… wasted this evening.
This afternoon, I went to the Centre de Ré-education and, once more, they put me through the mill. I am so exhausted that standing up out of my chair is about a hundred times more difficult than it usually is.
It’s not as if I hadn’t prepared for it either. After I’d written my notes, in something of a hurry it has to be said, I rushed through everything else and finally crawled into my lovely fresh bed just one minute or so before 23:00, which was very nice.
How I was looking forward to a good sleep, and I wasn’t disappointed because, once more, I slept right through to the alarm at 06:29. That was certainly making the most of it.
When the alarm went off, I was at Stranraer watching a football match. It had just finished and the commentator was saying that if Stranraer had played like that during a league game, they would have been several places higher up the table by now. But I didn’t have very long to stay there because the alarm went off immediately at that point.
Not that I disagree with the commentator, but there are quite a few players at Stranraer who have come from non-league circles and they are making naive mistakes that are being punished by more experienced players.
But even though I don’t seem to have recorded it, I can still hear the commentator announcing “there is one change from the team from last weekend”. That’s no surprise in view of Salou Turay’s injury, but then again, that was the previous week, not last week.
As usual, I needed a good few minutes to raise myself from the edge of the bed and into the bathroom, and then I wandered off into the kitchen for the medication.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. One dream I have already mentioned, but also the clinic to where I go was closing down for the day so I was waiting there, hoping to have a haircut and a shave before they all went. But as usual, I was the very last person, and I was watching the person before me, how they were spending the whole quarter-hour on him with his hair and everything like that. In the end, they finally finished. I walked over there on my crutches, but I was walking far too fast and outran the speed at which I could raise my crutches so I actually managed to walk two or three paces, which surprised me. It surprised them too. I sat down in the chair and he told me to move my chair back a bit so that I wasn’t crowding the desk. Then he began to talk to me about this soup that’s made of vegetables. I couldn’t think of what this had to do with having my hair cut and being shaved. Then he pulled out a brochure for a caravan, a static home that’s situated at Wrenbury in Cheshire. Half of the brochure for this place included some see-through flooring which I imagined was thick, protective glass. He said that my first task would be to go to sleep in there. I wondered how on earth I was going to manage that. However, they opened the door of the accompanying car and made ready to open the door of this mobile home.
This dream seems to be confusing my dialysis experiences with something else. But if only I could walk three paces without my crutches. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
As for the static caravan, or mobile home, there was a Romany encampment at Wrenbury for a great many years, but it was cleared out at some point in recent times, but I’ve not been able to find the precise date.
And no Zero last night, after her visit yesterday. That’s a huge disappointment.
Isabelle the Nurse turned up, with her usual irrepressible spirit. She gave me my injection, sorted out my legs and feet and then cleared off again, leaving me to concentrate on making my breakfast.
Back in here, I had various things to do as usual, which seemed to take an enormous amount of time, and then I pushed on and finished the notes for the radio programme on which I’d been engaged. They are now ready for dictation.
Having done that, I prepared myself for the Centre de Ré-education and it’s a good job that I did, because the taxi came half an hour earlier for me. That was rather embarrassing because I was … errr … otherwise occupied, and the driver had to wait until I’d finished.
When I arrived, I had to wait over half an hour, only to find that my physiotherapist was off sick. Another one took her place and had me working out, but spent the final ten minutes massaging this bad shoulder that I have picked up from somewhere.
Another half-hour wait, and then into the gym for some light muscular work. But nothing “light” about it at all. I was aching in places that I didn’t even know that I had by the time that I’d finished.
Yet another half-hour wait, and then twelve minutes on the exercise bicycle. Last week, I managed 1.3 kilometres. Today, I managed 1.9 kilometres. Things are obviously improving, but I knew all about it when I finished.
The taxi driver turned up bang on tie and brought me home, where my cleaner helped me collapse into a chair. And there I stayed for an hour, trying to find the strength to move into the bedroom.
Once back in here though, I made a start on the next programme. Most of the music has been chosen and I’ve even written some notes. Where has this enthusiasm come from?
Tea was the rest of the kidney bean and soya mince whatsit with rice, and once again, a fair proportion of it ended up in the bin. I’m just not hungry these days, which is a shame. It’s not like me at all.
But now I’m off to bed, to have a good sleep ready for dialysis. Let’s see if I have just a three-hour session tomorrow.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the gym at the Centre de Ré-education … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone else in there was extremely dispirited by his (lack of) performance.
"I can’t keep up with this" he complained. "I don’t have the strength for it. I don’t think that I’ll be coming again."
The monitor looked at him. "So this discussion will count then as your ‘too weak’ notice, I suppose?"
