Tag Archives: appointment

Wednesday 30th December 2015 – AND THE ANSWER IS …

… Wrexham.

The question, for the benefit of those of you who did not read yesterday’s rubbish, was “I wonder where I’ll end up during the night?” – which was, of course, last night.

To cut a long story short … "thank you" – ed … I was in Nantwich, Pillory Street to be precise (although it wasn’t Nantwich last night) looking after Laurel and Hardy. I had to make a radio programme about them and so I had the idea of spending a day with them and just letting a tape recorder turn, so that we could crop certain highlights from the recording and make a programme from them. But the producer handed me back the tape recorder telling me that the recorder was no good and we needed to do it again. This was where the idea came in to pile them both into a car and head to Hardy’s birthplace in Wrexham, to encourage him to open out more. But all of this degenerated into something else quite unpleasant, including a scene where a couple of small boys were being chased by a group of larger lads with chain whips – something to do with an issue involving some library books. I wasn’t sorry to wake up while all of this was going on.

This morning after all of the injections and breakfast and so on, we watched the English cricket team quickly wrap up the First Test against South Africa, and then we didn’t do a great deal. I do recall an exciting game of hide-and-seek involving the two kids, Liz and Strawberry Moose, who is a keen participant in these kinds of games.

strawberry moose story time sauret besserve puy de dome franceAnother item on the agenda very popular with His Nibs is Story Time. There’s been no lack of that kind of entertainment here this last week or so, and here’s some more.

Everyone is clearly enjoying himself here as you can see. Even Kate, who has drawn the short straw this morning as chief reader.

After lunch, everyone went out for a long walk but I stayed in and carried on with my 3D stuff, not making a great deal of progress. I’m still not up to much unfortunately.

vegan christmas cake sauret besserve puy de dome franceFor tea tonight we finished off the leftovers from the last couple of days. But because the children had been especially good and had drawn some lovely pictures of Strawberry Moose, I unveiled the vegan Christmas cake and shared it out amongst the assembled multitudes.

And it will come as no surprise to any of you to learn that it tastes even better than it looks. Liz has really done me proud this Christmas and I am grateful for that.

So now I’m off to bed. A blood test in the morning so I need to be à jeun. It’s a good job that I’m totally stuffed.

But I’ve had news today to the effect that on 4th January I have to go to see the surgeon to discuss the removal of my spleen. On the 12th January I have to see the anaesthetist and sometime in mid-March I have to see the doctor for a post-operation report. This implies that the operation will take place sometime round about the end of January or the beginning of February. And the post-op appointment means that they at least expect me to survive it.

I suppose that that’s good news for me, but not for you lot. There will be loads more of this rubbish to come.

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Friday 4th December 2015 – I’VE LEFT …

…the hospital today and I’m back chez Liz and Terry. And the first thing that Liz did for me was to make me a tea of baked potato, vegan cheese, baked beans and a side-salad. And wasn’t it lovely to have some real proper food properly cooked for once? Never mind eating it – I could have dived into it and rolled around in it.

Last night, with my late night, I didn’t seem to get very much sleep. I lost count of how many times I had to go to the bathroom – it was at least 5 times and could easily have been more. And then we had the usual interruptions of people sticking their heads around the door, people coming to give me injections, all of that kind of thing.

But I did manage somehow to get out and about on my travels too. Not that I remember anything much about it, but I do recall a separated couple being involved, and despite having agreed as part of the terms of separation that they would refer to each other as vous , but we did notice, with smiles on our faces, that they were back to referring to each other with the more familiar tu.

So having had breakfast and so on, I went for yet another shower. I’m really making the most of this. And then we had the bad news. It seems that my medical appointment for later this morning has been cancelled. They still haven’t been able to complete the analysis of all of my examinations.

Mind you, this might be good news. I imagine that they would look for the most serious options first and then they would work their way up the ladder, and the longer that it takes to find the problem, the less serious it might be. But of course, I’m ruling nothing out.

But apparently I’m to have an anti-coagulant injection twice a day at home for the next THREE MONTHS, and a blood test twice a week, and I’ve been given a prescription for a lorry-load of medication. Not only that, Liz has bought some vitamin B12 tablets and some iron tablets, and has found a fruit juice that has B12 in it. I need to make the most of my recuperation and keep a close eye on my diet for a while while I sort myself out.

And I did query the “three months” bit too. Would I still be here in three months? But the doctor did confirm that, in his opinion, there was every likelihood that i’ll be here then, and long after that too. And that’s good news;

At the pharmacy in Pionsat, the bill – just for the first month – came to €474. That doesn’t include the smelling salts that they used to bring me round. This is going to be an expensive illness, I can see that.

So after a good evening’s relaxation, I had an early night. We’d bought an ice -pack and we’d had it in the freezer for a couple of hours, so I put it on my swollen arm to draw the heat and give me a good night’s sleep. But it was totally unbearable after about half an hour so I ended up taking it off. But never mind – it had done the rick and, at least for the moment, the discomfort had gone.

I did warn Liz and Terry to make sure though that when they went to bed to wear plenty of garlic around their necks, just in case I feel thirsty during the night.

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