REALLY DON’T UNDERSTAND …

… this illness at all. I really don’t!

It has been no less than 16 weeks since my last medical check and treatment. In other words, I have missed four of the urgent treatments that I must have every four weeks to stay alive.

And so, dear reader, you would have expected me to crash in through the hospital doors like the Wreck of the Hesperus on “the reef of Norman’s Woe”.

Consequently you will be somewhat surprised, if not alarmed, to learn that my blood count this time after all of this absence has actually RISEN from 8.4 to 8.9

So just WHAT it going on?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I expressed surprise at the dramatic collapse in blood count between the examinations in May and June, and also to the fact that when I had my blood count examined at the laboratory at Granville it gave a totally different reading to the one at the hospital.

And so, dear reader, we face three possibilities here –
1) I’m cured (presumably praying to Mecca the other day had the desired result).
2) The high emotion and turmoil through which I went and which I noted towards the end of my trip on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour at the back end of August produced enough natural adrenaline to stimulate the red blood cells all on its own without artificial aids
3) The laboratory at the hospital is hopelessly inaccurate.

Either way, it seems that a sea voyage to the High Arctic in the company of a large group of miserable, depressing people intent on spoiling everyone else’s fun and to whom I could vent my spleen (which I can’t because I no longer have one) at the top of my voice in real anger and actually mean what I say sounds like a good plan to me.

Furthermore I seem to have lost 8 kgs in weight over the four months, and I mused that if I keep that up at the current rate, then by Christmas 2022 I will have gone completely.

But the biggest surprise is yet to come.

Clearly I’m better than I ought to be at this particular point so firstly, they changed my medication. And if my Orcadian medical adviser is reading these note he can tell me all about a medication called Privigen, because that’s what I’m taking.

Secondly, they asked me loads of questions about the voyage and the state of my health while I was away, questions that I have never been asked before.

Thirdly, they brought a specialist in to see me “for a chat”

Fourthly, Kaatje, my Social Worker who is really a psychiatrist assigned to me as part of the terminal illness programme under which I’m registered, came to see me for a chat and she was asking me a pile of probing questions too, about life on board ship and the voyage in general. I told her about the nightmare that I had when I was on board ship and about the emotional roller-coaster that marked my life over that five-week period from towards the end of August to the beginning of October (after all she has to earn her money) when I was in a pit of deep depression and anger after the first nightmare and the even more wild one a week or two later, and she was busy making notes. But she left without getting to whatever point she might have wanted to see me about, had there been a point to her visit, and that set a couple of bells going off in my head.

Fifthly, I was summoned for an x-ray and an echograph of my torso, and that alarmed me too. And I’m no doctor or x-ray tech, but I do know enough about echograph images to know that I didn’t like what I saw on the screen, and I had noticed that he had taken his time and made several passes over a certain part of my torso just underneath the ribcage.

Sixthly, when I went to the reception area to enquire about my next appointment, which they always hand out regularly, they replied “we’ll send a letter to you”.

So I smell something fishy – and I’m not talking about the contents of Baldrick’s Apple Crumble either.

Another surprising thing, not relating to the hospital, or maybe it is, is that contrary to all expectations, I had an absolutely dreadful night. After two more-or-less sleepless nights and a long day yesterday, I was expecting to sleep for a week but in fact it took me ages to go off to sleep and once I did, I was wide-awake by 03:00.

No chance of going back to sleep either – I was up and working on the computer by 04:30.

At 06:00 when the alarms went off I had a shower and washed the clothes that were outstanding, and then set off for the railway station. The Carrefour was open so I grabbed some raisin buns and launched myself aboard the train for Welkenraedt that had just pulled into the station.

At Leuven I heaved myself out of the train and headed off across the city to the hospital. On the way, there were thousands of scouts and girl guides all over the place and they seemed to be having a disco in the town square outside the Town Hall.

At 08:30 in the morning?

There’s a new check-in procedure at Castle Anthrax. Apparently you have to swipe the screen with your identity card. That;s fine, except that being a foreigner I don’t have an identity card. I have to muscle my way into the queue somehow so all of this is going to end in tears sooner or later.

Eventually I was registered and sent to a chair downstairs for my treatment. A few little dozes throughout the day, but nothing violent.

When it was all done (and this new medication is quicker than the previous one) I could leave and pick up my medication for home. And this world is getting far too small for my liking, as I have said on occasions too numerous to mention. The pharmacist looked at me and asked “you’re the guy who went to the North on that ship, aren’t you?”
“Blimmin’ ‘eck”, as the much-maligned Percy Penguin would have said.

There was plenty of time for me to go for a wander, and then I met up with Alison. We went for a coffee, a vegan burger at the Green Way and then another coffee at Kloosters.

She told me about all of her health problems and I told her all about my voyage on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour, all about the miserable bunch of passengers with whom I’d been stranded, all about the petty jealousies and squabbles, the spitefulness and selfishness, the mad stampede at the induction meeting where the first in the queue wiped out the buffet for the latecomers and left an indelible stain on my memory before the voyage even started, and the turbulent events that took place on the final couple of days of that miserable voyage.

Strange as it is to say it, I did actually enjoy the trip regardless because we got to some of the places (not to all of them by any means!) that I had always wanted to see, even if the others wanted to see them for different reasons.

The mean-spiritedness of the other passengers didn’t bother me either. I worked in the tourism industry for years and I’ve seen it all before and I had some kind of vicarious pleasure watching to see just the depths into which the behaviour of some of the passengers could descend. Even when some of the vitriol was directed at me, and even more so at Strawberry Moose I found it quite amusing to see the lack of self-restraint and goodwill amongst the passengers.

Even when I mentioned on a couple of occasions to a couple of the organisers that everyone seemed to be going stir-crazy, nothing was done to break up the tension and by the final day, the organisers were as stir-crazy and irritable as the worst of the passengers and one or two of them completely lost all sense of reality by the end.

Many of the early explorers refer to “cabin fever” – where they have to spend several months of winter in confined and cramped quarters in the company of others whom they started off liking by by the time of the thaw they were poised on the brink of murdering each other. It was just like that on board the ship.

Rather reluctantly, I came to the conclusion that the voyage last year when I made so many friends and had so many memorable moments must have been the exception to the rule, and these trips this year are much more the norm.

My social media page contains many names from that trip in 2018, but on this set of voyages this year, then apart from Rosemary who is already on it, and a couple of other people who were not involved in any fracas and who are well-known to themselves, then there isn’t a single person from any part of that voyage who merits a single moment of my time.

Anyone who wants to comment on any of the foregoing, please feel free to use the “comments” facility here. The link is active for a week or so, so if you miss it, add your comments to a later active posting.

I don’t expect you to agree with me, but I do expect you to be polite.

So abandoning another good rant for the moment, I made it back to my hotel by train and here I am, rather late but ready for bed. I have an early start on Sunday so I’m having a lie-in tomorrow with no alarms. That will almost inevitably mean that I’ll be wide-awake at about 04:30.

Friday 28th June 2019 – NOW HERE’S A THING

I had my blood test at the hospital, and there has been a dramatic change in the situation.

Last month (albeit almost 6 weeks ago) the blood count was about 9.1. I’ve had it checked at Granville twice just recently, and it was at 9.4. But today, it’s plummetted down to near-critical 8.4

And that’s a total surprise to me because that just doesn’t seem to be right at all. Something is wrong somewhere. And I do have to say that right now I’m feeling better than I have felt for a while, which is a good thing.

Last night was a rather depressing night. I wasn’t sure to leave the air-conditioning on and have a bad night’s sleep because of the noise, or else turn off the air-conditioning and have a bad night’s sleep due to the heat.

In the end, I chose the former. And despite turning off the film that I was watching because I was tired, and rocked and rolled throughout the night.

Nevertheless there was plenty of time to go for a series of nocturnal rambles.

We started off last night at the OUSA conference in somewhere overlooking the town square and all that was taking place.I had a poem to read later on that day that I had organsied the previous day with someone. It took me ages tofind my notes and I was panicking like I usually do when I can’t find something, until in the end I came across them. We were going through the start of the day’s procedure. We turned up with an old red Vauxhall VX4/90 (the Virctor shape from about 1962-64) pulling a caravan. It was the President, and she got out and told us that she had been away last night in her car and had had a problem with a tyre on the caravan. This had to be fixed but since she had the tyre fixed it’s been causing her more problems, going flat, air leaking out and so on, until in the end somewhere in Yorkshire they found a garage open and he found that the tyre had been fitted incorrectly so he fitted it correctly. But it seemed that there was a fault in the price for the fitting, so he rectified that, much to her dismay.She was telling us all problems about the car.I couldn’t help noticing that everytime she started up the car it was struggling to get goign, struggling to run, put your foot down on the accelerator and it immediately flooded and we had to wait for a minute for it to clear.I was convinced thatthe car wasrunning so rich that that was causing a lot of problems. I was going to tellher to have the mixture looked at but I never had the opportunity, so I was going toinclude it somewhere in my poem, and wondering how I was going to work that in.
Later I was with a large group of civilians and our town was being invaded. We were blanketed in shells and you could see one shell sticking out of the sand and it hadn’t gone off. Later I was invited to some kind of TV panel game, and there in the courtyard was another tank of the invaders buried right up to the neck. I thought that the invaders hadn’t had a very good time here, had they? I had togive a chat and write a short poem about the enemy being here. I said for those there, there’s any number of those – any number. but for the ordinary visitors, none whatsoever. At one point we were saying, look at that enemy tank, buried up to its neck in rocks and bricks, and on the other hand 5 minutes later we would be extremely scared in case a tank picked out our house as one of the ones tobe destroyed.
Later still I was with my brother last night and we were in London. We were on one side of the road and we had to cross to another, dodging in and out of the traffic. And I found that I could run. I wasso amazed that I could run, and I told him. The car we were dodging was a D reg white Cortina Mk I kitted out as a minicab. But instead of having the paper licence in the back window like they do in London it had the name and phone no written on broad white masking tape stuckin the rear door windows. The driver did a U-turn butit was strange because he was on the correct side of the road but did a U-turn “inside” rather than “outside” across the road, so he was facing the wrong way. Then he crossed the road on foot to knock on a door or did he have a key to open it? I can’t remember. It was completely strange. Anyway I went into this corner pub at the side entrance because I was trying to find a passenger for a taxi. It was a very posh Burtonwood pub but I couldn’t see anyone in there at all. I went out of the front door and there was a girl sitting on the pavement, wearing a kind of light-coloured kilt thing, a big burly girl. I asked if she was waiting for a cab, and she replied “yes” so I apologised for coming to the wrong door of the pub, and took her back through the pub and out to my car. At that point she lit a cigarette, and I was just about to tell her that smoking was not allowed in my cab, and I awoke.
Finally I’d been out with a group of people. We had some big ships, or there was a big ship. There was about 40,000 cups of tea served on this ship, something ridiculous. It had some connection with refugees and the ship would go out and fetch refugees. I was with someone who was very much in the background, and there were another two people, a man and a woman. he woman was born in 1952 so she told me and so was the guy. They were really in charge of this operation.They would keep on going off to bring back these refugees. Whoever it was thatI was with – it might have been Nerina, something like that, she went off and that left me alone in my house, so I spent all the timepicking up rubbish and rying to get the place look tidy as there was rubbish everywhere. No matter how much I picked up, it only made a slight difference so you couldn’t see just how dramatic the improvement was. We ended up back on the beach again. I was with this other girl and the guy came back. He’d been off to get some newspapers or something, and handed me three, the Daily Express, the daily mail and the Chorley Weekly Advertiser or whatever the Chorley local paper was because he came from that area. When I looked at the Daily Mail and the Daily Express I said “thank you very much but I’ve already been to the toilet this morning” which didn’t get the laugh that I was expecting. Justthen I looked further down the coast and this ship was setting out. I thought that that was the ferry going to one of the islands -we were in the South of France, that area, and it might have been the one going to Corsica or Sardinia or whatever. I gave the ship the name “Cote d’Azur”, I’ve no idea why.As I went to grab my camera, three really high-speed ferries shot from the south towards the north, towards the coast. I went to quickly grab a photo, but for some reason the shutter was on a very long aperture and shutter speed and I wasn’t able to get a photo because by the time I had adjusted the camera to take the one of the ship going out, the shutter was still open. So I ried to take a photo of this ship sailing out, which had now become three ships sailing out – there must have been another 2 creeping behind it while I’d been distracted by these three ships coming in.

It didn’t take me long to leave my stinking pit and after the medication and a coffee I had a shower and washed my clothes. I like to keep on top of my washing.

Down at the railway station I bought some raisin buns for lunch and hen we had all of the confusion about the trains. There was a signal failure at the Gare Centrale so the trains were all in confusion. I eventually found one to take me to Leuven.

We arrived at the station at 08:30 and by 09:25 I was in the hospital. Despite the heat and the distance, I had a good walk all the way there with my knee hardly hurting.

They didn’t have my medication due to me having changed the day, so they had to hunt around for some stuff. They eventually found me a pile of sample stuff so my mobile stand looked like a Christmas tree.

The nurse there wanted to practise her French with me so we did all of or stuff in French. She knew Granville very well, having spent several holidays there.

It took ages for a doctor to see me, and when she did she was disappointed about my results. She was even more disappointed when I said that I wasn’t going to be back until 9th October. She was impressed with Granville too and looked at some photos of the town.

Rosemary rang too and we had a little chat.

The doctor still hadn’t come back by the time that I was finished. I had to hunt her down. She gave me prescriptions for three months (which she wrote out wrong, asI was to find out) and a lecture from the Professor.

In the end, she agreed that I could have a three-month holiday from medical attention, but probably more because she could see I she was determined.

Another healthy stride out into town and a travel arrangement where I spent over an hour trying to sort out something or other, and then off to meet Alison, going via the ice cream place for a sorbet in the heatwave.

We had a chat, and then to Greenway for a burger and Kloosters for a drink. After another lengthy chat, she drove me back here.

Now I’m off to bed. I have an early start in the morning.

Wednesday 19th June 2019 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened today.

It was rather a disappointment because I had another early start. And that was despite not being in bed until after 01:00 – not being tired despite having had a long day yesterday.

What probably caused me to wake up was the most impressive thunderstorm and torrential rain that was going on outside. I haven’t seen or heard anything like it for quite a while.

But it didn’t last long.

Despite it being a short night, there was plenty of time to go off on a travel. Last night I was reliving the plot of an old “Saint” television programme during the night where I had met this girl. But people considered her to be beneath me. But I didn’t care – I decided to take her anyway but no-one could understand this, no-one knows why I have done this. They all think that it’s wrong and they are all trying to persuade me otherwise. I’m in hospital and she brings me some fruit but a lot of it is wrotten and I have to throw the rotten fruit away and simply keep the good stuff. But after she’s been and gone the others look through the bin and say things like “this is the same kind of fruit that your girlfriend has thrown away in the bin and what’s happening? Why is this the case? Of course they already know what’s happening and why it is the case – she doesn’t know what fruit is rotten and what fruit isn’t. It goes on all like this, having these shortfalls because she doesn’t know any better, with people immediately pouncing on them and exposing her to ridicule and stuff like that.

I had to loiter around for a while until the nurse came for my blood test. That gave me an opportunity to do some tidying up in the living room and make the place look quite presentable. Having these visitors coming round is a good thing.

Once she’s gone off with my sample I sat down to start work. But someone with whom I was hoping to chat came on line and that led to an interruption in my workflow.

An interruption that for some reason that I have yet to understand, the interruption seemed to last for much longer that I was expecting and much longer than I thought that it did, for after I’d been back working for a short while, I glanced at the time and it was 12:40.

Where on earth did the time go to?

Liz came on line too and we had a little chat, and then I went off for lunch. Taken once more indoors because it was cold and foggy outside.

After lunch I cracked on with the dictaphone notes. I had a good go at that and I’m now down to 47 entries. I doubt however if I will have enough time to finish that before I leave next Thursday morning.

Once I’d done that, I headed down into town. I needed some more rolls of sticking plaster because I didn’t buy enough on Monday. And I wanted some potatoes too because those that I bought last week have gone off already.

The potatoes were a shocking price in Carrefour so I ended up with a bag of oven chips. For 600 grammes, I pad €0:90 whereas a kilo of potatoes would have set me back €1:99.

Back here I wanted to carry on with the photos from Monday but I didn’t last long. By about 17:00 I was in bed and there I stayed until about 19:00. Totally out of it.

And that’s a big disappointment because for the last few days I’ve been doing so well in fighting off the fatigue.

Tea was oven chips with beans and a vegan burger in a bap, followed by one of those coconut desserts that I made the other day.

It was a nice walk around the headland this evening and I took a few photos. When I’m up-to-date with this and that, I’ll post them on here.

But it’s rather worrying as far as I’m concerned because I don’t seem to be able to catch up with the stuff in the immediate past, never mind what is outstanding going back more than 10 years.

I’m reminded of the last words of Draza Mihalovic, a Yugoslav freedom fighter who was killed in 1946, and which I consider to be so appropriate –
“I wanted much – I began much, but the whirlwind, the whirlwind carried me and my work away.”

I hope that that isn’t going to be my epitaph.

Friday 14th June 2019 – HOW MANY …

… employees of the Credit Agricole Bank does it take to sign a form and put a rubber stamp on it?

The answer is “at least three” – and if the girl who finally dealt with me went to see a colleague or two when she disappeared with my form, it might even be more than that.

Yes, I’ve been out and about today, haven’t I? I need to push on and exercise myself, and as there was a letter to post (my hospital bill), a blood test result to pick up, and a form for the bank to sign, this afternoon seemed like as good a time as any.

Today started off quite surprisingly.

Despite the issues of yesterday I was awake at 04:10 and couldn’t go back to sleep at all. By 05:40 I had given it up as a bad job and was up and about.

To my surprise, the alarm didn’t go off. We had had another upgrade during the night that had switched off the phone. I really must do something about that.

And I’ve been a very busy boy too. I’ve started to transcribe the … gulp … 78 voice files off the dictaphone. I need to catch up on that, and catch up quickly if I’m to be up-to-date before I go away.

Another thing too is that I steam-cleaned the fridge. In an effort to tidy up and clean up, and with the ice box iced up, that was a good place to start. It took a good while but now it looks like it’s supposed to.

A few items went to that great dustbin in the sky and now there is tons of room in there. Well, maybe not tons, but plenty of room all the same.

And that took it out of me a little and I had a little … errr … relax for about 15 minutes.

After lunch I had a shower (the first “proper” shower for a while) and then attended to the accounts. That led to my walk up town.

There wasn’t all that much excitement out there this afternoon.

Down on the docks we had a fuel lorry lined up ready to refuel one of the trawlers, and that was about that.

First stop was the laboratory for my blood test results from Wednesday. Some of the results are right off the scale, but bad as they might be, none are quite as wild as the “vitesse de sedimentation”.

That should be less than 9, and my figure is 123. I’ll have to see what the doctor has to say about that.

Then to the bank and the pantomime in there. It’s do do with my Belgian pension, and I bet that they are spending more on the admin of it than they will on the monthly payments.

But I did have some luck there;

There’s a special offer there right now on Savings Accounts, and for once I just about fall into the correct category. So I took advantage.

At the Post Office I posted off my payment to the hospital and then staggered up the hill back home. You’ve no idea how unfit I’ve become after two or three weeks without much exercise.

The knee was aching rather a lot by the time that I returned but as Rosemary rang me up for a long chat, I sat with my leg up on a chair for an hour and twenty-four minutes and that eased it off.

While I was tidying up the fridge I threw away some horribly out-of-date stuff but I found some lentil-and-carrot-burgers on the point of expiry, so I had one of those with some pasta, vegetables and tomato sauce.

This evening I had a chat with Liz and now I’m off for an early night. I’m surprised that I’ve kept going for as long as I have and so a good sleep will do me good after my walk.

Wednesday 12th June 2019 – I WENT …

… out for a little walk this afternoon.

Down to town to the Super-U for some salt, seeing as I seem to have run out and forgot to buy some more at the weekend.

What encouraged me in this was that this morning while riding the porcelain horse, I felt an irritation in my knee. So I scratched it – and out of the little hole about which I was talking just recently came something very small, very black and very hard.

Just like a small piece of gravel in fact.

I’m not sure if that was what it was, but it certainly came from the knee. And that’s why I’m taking these salt baths – to draw out whatever might be in there. I remember doing this back in 1972 after my motorcycle accident when I broke both knees.

It soon sorted out the gravel rash and I hope that it will do the same for this.

Despite the early night, I had another night of tossing and turning but, once again, an early start before the final alarm went off.

The nurse came early for the blood test so I didn’t have to wait too long for breakfast. But it gave me an opportunity to do some tidying up.

And we had the same problem as we used to have in that she couldn’t find any veins. I told her that there was no blood left.

This morning I did some more searching on the internet for stuff that I need for my project. I can’t find everything that I want, but I’m sure that I’ve downloaded everything that I can, including a few extremely interesting and unexpected finds.

After lunch I headed into town. Very slowly and carefully, And for the first time in quite some considerable time, I had the camera out there with me.

There have bee quite a few changes outside since I last went for a good walk around. They are pushing on with the house renovation here in the rue du Port and it won’t be long before they will finish;

They are at the rendering-on-the-lift-shaft stage as well as the chasing-off-the-seagulls stage right now

They are pushing on with the rebuilding of the city walls too.

They seem to have finished one of the bays and dismantled all of the apparatus that was propping it up. It all seems to be moved round to further down the hill.

But they are going to have to get their skates on. It’s all supposed to be finished by mid-June and that’s only a few days away. It looks as if we’ll be seeing yet another project over-run.

We had some excitement down at the docks too.

That boat in there by the Victor Hugo seems to be some kind of police launch and there were a couple of guys on a dinghy that seemed to have some kind of connection with the aforementioned. So I was wondering what was going on there.

There were a couple of buoys there in the harbour too, so maybe they had something to do with it all too. I was tempted to go down and enquire but they cleared off pretty qucikly.

Now here’s something that I don’t recall ever having noticed before.

Someone in a house down on the rue du Port seems to have a roof garden or terrace up on his roof. That would seem to be an ideal spot to sit and enjoy the summer weather, if ever we are to have any this year, which I doubt very much.

Mind you, I think that the garden pool is rather optimistic. It’s not actually what I would call a swimming pool.

However, I was distracted from all of this by a siren going off in the outer port. One of the ferries for the Ile de Chausey seems to be setting off on a trip out to the island.

I’d seen it come in to dock a short while ago while I was on my way into town, but I couldn’t take a good photo of it. So I was quite pleased to catch it on its way out into the baie de Mont St Michel.

But the weather is looking quite ominous out there at the head of the bay. I’m glad that I’m not walking around down there in all of that.

A slow crawl back up the hill and then back here, and I ached rather more than somewhat. It’s a good job that I didn’t go too far, but I have quite a journey to make on Monday so I need to try things out.

And I unfortunately crashed out for about 15 minutes. Can’t be helped, I suppose. Not these days anyway;

Later on before tea, I had my hour in the bath with a pile of salt. And I don’t seem to be too affected by the walk today. And so I might even go for a little walk tomorrow – not as far as today though. I don’t want to push the boat out too far.

Tea was past and veg in tomato sauce with the last of those seitan burgers that I bought from NOZ a while back.

And now another early night. Having had a good walk, I hope that I can make the most of it.

rendering new house construction rue du port granville manche normandy france

repairing medieval city walls granville manche normandy france

Monday 15th April 2018 – THE BAD NEWS …

…is that my blood count has gone down, and rather dramatically too. 9.7 last month, and this month it’s 9.3.

That’s rather depressing as far as I am concerned, especially as this last couple of days I’ve been feeling rather more sprightly and a little (just a little) of the old me has come back.

The worse news is that this medication that they are giving me – it’s not available in North America. That means that any plans that I had for an extended voyage into the unknown will now have to be shelved and that’s a dreadful disappointment.

Now I shall have to think of a Plan B now. I’m sure that I can rustle up something from somewhere.

Last night was a rather bad night. I didn’t end up going to bed until late, and then I couldn’t settle. What made things worse was that I awoke at 04:15 and couldn’t go back to sleep. In fact I was up and about working before the alarm went off and that’s something quite rare for these days, isn’t it?

It was an early day at the hospital so after the medication, the breakfast, a shower and a clothes-wash I hit the streets.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m frequently stumbling across camera teams taking photos of people, places and objects in the streets, and I delight in taking photos of them taking photos of other people.

Today, though, I’m really in luck.

It’s not a camera crew in the traditional manner of things, but it’s actually a film crew. I’m not sure what it was they were doing though, or why they were doing it.

It was an extremely pleasant walk through the early morning sunshine too up to the hospital.

Walking down the Brusselsestraat I noticed that the sun was shining brightly on the statue of Father Damiaan at the back of the Sint Jakobs Kapelle.

Father Damiaan is something of a religious icon in Belgium. He was a Belgian priest who devoted his life to treating leprosy sufferers in Hawaii ane eventually died of the disease.

And do you remember the block of flats in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan that we saw them stripping out a couple of months ago?

As I was somewhat in advance, I stopped to take a photo of it today.

They are cracking on with the stripping, and it looks ro me as if they are going to be refitting it. I’ll have to look more closely at it in a couple of months to see where they are at.

At the hospital it didn’t take them long to couple me up to the pipes, tubes and bottles but it took longer than expected all told because for some reasons the nurses wouldn’t come when I summoned them to increase the dose, and also when I summoned them to disconnect me when it had finished later on in the afternoon.

They obviously know about me right now.

A couple of people have mentioned to me the possibility of a selenium deficiency. I had it checked last month and they gave me the results. It should be in a range between 5.0 and 15.0 and I was registering 5.7. Pretty low, but not low enough for them to worry about.

Most of the afternoon in my comfortable chair was spent in a semi-conscious doze as the effects of the last couple of days caught up with me.

After they threw me out I headed for home, passing by the Hospital Sint Pieters.

While they might be planning to knock down the main building (the one on the left), they have been renovating one or two of the older ones on the site and in the past we’ve seen a few pics of the work.

It’s definitely all taking shape right now and I don’t suppose that it will be long before the protective fence is taken away.

While I was out on my travels I called by the Delhaize for a pile of shopping for the next couple of days.

Back here I couldn’t summon up the force to do anything. I crashed out on the sofa for a while. Struggling up the hill with a bag of heavy shopping takes it out of me, that’s for sure.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with potatoes and vegetables, followed by a banana and soya ice cream. That was extremely delicious. And then I had a good walk around outside for a while.

It’s still quite early but nevertheless I’m off to bed. I’ll watch a film I suppose, which means that I’ll drop off to sleep in the middle of it as usual. It works every time.

And then tomorrow I’ll have to think of a Plan B.

Monday 18th March 2019 – IT’S HOSPITAL …

… day today. And so I need to be on form.

Consequently I had something of an early night last night. Plenty of time to go on a little voyage too, even if I did awaken at sometime round about 03:45. It’s not very often that my old friend Liz (who died 10 years ago) appears with me in a nocturnal ramble. But there she was last night. I’d been living abroad for a couple of years and I was on my way back to Crewe with her in Caliburn. We arrived back at my house (which was actually our old home in Shavington) to find my old black cat Tuppence outside the door – despite my instructions that the cats weren’t to go out. And she was very thin too – as if she hadn’t eaten anything for weeks. Inside, the other three cats were scratching away at some dried biscuits, despite my instructions that they were only to have tinned food, not dried. I was pretty annoyed about this and wanted to speak to the girl who was looking after the cats. But while I was thinking of this I heard a noise from out of the bedroom. She was actually in there making use of the double bed and a boyfriend. Not the kind of thing to arouse my sympathy.

Despite the alarms going off as usual, there wasn’t a great deal of rush. My appointment with doom isn’t until 10:30 so I had a little lie-in until about 07:00. A shower and a clothes wash and a general clean-up and I was ready for the road.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when we were here before, they were digging up the Tiensestraat and laying pipes.

They seem to have finished that now, and have moved all of the equipment to the Burgemeestersstraat where they are presumably continuing the work.

I wonder how long they’ll be working on replacing the drains around the city?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that for a year or so I lived in the Brusselsestraat quite close to the St Jakobs Kapelle.

However I never ever managed to go in for a look around because it was all closed up.

Apparently it’s in need of some considerable amount of renovation

But when I went past it today the door was open (although I couldn’t go in because there was a fence around it) and there was a pile of scaffolding up all around it.

It looks as if the renovations have finally started. That’s good news, if they can get it to stay up, but I wonder just how thorough these renovations are likely to be.

I hope that they are going to make a really decent spectacle out of it

For some reason, for which I’m not sure, it was something of a struggle to get to the hospital today. I had to make several stops on my way up the hill to the hospital.

The heat didn’t help much and I had to stop and divest myself of my outer clothing. It had been cold when I had set out, but it didn’t half warm up quickly.

The nurse today was the only one who speaks just Flemish so we had my insertion interview in that language. I’m getting quite good at this these days.

But the interesting thing is that the weight that I had lost when I was ill – it stayed off too. And I’m happy about that. And so should you lot too, because it means that in about 18 months at this rate, I’ll be gone completely.

The doctor came to see me too. And if she’s going to be on my case for the foreseeable future, I’ll be back next week, never mind next month, even though she forgot to sign my prescription and I had to argue at the chemists later.

As for the blood count, it’s down to 9.7. Something of a disappointment but only to be expected after my illness. At least the drop wasn’t as dramatic as the time 15 months ago when it fell through the floor.

Another thing that I did was to ask them to check my selenium levels. Robert, a former schoolmate who is a regular reader of this rubbish and is a retired doctor, came up with a couple of suggestions. A Selenium shortage is one, so seeing as they are testing the blood anyway, they can test for that too. But I can’t have these results for a day or two.

But I grabbed a copy of the rest of the results and when I’m back home, I’ll scan it so that Robert can see it. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the previous month’s figures to compare.

There seems to be an issue about my potassium levels too, so I need to cut back on the Coversyl that I take.

Rosemary phoned me too and we had a lengthy chat, and I had a little snooze too while I was there.

On the way home I stopped for the medication and also at Delhaize for some food for tea. Alison wasn’t up to going for a meal tonight so I’m eating in.

And Ingrid telephoned me too. She’s struggling a little with her health issues but her illness has now been properly diagnosed. While it’s not good news either, at least she knows what is the matter with her and she’s been taken in charge by her health assurance people and will receive the proper treatment.

And that’s my lot. Not much good news but it could be far worse than it is. I’m having a lie-in tomorrow as a Day of rest, but I have things to do in Brussels.

And so on that note, I’m off for an early night.

Monday 18th February 2019 – AS IS USUALLY …

… the case, going to bed for an early night means that I just awaken even earlier. And to wake up at 01:33 is just ridiculous.

And I couldn’t go back to sleep either. I definitely remember 04:30 coming round. But go to sleep I must have done because I had the usual rather rude awakening at 06:00.

I’d been on my travels during the night though. Last night I was out with someone and their little daughter and as it was close to breakfast time and we needed bread, so I took her off to the bakers to buy a loaf. Walking through the country lanes, we saw a car coming – an old Fiat Panda, so we hid behind a hedge to leap out and scare them. It turned out that in the car was Zero and her father. Zero of course at one time or another accompanied me quite regularly on these nocturnal rambles. They offered to drive us back but as the little car would be quie crowded, I said that I would walk back. Nevertheless, they insisted and budged up to squeeze us in, and we drove back, with me realising that I wouldn’t be having any breakfast because I wouldn’t be buying any bread. Back at his house, I had a look at the plumbing that he was installing. I noticed that he was using a couple of my ideas about vertical pipework that he had ridiculed a few years earlier.

In fact, that was the story of my life in real life. I’d have many ideas which were roundly ridiculed by many people but which came to be adopted in the mainstream. I remember the ridicule to which my idea about low-voltage microwave ovens was put when I first suggested it, and now you find them in almost every long-distance lorry. That was just one of many such.

To everyone’s surprise, especially mine, I was out of bed quickly too. No idea why I can’t do this at home these days, except that my bed at home is far more comfortable than what I have here.

After breakfast, I had a shower and washed my clothes from the weekend, and then headed off to the hospital. Miles early, but I may as wait around there as here.

And talking of here, here’s a brilliant bit of parking I don’t think.

For reasons that only this lorry driver knows, he’s decided to park his lorry in the middle of the street blocking the traffic while he unloads.

I know that I harp on about bad parking in these pages on a regular basis, but this really is the limit. I just do not know what goes through the heads of some of these people. I really don’t

This warm weather is continuing. Halfway up the hill to the hospital and I was melting. I had to stop and take off my coat and stuff it in my rucksack.

I had to stop earlier than that though, in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan.

Here’s a modern building that looks very 1970s or 1980s to me, and they seem to be stripping it out ready for demolition. No idea why because there is no evidence of any fire damage.

I’ll have to keep my eye on this and see what is going on.

At the hospital I was an hour early. But it didn’t do me any good whatsoever because they were 10 minutes late seeing me.

I had however taken the opportunity to close my eyes and have a little relax. But eventually they coupled me up and sent me to sit on a chair. No comfy seat free either – I had to make do with a standard one.

It’s not just in the hotel that people are recognising me. People are beginning to notice me and to recognise me here, and that’s always bad news. The woman who serves out the soup at lunchtime went to give me a certain drink, and her assistant called out, before I had time to say anything, “ohh no – he always prefers a Sprite!”

The doctor came to see me and we had a chat. I told him that I was breaking up slowly but he didn’t seem to be all that concerned. Mind you, he did admit that my prescription was wrong and amended it, and gave me an extra medication to deal with this irritable skin.

And to my surprise, my blood count has gone up. Only one notch – to 9.8 from 9.7 – and it doesn’t feel like it either. And still a far cry from the heady days of 18 months ago when they managed to drag it up to 13.0. I don’t imagine that I will ever see those heady days again.

Round about 16:00 they told me that I could clear off. And so I did. Just as far as the chemists where I had my prescriptions made up. Except for one, where they didn’t have any stock.

I walked down the hill to the chemists in the Brusselsestraat where I didn’t have much better luck. But at least they could make up my cream and let me have it the following morning. That’s better than nothing.

On my way back home I called in at Delhaize for a few bits and pieces here and there. I’m not going back until Wednesday so I need food for lunch and for tea tomorrow. Baked beans and chips sounds good for tea if you ask me.

On my way back up the hill, I passed through the rector de somerplein.

I had noticed a lorry with a digger and a pile of equipment as I went down the hill this morning, and wondered what they were planning.

But here we are this evening, digging out a big hole in the pavement. No idea what is going on in the hole, so I’ll have to keep an eye on this as well for next time that I am here to see what they have done.

Alison texted me at about 18:30. She had arrived in Leuven and was parking her car, so I had to leg it quickly into town. It’s been a considerable time since we’ve seen each other and we had a lot of news to catch up with.

A few weeks ago I had noticed a restaurant called Mykene that was advertising gluten-free and vegan food, and looked quite nice inside. I’d mentioned it to Alison previously and had invited her there so off we toddled. They served me up a most impressive cauliflower steak with sweet potato fries and I’ll go back again for more of that.

We went on from there to pick up a kebab for Brian and then called at the Kloosters Bar for a quiet drink by the fireside and made plans for the future. She also gave me a birthday present and a little surprise from Jenny. Jenny had bought me a little gift for Christmas and of course no-one had been able to give it to me.

On her way back home, Alison dropped me off at my little room and I came in. It’s been a long day, I’ve walked miles and I’m tired. It’s a good job that I’m going to be having a day of rest.

Monday 21st January 2019 – AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE …

… “and on many occasions too” – ed … the big problem about going to bed early is that there is a tendency to awaken early.

But waking up at 03:50 is a bit on the ridiculous side.

And waking up with a thirst that you could photograph too, without very much in the way of drink to assuage my thirst either. Half a litre of drink and I could quite easily have polished that off.

But regardless of that, I couldn’t get back to sleep and just lay awake, reminiscing on the nocturnal ramble that I was having and which has now gone completely out of my mind, until 06:00 when the alarm went off.

I heard the other two alarms too, but the next thing that I remember was someone banging a door in the building – at 07:18. I’d gone right back to sleep again. I’d been on a nocturnal ramble too – pushing a shopping trolley around a supermarket in Stoke on Trent stocking up with food and toilet paper – things like that-until the trolley was overloaded. People were looking at me and so I said that I was stocking up now before prices went through the roof, and the strange thing about that, as I even recognised at the time which is surprising, was that I said it in French. In Stoke on Trent they struggle to even speak intelligible English.

Having had a bad day yesterday, I wasn’t feeling much better today. For two pins I would have turned over and gone back to sleep.

But I went through the morning ritual and then hit the streets. Glorious sunshine and a temperature of minus 4°C. Not the day for loitering.

But loiter I did for at least part of the journey.

In the daylight I stopped to take a photo of the drainage work that I had seen in the Tiensestraat last night. They were all out there, the workmen, working on it. I hadn’t noticed the pipes last night so they may have been anly just delivered

A little further on down the Tiensestraat I was distracted yet again.

Fire engines and ambulances and barriers in the Herbert Hooverplein told us the story. There had been what I assumed to be a fire in one of the blocks of flats just there as you can see, and the emergency services had been called out.

They didn’t look to be in all that much of a hurry so I imagine that there wasn’t anything serious going on and that the crisis had passed.

My perambulations took me down the hill into the Brusselsestraat where there was more of interest going on.

There’s a huge plan to knock down the big modern hospital that is now surplus to requirements and also to refurbish a couple of the derelict 19th Century buildings in the vicinity.

They are water-washing the brickwork of one of these buildings, so that have shrouded it all off to avoid inconveniencing the passers-by.

I was early at the hospital and it was just as well because the reception area was heaving. It must have taken 15 minutes to be seen. And it was even worse downstairs. My appointment was for 09:50 and it wasn’t until 10:35 that I was taken off by a nurse to be fitted out.

She didn’t speak English so we had my insertion interview in Flemish. Things are definitely improving from that point of view.

There wasn’t a comfy seat for me either so I had to make do with a normal one. It definitely wasn’t my day.

But there s some good news. The protein loss has stabilised and the blood count has increased. And I’ll tell you for nothing that it certainly doesn’t feel like it

And that’s not all either. You never know what you are entitled to until you ask, and I asked a speculative question. The answer was quite surprising and it’s opened up a whole new vista of opportunities that I thought might have been closed.

It was long after 16:00 by the time that I was kicked out. And then I had the rounds of the chemists to do. There seems to be issues of supply of certain of my medications. I had to try three chemists before I could find what I needed – and then a lot of it was substitutes.

The Delhaize was next, to buy the food for the next couple of days. And as well as vegan sorbets and vegan margarine, I picked up some Vegan wienerschnitzels which I hadn’t seen before and … “SHOCK” … “HORROR” … some vegan cheese, which seems now to be on sale there. I forgot to buy some drink though, so I had to call up at the big SPAR near my accommodation.

Back here, I had a shower and washed my clothes. There’s a curtain rail right over the heater here so they won’t take long to dry. And that was the cue for a coffee.

The vegan schnitzels were delicious, with potatoes and frozen peas and carrots. and followed down by raspberry sorbet.

But having had a day where I wasn’t able to have a good sleep, I decided on an early night. I didn’t even do the washing up. Tomorrow is a Day of Rest while I gather up my resources and gird up my loins ready for the journey back home.

21 January 2019 fire herbert hooverplein leuven belgie

building work brusselsestraat leuven belgie

Monday 24th December 2018 – WHAT A DAY …

… to have a hospital appointment.

But despite being in bed rather late last night I’d had a good sleep. I’d even been on a little ramble. Somewhere and I don’t remember where, and there was a black policeman, a big guy, going to move on an old, wiry vagrant from somewhere or other. The policeman pushed him and the old guy grabbed hold of the policeman’s arm, twisted it and pulled it up and you could hear the break from where I was standing. This policeman’s arm was in a dreadful, really unusual position and it quite put me off my supper. I felt that I ought to go over and help the policeman, but seeing as how well, how quickly and how efficiently the old guy had dealt with the policeman, I’d just end up as another casualty without accomplishing anything at all. The old guy suddenly announced “there can’t be many people in that police station. Why don’t I go and sort them all out? It won’t take me long”. So off he went but I ran there first to warn them about what was heading their way.
Despite the alarm going off, I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to leave my stinking pit. There was just enough time for my medication and breakfast and a quick wash before I scrambled off up town. At least the horrendous rain frm yesterday had stopped.

I was at the hospital in plenty of time and at first I thought that I had mistaken the day. There wasn’t anyone about at all. But they were expecting me and when I was registered in, I was sent down to the treatment room. Just one other person in there.

Much of the morning I spent asleep. It’s been a hectic few days as you know, without too much sleep so it was odds-on that I would need to catch up one way or another. And it’s not as if I have much else to do while I’m here.

The bad news is that this last four weeks I’ve put on another kilo of weight, despite all of the walking around that I have done just recently. And even worse, the blood count is down. From 9.8 to 9.6.

It’s not the end of the world of course but it could be so much better and I wish that it was.

Eventually I was thrown out, and I went to check my appointments. 21st january, 18th February and 18th March. At least they are letting me know well in advance which means that I can do some kind of long-term planning. But wouldn’t it be nice if it were once every three months instead?

Time for a coffee but despite the notice in the café that closing time on Festdagen was 19:00, they were closing up the shutters. I expressed my surprise, but the lady replied that “we are closing at 16:00 today”.
“But it’s not 16:00 – it’s only 15;50”
“Well, we’re closed anyway”

As I have said before … “and you’ll say again” – ed … I’m fed up of people who are too bone-idle to earn an honest living.

Even worse, all of the chemists were closed. That’s no good to me, because I need my medication and I won’t be able to collect it tomorrow either.

Back here, it was coffee and mince pie time, and then I had a few things to do. Not that I was in any rush because I’m now officially on holiday.

Tea was a vegan lentil-burger with potatoes and frozen veg, followed by pineapple and ice-cream. I’m looking after myself as far as food goes, anyway.

Later, I had a little rest for an hour or two, and round about 23:30 I went off out again for a stroll around the streets.

Much to my surprise there was no-one around. Well – maybe notquite no-one but the streets were pretty deserted. I took a few photos of the Christmas lights all around the Tiensestraat, as well as the photo of a foreign tourist who asked me if I would take one of her posing against the lights of the Stadhuis.

By 01;00 I was back here and five minutes later I was tucked up in bed. It might be Tuesday tomorrow but it’s also Bank Holiday of course. So no alarm tomorrow and about time too.

night christmas lights tiensestraat leuven louvain belgium

jingle balls at Balls and Glory tiensestraat leuven louvain belgium

You can write your own caption for this

Monday 27th November 2018 – THE GOOD NEWS …

… is that my blood count is stable.

The bad news is that my blood count is stable.

That might sound like a contradiction in terms but it isn’t really. While I’m holding my own for the moment (disgusting habit, isn’t it?) and keeping on going, there isn’t any improvement.

Remember that last year they could push my blood count up to something approaching normal, and at one stage I was on two-monthly appointments. These days they can’t get it to move up, despite coming here every four weeks for treatment.

It’s not that I regret it, though. I quite like Leuven and if I had to go somewhere, then Leuven is as good as it gets. But I was hoping that I would be improving and able to support myself much better without having to come here once every four weeks.

With having had an early night, I had a good night’s sleep and was up at a reasonably early time. And after breakfast, I headed off into town in the rain.

But we had some more excitement in the Tiensestraat today.

A couple of vehicles were not parked very prettily and this coach couldn’t pass through the gap, even with a group of people guiding him.

And so we had a klaxon session until someone came a-running to move his vehicle.

There were all kinds of perturbations in the town centre.

The Grote Markt in between the Sint Pieterskerk and the Stadhuis was blocked off and there were workmen all about.

It seems to me that they are starting to set out the Square ready for all of the Christmas decorations. I’ll have to come by here tonight and see what they are doing.

The hospital was like an oven and as soon as I entered I had to strip off. And halfway down the corridor I realised that I must have left my hat on the chair by the door so I had to go back for it.

And there it was – with two people, who had been there when I had divested myself, staring at it. Why they hadn’t called out to me as I had left there I really don’t know.

Every time that I had been to the hospital for this session of treatment my appointment has been for 09:50. And 09:50 is clearly written on my appointment letter.

And every time that I’ve been to the hospital I’d been early. Today was no exception, and I was there for 09:30. But a closer inspection of my letter showed that my appointment of 09:50 was for the visit on 24th December. For today, a couple of lines higher up and I hadn’t noticed, was my appointment for today. 09:10.

Ahhh well.

There wasn’t a seat for me either so I ended up eventually in one of the side wards on a chair. But about an hour later, the nurse came to fetch me.
Nurse – “Come along Mr Hall. There’s a nice comfy chair free now. And it’s an electric one too”.
Our Hero – “and I thought that you liked me!”

Today’s doctor is the one whom I don’t really like. He doesn’t have a bedside manner and seems to be rather casual and offhand. And so he was today. He didn’t tell me very much at all.

On my way back into town I called at the Asian supermarket and bought some hot chili powder and some ground coriander. I’m running a little low on them back home.

And I went into Delhaize for stuff for tea and then the Loving Hut for some more vegan cheese.

On the way though, I stopped off to have a good look at the Christmas decorations and lights.

There were all kinds of vehicles, cherry pickers and the like, in the Brusselsestraat, stringing up all kinds of decorations across the street.

With the trees being illuminated, it looks a little better than the Tiensestraat.

They’ve made a good start on the Town Hall – the Stadhuis – too.

That’s all nicely draped in Christmas lights now and I stood wand watched them for a while as they changed colour from red to blue to green and all kinds of shades in between.

It looks much more impressive that it did last year.

I went back to the Grote Markt too, to see what they had been doing throughout the day.

There now seems to be heaps of soil about. A couple of Christmas trees had been “planted” and some booths have been erected.

Presumably they are about to set up the creche and the rest of the Christmas decorations. They usually do quite an impressive job here, and I’ll be able to tell you much more about it in due course as I’ll be here over Christmas.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that bad parking features quite regularly in these pages.

We’ve already seen one example of this in the Tiensestraat this morning, and here’s another one.

There’s a parking place free here, but this van driver has decided to park across an entry, half in the street blocking the traffic, because he can’t be bothered to park properly.

It really is rather sad, isn’t it?

Back in my little room I had a message from Alison to say that she was back early from Oostende and did I fancy going for a meal? So I put on my coat and went back out again.

While you admire the Christmas lights in the Grote Markt, Alison and I met up at our usual rendezvous and went off to the Greenway Restaurant for food.

There weren’t all that many people in there tonight and that’s a surprise. The food is good and very reasonably-priced, and they know all about allergies too.

We both chose the vegan Jalapeno burger with potato wedges and it was thoroughly delicious

We spent a lot of time in there having a good chat because we had a lot to say to each other.

After all, quite a few things have happened since we last saw each other and some of these things are quite important.

But once we had put the world to rights we went for a walk around the Grote Markt to admire theChristmas decorations and lights.

It wasn’t all that cold out there tonight, which makes a change.

But nevertheless, we thought that a coffee was in order so we wandered off to Kloosters Hotel in the Predikherenstraat where there is an open fire.

An open fire and a coffee are just the things to warm us up on a damp and wet evening like tonight.

Later on, we walked down to Alison’s car and she brought me back here

It was quite late by now so I didn’t do too much at all. I’m having a Day of Rest tomorrow but that’s still no reason not to go to bed so I called it a day.

I’ll see what excitement tomorrow will bring me.

bad parking coach blocked tiensestraat leuven belgium eric hall

Monday 29th October 2018 – IT’S NOT LOOKING …

… too good right now.

The blood count and the protein loss are stable – and while that might sound like good news, it isn’t. It should be ameliorating rapidly. And even worse, they are continuing on this the Multigam treatment, even though it’s not doing what they were hoping that it would do. It seems that they haven’t come up with an alternative yet and I suppose that I shall be having it from now on, every few weeks until my inevitable demise.

That’s what I call depressing news.

And talking of every few weeks, it’s back again on 26th November and yet again on … errrr … 24th December. So it looks very much as if it’s Christmas here in Leuven. Another Christmas away from home, but at least it’s better than last year when I spent it in hospital.

And if you think that that’s bad, the very worst news is that I had a “special interview” too, with the result of which Kaatje the Social Worker was summoned to see me. Apparently people here think that I might now start to benefit from some help around the home and wheels will be put in motion.

Apparently my apartment needs to be continually in a state of pristine cleanliness to avoid me picking up a disease or a virus. Remember that they took out my spleen 30 months ago so I have no immune system. I’m thought to be in such a state that the slightest disease or infection will polish me off.

I’m not quite liking the sound of this.

But at least my body clock is functioning correctly.

Wide awake at 05:13 and that’s good news. I hope that it keeps on going. That will be useful. But I do have an early start on Wednesday so I bet that the body clock will fail to respond on that morning.

It goes without saying that I didn’t leave the bed quite then. No point in rushing and anticipating the alarm when I have plenty of time.

Plenty of time to reflect on my little nocturnal voyage last nignt, because I was off on my travels again. I was the father of a young girl and I’d sent her to a finishing school in Switzerland (although she was far too young for that). After a few months I’d travelled to Switzerland to see how she was doing, to find that she was out on the ski slopes skiing. I waited for her, and she eventually came down to join me. We ended up sitting on a terrace thinking about ordering a meal, when she decided to go into the bar for “the usual reasons”. On her way in she started to talk to a boy by the door, and had a brief conversation with him.
When she came back we went off to the restaurant and while we were waiting to order I asked her what the conversation was all about. She replied that she had mentioned where she was going for lunch in the hope that he would come over to chat. Obviously he wasn’t all that interested, and she told me that while she was up on the ski slopes she had chatted to a few other boys and told them about her lunch arrangements, hoping that one of them would come down to accompany her. But not one of them turned up and I felt really sorry for her because she seemed to be so disappointed.

We had the medication of course, and then the breakfast. Following which I attacked some work that had built up.

With having had a shower last night, I didn’t bother with one today but instead, had a good shave and a clean-up before heading for the hills.

The weather was rather cloudy, misty and overcast and showed no real sign of brightening up. And quite cold too. It made me reflect that when I was last here for a night in Leuven, for my July visit, I was sweltering in the heat. Last night, I had the heating on full-blast.

In the Tiensestraat the shops change hands regularly and it’s always interesting to see the comings and goings.

This is the latest arrival, the Bia Mara fish and chip shop, although he’s not quite arrived yet.

But I think that he might be on a hiding to nothing. Perhaps he hasn’t heard about Brexit and the abolition of Free Movement for UK citizens.

He would be better off offering mosselen en fritjes.

Here at Castle Anthrax I was early. But I still had to wait rather longer that I should to be plugged in and wired up. I was weighed too, and much to my surprise I’ve put on the weight that I had lost. I couldn’t believe that all of the food that I ate on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and I lost weight, yet back home where I’ve been more restrained I’veput on weight.

But once it was organised, that was that. I lay in a state of semi-consciousness for most of the day drifting in between wakefulness and sleepiness. Not that there was much else to do.

Once I was liberated from my chains, I left and then had to go back again to pick up my wallet that had fallen out of my pocket behind the chair where I was sitting.

On the way back, I called in Delhaize for food for tea and then in the Loving Hut for some more vegan supplies.

Back here, at 128% of my daily activity, I crashed out on the bed for an hour. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?

Tea was baked potatoes and chili beans, and that’s my lot. I’ve done enough for today and I’m going to have a lie in tomorrow to recover my strength and then go for a bus ride.

Tuesday 2nd October 2018 – AND SO BACK AT CASTLE ANTHRAX …

… and start as you mean to go on.
Our Hero – “I seem to be half an hour early today”
Ann the Receptionist – “no you aren’t. You’re several weeks late!”

As might be expected after all of my sleep yesterday, I found myself wide-awake at 03:15 this morning. And by 03:40 I had given it up as a bad job and was sitting on the bed working.

That had still given me plenty of time to go off on a nocturnal ramble. Back on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and back in the High Arctic again, only this time in the company of a couple of my spurious characters and it’s not very often indeed that they ever see the light of … errr … well, you know what I mean. Yes, two people, who shall be known as, say the QC PQ and C, for want of any other name, were out there last night on a voyage and not necessarily doing what they do best either. All in all, it was something of a cosy voyage being out there retracing many of the steps that were traced a couple of weeks ago and in interesting company too.

Yes, I’m feeling all broody again, aren’t I?

I’m not sure whether it’s nostalgia for the voyage, a desire to return to the High Arctic (which is by far and away the most splendid place on earth), an unwillingness to go home or trepidation about my appointment with destiny at Castle Anthrax later this morning tha has got me going like this.

Or maybe I’m just lonely. Mustn’t rule that out either. But as they say in France, it’s better to travel alone than be badly-accompanied. And I wouldn’t have done half of the things that I have done had I had anyone else to think about too.

While there’s a kettle in the hotel room, there isn’t any coffee. And so those little tubes of coffee that I keep in my backpack for emergencies came in very handy here. That was a handy bit of inspiration, that was and no mistake.

It was also a very good job that I was up and about early too, for I would never have been able to sleep through the racket that my neighbour made after he awoke at 04:20.

A shower at 07:00 and a general organisation of myself, and then off to catch the train. Not forgetting that I needed to have my rail ticket for tomorrow printed out. The receptionist here duly obliged.

At the Carrefour in the Gare du Midi I picked up some raisin bread for breakfast and then as there was a Leuven train already in the station I leapt aboard.

And then my leisurely walk to my appointment with doom.

As well as the interaction with the receptionist, I had an interaction with a young nurse.
“Your heartbeat is very fast today” she remarked.
“You lean over me one more time like that” I muttered to myself “and it will beat even faster”.

She had her revenge. She was very rough with the catheter tube.

As a punishment for missing an appointment they kept me waiting for a while before they hooked me up. And once I was hooked up I went off. Out like a light – well, as far as possible as it is to go with people buzzing around me.

And despite what you might think, after all of the good food that I have eaten on my travels, I have LOST 3kgs in weight. I shall have to go back to the Arctic, won’t I?

From the railway station I trudged my weary way across town towards the hospital.

And ground to a splendid halt in the Grote Markt bu=y the big cathedral.

It’s soon going to be the centenary of the Armistice, and there was a display of notices to the population from the First World War.

Leuven was occupied by the Germans in late August 1914 and was a major victim of the German policy of “Frightfulness”.

The town was sacked and then set ablaze. The huge Medieval library and all of its contents dating back to the 6th Century were burnt to ashes.

The population lived under a most repressive Martial Law. Hostages were taken and were shot for the slightest “provocation” by the civilian population.

It was a nightmare time for those who lived here.

At the hospital, they did their tests and gave me the news. As expected, the blood count is down and the protein loss is up. And for the first time, a doctor has admitted that they are concerned about my lack of response to the treatment.

So back in 4 weeks by which time they might have come up with A Cunning Plan.

On the way back I called at Delhaize for some fruit and tomatoes for lunch tomorrow, and then The Loving Hut for more vegan cheese and sausages (and where I was recognised by the cashier). Finally Kruidvat for some gelatine-free sweets.

back at the Leuven railway station, and I didn’t have to wait long for a train back.

It’s one of the Class 18 electric locomotives and is probably about 8 years old, although it doesn’t look it.

She brought me to the Gare Centrale for 18:10. I’d arranged a meal with Alison at The Moon but she was delayed as there was no bus. They are all on strike.

But she arrived soon enough and we had a beautiful vegan and gluten-free meal. And I took the opportunity to discuss with her an incident that had happened to me several weeks ago and had left me feeling totally puzzled. And I wanted a woman’s point of view.

Much to my surprise (because things don’t usually happen like this) she immediately saw my point of view without me even having to prompt her. I was convinced at the time that I had been correct in my understanding, and Alison’s opinion was that, if anything, I had been far more restrained that she would have expected in a similar circumstance.

So I dunno.

We had a coffee and I showed her my prize photo, and then she took the train back out of town to the railway station near to where she works. During the bus strike, the train is the best solution.

I walked home past the big Tintin mural and had a strange encounter with three guys in the street. I know what they were after but they weren’t quick enough.

Back here I had a chat with Liz on line, and then with Alison who by now had made it safely home. A little crash out and now I’m off to bed.

We had a coffee and I showed her my prize photo, and then she took the train back out of town to the railway station near to where she works. During the bus strike, the train is the best solution.

I walked home and had a strange encounter with three guys in the street. I know what they were after but they weren’t quick enough.

Back here I had a chat with Liz on line, and then with Alison who by now had made it safely home. A little crash out and now I’m off to bed.

It’s been a long day and tomorrow I’m heading home.

I wonder what I’ll find back there.

Monday 27th August 2018 – THE GOOD NEWS …

… is that the blood count has gone up yet again.

The bad news is that it hasn’t gone up enough and the people in the hospital don’t want me to travel.

Despite the racket in the reception last night, I did manage to go off to sleep quite easily in the end and I was flat out until all of … errr … 04:38.

But even so, I was back asleep until the alarms went off at 06:20.

I had my medication and then a shower and a good clean up. But I was so bust sorting myself out that I forgot to have a coffee. And with no water or anything to drink, I had a thirst that you could photograph.

But I was out early and down to the station where, when I was buying my ticket, I heard them announce a train to Leuven. So I RAN – yes, RAN, dear reader (and you’ve no idea how pleased that made me) for the train and leapt aboard.

And it was then that I realised that I had forgotten to buy any breakfast either.

But there’s a supermarket at the back of the station at Leuven so I picked up some bread rolls and at them as I marched across the city.

I was early for my appointment so I settled down in a comfortable seat, and bang on time, the nurse came to see me and I was all plugged in and hooked up.

When the doctor came to see me, he told me that my blood count had only gone up to 9.3. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this time last year it was at 13.0 and they were happy to let me go a-wandering off.

Not this time, though.

They want me back in 3 weeks time, so I spent the afternoon in between sleeping having a discussion with Rachel about a cunning plan.

Kaatje came to see me too. I’d had two more bills from the hospital so I handed them to her to pass on to my health insurance people.

When they threw me out, I wandered back downtown.

My route took me down to the Kapicijnenvoer for a change, and outside the Sint rafael Ziekenhuis I noticed that they had dug up the street completely.

It’s quite an impressive piece of work that they are doing.

In the town centre I stopped at a couple of places- the Carrefour, the Loving Hut and the Kruidvat for some supplies, and then I caught the train back to Brussels and my hotel.

Later on, I went out again. Alison had discovered a vegan and gluten-free restaurant called Moon at the back of the cathedral so we met there. It’s a simple buffet where you pay for the food by weight.

Delicious it was too and this will go onto our list of places to revisit, although it’s a bit amateurish in the way that it’s run. The rice ran out and “there’s no more now until tomorrow” – that kind of thing.

We went down to the Gare Centrale for a coffee and a good chat afterwards.

Later, we went outside and I put Alison onto her bus home. Once she’s ridden off into the sunset I had a bit of a loiter around outside.

With all of the photos that I’ve taken of Brussels over the years, I’ve never taken one of the Central Station. It’s not very impressive in the daytime, but at night it’s something else.

The exterior of the station at the Carrefour de l’Europe never used to be very impressive.

When I lived here it was just one main street with traffic just about everywhere, but not the traffic has been blocked off and it has been turned into a pedestrian zone.

The addition of a few pillars and arches, and a few cleverly-positioned streetlights make the place look really good.

From there I went for a little wander around in the dark, boldly going where I haven’t gone for quite some considerable time.

My perambulation took me past the Place de la Vieille Halle au Blés where the statue of the famous Belgian singer/songwriter Jacques Brel stands sentinel.

He’s come out quite nicely in the subdued street lighting.

Now back at my hotel, and 205% of my day’s activity – 16.2kms – I’ve walked today. And it feels like it too.

I’ve made my butties for my journey tomorrow and now I’m off to bed. I have an early start in the morning.

05:20 to be precise.

carrefour de l’europe gare centrale bruxelles belgique

grande place hotel de ville rue de l’etuve bruxelles belgique

Thursday 16th August 2018 – YOU HAVE NO IDEA …

… how long it took me today to complete my Medical Expenses claim.

It’s quite true to say that I have let things build up and build up for the last … errr … eighteen months, but it still shouldn’t have taken as long as it did.

And it wasn’t down to a lack of sleep either because I had an early night and slept right the way through until the alarm went off, something that hasn’t happened for quite a while.

We had the usual morning performance and followed by a nice hot shower – the first for a while it has to be said – and cut my fingernails. And then I hit the streets.

First stop was the ferry office. It was closed, which should be no surprise to anyone who reads anything that I have ever written seeing that it’s midsummer and there are crowds of people about.

They did have some leaflets on display for the ferries to the Ile de Chausey but nothing for the Jersey ferries, so I wandered off to the Tourist Office. They had a leaflet but they also told me that the ferries are pretty much booked up for the next few days.

The laboratory was next. I had an e-mail from the hospital 10 days ago to say that there was a build-up of potassium in my body, to change the dose of my medication and to organise a blood test.

The people at the laboratory told me that all I need to do is to just turn up and to bring the e-mail with me, and they’ll do the test on the spot. So that’s tomorrow’s task.

LIDL was impressive today. As well as the usual stuff, they were selling hardware. They had some powerful cable crimpers and accessories, some heatsink tubing and some screw-in hooks so they found their way into the shopping bag. And had I been back in the Auvergne I would have had a lot more than just that.

On the way back I bumped into one of my neighbours and we had a chat in the street for a short while.

Back here, I needed to print out the e-mail from the hospital and that took longer than it might. The ink cartridge wasn’t seating properly and the nozzles needed cleaning and aligning.

By the time that I’d managed to print out the mail, it was lunchtime so I was off on the wall with my butties, my book and a lizard.

This afternoon I had to deal with my medical expenses claim. This involved scanning about 60 receipts, collating them, renaming then as appropriate and then logging into my insurance website and completing the on-line form. And seeing as there were only so many entries allowed on a form, it needed 5 forms in total.

What made things worse was that much of the laser printing from the earlier receipts were faded and it was very difficult for me to read the entries on some of them. I don’t know how they will manage at the Claims Office.

I missed my walk this afternoon with being involved in all of this. But seeing as we were having a torrential rainstorm at the time, it wasn’t much of a problem.

BY the time that I had finished and done a little tidying up, it was teatime. A plate of mixed steamed vegetables with vegan sausages and vegan cheese sauce.

On my walk tonight I met yet another neighbour who also goes for an evening walk. He goes the other way round so in fact we met up twice.

But the route was sodden with water following the rainstorm. Not very pleasant at all.

But at least I could admire all of the boats out there. They seem to be happy that the weather has cleared up and that they could go out to play.

Although the rain had stopped, the streets were still wet.

Down in the rue du Nord the vehicles were making some very interesting tracks on the damp surface.

Even though it’s late evening, the streets were crowded with people and cars. It’s the height of the summer season so we have tourists everywhere, of course.

Anyway, it’s bedtime. And I hope that I have a decent night’s sleep yet again. I need to build up my strength as I’m going to be busy.

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EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: blood test

Friday 18th October 2019 – I REALLY DON’T UNDERSTAND …

Friday 28th June 2019 – NOW HERE’S A THING

Wednesday 19th June 2019 – I DON’T KNOW …

Friday 14th June 2019 – HOW MANY …

Wednesday 12th June 2019 – I WENT …

Monday 15th April 2018 – THE BAD NEWS …

Monday 18th March 2019 – IT’S HOSPITAL …

Monday 18th February 2019 – AS IS USUALLY …

Monday 21st January 2019 – AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE …

Monday 24th December 2018 – WHAT A DAY …

Monday 27th November 2018 – THE GOOD NEWS …

Monday 29th October 2018 – IT’S NOT LOOKING …

Tuesday 2nd October 2018 – AND SO BACK AT CASTLE ANTHRAX …

Monday 27th August 2018 – THE GOOD NEWS …

Thursday 16th August 2018 – YOU HAVE NO IDEA …

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