Tag Archives: chest infection

Monday 1st August 2016 – AHH WELL!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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