Tag Archives: protein loss

Monday 30th January 2017 – WHAT A WONDERFUL …

… meal that was.

Pizza with fresh vegetables with garlic bread, followed by pineapple rings with lemon sorbet. There’s no doubt that having defrosted the freezer cabinets in the fridges here the other week has certainly expanded my culinary whatsits, and I can’t wait to have a decent little kitchen with small freezer. I shall be well away, that’s for sure.

Last night I forgot to watch a film, so I dozed on and off for hours before dropping asleep. And I was disturbed during the night by a noise that awoke me at some point, although I did manage to go back to sleep until the alarm went off.

But never mind that for a moment, I was away with the fairies during the night. I was having some kind of issues about plants and I’d had to pick up some packs of compost – three sacks I wanted. I couldn’t find any to buy so I had to order it for delivery. The girl at reception wrote down the phone number for me on her note pad so that I could phone it and order what I needed. Outside, I was discussing push-bikes with someone and we made the point that up until about 10 years ago, the average age of pushbikes on the street was probably about 30 years old, but recently of course, buying new bikes seems to be the thing, and this would have brought the average age of bikes down to a much-more reasonable figure.
Meanwhile, my sacks of compost hadn’t come and I needed to remind the company. I was driving past the offices of this place and could have called in to pick them up but I was driving a school bus with kids and it wasn’t quite the right thing to do. I couldn’t find the secretary who had given me the phone number, and I couldn’t see it on her notepad so I wondered what she had done with it. This was getting confusing.
A little later, I’d gone for a manicure of my finger and toe nails. Who should be doing the manicure but “The One That Got Away”. As an aside, I have to say that just recently in real life I’ve been taking better care of my finger and toe-nails and this came through in the dream. Although they were cut very short and irregular, it was clear that I’d been taking care of them, and she was impressed. She said that she liked a man who took good care of himself. Then I made a comment about how warm it was in there, to which she replied that warmth always made her more amorous, and she gave me a big smile.

It would be at that moment that the alarm went off – had I known that I was ensconced in a tiny studio on the verge of a close encounter with her, I would have had a lie-in.

They had forgotten us yet again at breakfast and it was a struggle to find stuff to eat. And drink too because the juice supply was exhausted. When this afternoon I saw the guy who does the stocks, I had a good moan at him about that.

And then we had the hospital.

Walking that distance to the hospital hardly affected me at all – I was feeling quite cheerful on my way up there despite the light drizzle. And then we had the good news. Blood count stable at 11.8 and protein loss at 1.97 – still far too high but stable.

They offered me a six-week absence before the next visit, but I insisted on four weeks. That takes me up nicely to the end of my rental period here and if it’s still stable then, I can negotiate a six-week absence and disappear off to wherever it is that I’m going.

This afternoon was quite relaxing. I didn’t do too much. And now it’s bed-time yet again. A quiet day is called for tomorrow and then I’ll have to start to make plans.

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Monday 2nd January 2017 – THE FIRST SNOWS OF WINTER …

leuven first snow belgium january janvier 2017… has covered our land during the night.

It might not be much by Canadian standards, or by German standards or even by Auvergnat standards, but it’s the first snows all the came and at least it made me smile. I was wondering whether I might miss out this year, but here we are.

I thought that it was cold last night.

And I had another bit of a bad night too. It took me ages to drop off to sleep and then we had party-time again for an hour or so round about 01:00.

During the night I’d been on my travels too. I’d been fixing a van (but not Calibuen – a big white Iveco-type) and I’d gone out for a test drive in it, even though it only had three wheels and the fourth corner was propped up on a trolley jack. When the van came back to the garage the trolley jack was still there under the van but in a different place. There was a girl featuring in this dream too but I’ve no idea who she was. But she was quite familiar.

The alarm went off at 07:00 and I was quickly upstairs for breakfast. And I wasn’t alone either – there was a middle-aged couple breakfasting there and I didn’t recognise them at all.

But there will not be too much of any of this tonight though, because unless I’m very much mistaken I’m here on my own tonight. It’s 22:20 and there’s not one other person in the building. The noisy neighbours have definitely gone (the cleaner was doing heir room this afternoon), but they don’t seem to have informed the boy who comes to see them because he was knocking on their door just now.

belgium january janvier 2017After breakfast I had a shower and then walked up to the hospital. And I felt sorry for the wildlife as their lake is all frozen over and the poor birds don’t know what to do. Yes, it was that cold.

I was early-ish in the reception, and quickly dealt with. They soon packed me off downstairs to the waiting room.

And wait I did, because they forgot me, and it was not until 11:15 – 45 minutes after my appointment time – that I was seen.

And the long and the short of it is that I don’t have to come back for, would you believe, four weeks. My protein count is up slightly to 2.04 but my blood count has rocketed up to 11.7, all on its own and after the low figures for the last couple of visits, that figure can’t be right. But they think it is, and hence the attempt to try me for four weeks without a visit.

I’m not going to go home though, even though I would like too. It costs me €400-odd at least to make a trip home and back, and then there’s the fatigue and the inconvenience in the middle of winter. I’ve paid to stay here until the end of February and it’s warm-ish in here, there’s breakfast provided and it’s convenient. I don’t need to go very far from here.

All in all, it’s a good idea to stay and so here I’ll sit. It’s a shame but there we are. No sense in throwing good money after bad.

For tea tonight I had the leftover vegetables with a tin of couscous vegetables and a bit of tomato sauce. Followed by Christmas pudding and custard. Now I’m ready for an early night.

if I do end up on my own tonight, i’ll hope to have a good night’s sleep. And then I need to think of a cunning plan for the next few weeks.

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Monday 19th December 2016 – AND SO …

… I went to the hospital this morning.

But if you think that this was exciting, you should have been here last night, for what a night that was!

I had crashed out well-and-truly by 22:00 and apart from two brief awakenings I remember nothing whatever until about 06:30 when I awoke bolt-upright.

Saying that I remember nothing is perhaps an understatement. I was on my travels again – and how!

We (a little group of us) were in a hotel at the seaside – a large expensive kind of hotel too but our room was dreadful – just a couple of big double beds and no other facilities. All of our stuff was lying around on the floor, on the beds, and we were planning to leave, chucking-out time was 11:00 and all of our stuff was still lying all over the place wit no urgency whatsoever.
From here I was in a car with Alison (her debut appearance on my nocturnal voyages, I believe) and we were driving along Thanet Way talking about my mother’s two Aunts – Auntie Dolly an Auntie Gertie – who lived there (we actually did have a discussion like this on Saturday). Auntie Dolly lived in Birchington and Auntie Gertie lived somwhere just off Thanet Way and I couldn’t remember the Aunt who lived in Ham Street who had the cats called Katapus and Redpus (it really was Greypus and it was Aunt Mabel by the way). But we stopped at a row of terraced houses on an embankment at the side of the road and eventually found our way to the one that we needed. A couple of hippie-types lived there and they showed me to a room, which was a very poorly furnished ground-floor room with an unused front door. I waited there for quite some time but nothing was happening so I forced the door open and went outside. There was a very early Austin A30 (or was it a A35?) saloon there with no number plates, and at the end of the front garden was the drop to the road but I couldn’t work my way down the bank so I went back. By now, some other male person had occupied my bed and had a baby with him so I went back to the main room, said how much I liked the car. We then discussed fetching my stuff. I had some modern up-market computer stuff and I didn’t want to bring it in but they were encouraging me to do so, telling me what equipment they had which would work with it. But their stuff was all out-of-date and wouldn’t be compatible with mine, and so I declined the offer.

I was thoroughly exhausted when I awoke, and that was a bad sign. In fact I had taken my medication up to the kitchen and forgot to take them – shows you just how confused I was.

But anyway the wal, up to the hospital did me some good and I wasn’t the least bit worn out when I arrived.

The place was crowded with people today and we even had bread rolls with the soup, that made a change. And as for the results, my blood count has improved to 9.7 and the protein loss has “decreased” to 1.96 (it should of course be less than O.15).

The doctor who saw me – well, she can come and inspect my kidneys any time she likes – tells me that I have to stop taking my protein supplements. She’s wondering if my body can’t absorb the proteins and that’s why it’s being excreted. It’s noted that the amount has gone up since I’ve been taking the bulghour and gone down when I’ve been at home or elsewhere where I’ve not been taking it.

The psychologist came to see me too and we had a chat,but she doesn’t seem to be adding to what I already know about my condition or my general state of health.

The upshot of all of this is that I have to come back in 2 weeks – 2nd January 2017. I’ve been asked if I’m going back home for Christmas but I’ve decided to stay here instead.

Liz was on line later and we had a video chat. I took her on a guided tour of the building so that she now knows where I live and how I’m living. And then I crashed out for a bit.

For tea, I threw something together quickly, for I have plans for the next few days as far as food goes. And quite right too!

So now it’s another early night. And I hope that my travels are as exciting as last night’s.

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Wednesday 30th November 2016 – I’VE BEEN BACK …

… to the hospital as you might expect today.

I saw the doctor and he told me the news. Blood count is down to 10.0 from 10.6, although not as low as 9.7 as it was the other week.

We had a chat about the protein loss too. It’s supposed to be 0:15 and mine is 0:51. But that’s somewhat better than 1:11 that it was last week and nothing like what it was a while ago at 2:98. It seems to be that the higher the blood count, the higher the protein loss. The protein loss is as bad, apparently, as the blood count and a low blood count with low protein loss is as good as a high blood count with a high protein loss.

This is why they don’t seem to be too worried about my blood count right now because the protein loss thing seems to be working for now. They want to see how it goes for another couple of weeks.

One thing that they did say is that I don’t need to continue with a high-protein diet. But that’s not something that I’m going to abandon for now. It has its benefits, apart from keeping up the proteins in my body in the face of this excessive loss.

But anyway, they threw me out at about 14:00 and I have to go back in two weeks time – but I forgot to go to the reception to check on the time. I shall have to telephone them some time.

And so it took ages to go to sleep last night and to be honest, I didn’t think that I’d dropped off at all. But whatever I did or thought that I might have done, I didn’t move from my bed.

At least, so the story goes. I did leave the bed but only in a virtual fashion. I was off to Labrador last night among the Inuit,carrying out a few projects. But then I moved back to the west and I was trying to track down an Asian girl – one very much like the Vietnamese girl with whom I shared a house a few months ago. We’d managed to track her to a student house not so far away and I knew that one of her former house mates lived there. Off we went to this house – it was a modern, expensive type of place and when we arrived there was a big party going on in there; Loads of students about and I remember saying to whoever I was with that I wouldn’t like my house treated like this at all; Anyway we found the girl and she told us where the Asian girl could be found. We had a file of hers that needed to be given to her and so I was all for taking this file around to her new place but the others seemed to think that we should just put a white name tag in it and put it in a pouch that we could stick to the side window of the house where we were. A silly idea, if you ask me, but that was what we did.

I wasn’t alone at breakfast – there were the usual crowds – and then after I did a little work, I set off for the hospital. It was freezing outside – minus 3°C apparently – and it’s only going to become worse apparently.

After the hospital I came back here for a relax and a crash out for a while and then round about 16:00 I went off down to Caliburn to fetch some more stuff back. I remember the hair cutter but I forgot the nail scissors though – I’ll have to find them next time I’m down there.

There’s a good book that I discovered on the internet this afternoon.It’s called “Outlines of the Geography, Life and Customs of Newfoundland and Labrador” and it’s about 800 pages of observations of a Finnish expedition to Labrador and Newfoundland back in 1937 and 1939.

It’s full of observations from a most unusual group of people and contains a lot that is glossed over by more-mainstream historians. And I enjoy reading books like these because I can add the stuff into what I write and recirculate them, to make sure that they aren’t forgotten.

For tea, I finished off the lentil curry from last night and now it’s almost bed time.

I deserve a good sleep. It was quiet last night and the more of this that I can get, the better.

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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 – PHEW! I’M WHACKED!

Yes, today was the day that I had to go to the hospital at Leuven.

And how difficult was it to haul myself out of bed at 07:00 to hit the road? You have no idea.

No breakfast of course, but what with having to wash and make myself pretty, it was 07:30 when I finally hit the road. Through the fog, the hanging cloud, the darkness and the drizzle to the motorway and then an uneventful drive all the way to Leuven. uneventful, of course, except for the tractor-trap in the suburbs of the city that slowed everyone up. It took me less than 2 hours all told.

Caliburn went into his hidey-hole and I walked up to the hospital to organise some breakfast. All done and dusted, checked in and in the waiting room long before the due time of 10:50.

I was out by 14:30 too. The highlight, or actually the lowlight of the day was the fact that they have stopped serving bread with the soup. That’s no good.

But apart from that, my blood has gone back up to 10.6 all on its own (although it doesn’t feel like it) and while my water retention has eased, my protein loss has accelerated. So – back in a week.

And as the professor is only there in the morning next week, it means that I have to postpone my eye test too.It’s a good job that I’m going back to stay in the hostel.

The drive back was even more uneventful.

There’s a Carrefour in Leuven as you know so I called there for bread and stuff but I was having a “fruit” moment so I bought a “reduced” fresh fruit salad thingy and a litre of 100% pineapple juice, and scoffed the lot on the car park. And there are grapes for tomorrow.

My route brought me back to Bouillon, which is a soup-er … "ohh, well-done" – ed … place and stopped to take a pile of photos in the dark, falling over the edge of the pavement and badly cutting my right knee.

There’s a falafel place in Bouillon so I had a decent tea as well.

And now I’m back here and seeing how tired I am, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see the photos of Bouillon.

I’m doing nothing more!

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Wednesday 16th November 2016 – HOW STUPID …

… can you be?

I need to leave Belgium for a while for various reasons, and so I checked all around the area of Sedan, which is not too far away from here but across the border, and I found a place that looked absolutely perfect from my point of view. Isolated in the countryside miles from anywhere up a mountain and probably swathed in fog. And bed-and-breakfast at the same price as my hostel.

And here I am gazing across a river and over the river is in France, and here I am, stuck on the Belgian side of it all in the Hostellerie La Sapiniere at Vresse sur Semois.

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

So why aren’t I heading back to my house then? The answer is that while my blood count has gone up slightly to 10:0, the protein loss in my body is accelerating slightly and that’s causing them some concern. As a result, they’ve changed my medication and they want me back IN A WEEK to see how I’m doing.

And not only that, they have some more appointments for me in the haematology department in two weeks time, and so I’m stuck here yet again. But I don’t want to be stuck in Leuven – I need a change of scenery;

But returning to our moutons as the French say, the trouble with going to bed early is that everyone else comes in later. And so even if you do drop off to sleep by 22:30, then at 23:30 you are wide awake as people come back into the building. and that’s rather annoying, so say the least.

So having had a disturbed night (for many reasons) I was awake quite early as the alarm went off.

And I’d been on my travels too. I had to visit a town that was “just across the border” in some kind of Spanish-speaking area. I’d found a bus that would take me there and so I climbed on board. It wasn’t a journey of 10 minutes either as I was expecting, but one of hours and interminable hours. A woman on board the bus, small and dark-haired, tried to help me out – every ten minutes or so coming to reassure me (although I couldn’t understand what she was saying) and then as we reached the border I suddenly realised that I didn’t know where I was supposed to be going or at what stop I needed to alight, and I had no way of asking either.

There were the usual hordes at breakfast this morning, and we had a major problem with the kitchen area being flooded again. The skylight had been left open and we were in the middle of a torrential downpour.

Still, I’d breakfasted and even showered and back in my room again long before 07:55. THat’s something of a record, isn’t it? And once I’d tidied up and packed my rucksack I set off to the hospital, braving the driving rain.

I wasn’t feeling so good this morning either. All of the joints in my legs were aching and I didn’t have the puff to climb the hill. I had to stop on four or five occasions to get back my breath. This is the worst trip to the hospital that I have ever had.

I was there and registered by 08:30 and sitting in the waiting room. I was seen a little later than my 08:50 appointment , and given all of the tests and the like. My weight was stable which was bad news – I want to lose it all and I can’t do this as it’s all to do with the water retention issues that I’m having and that’s one of the issues that I need to resolve – hence the new medication.

By 11:30 they released me from the hospital and that was that. I went down to Caliburn and we all, Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and I set off for the wilderness.

The weather was pretty miserable – with rainstorms and the like all the way down to the Ardennes. And once I started to climb up into the mountains I was encased in hanging clouds just like home. In fact it made me feel quite at home.

The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav couldn’t find the hotel, which was hardly a surprise seeing as I was looking in the wrong country. I had a beautiful drive through the Ardennes and ended up in Sedan in the driving rain. I took the opportunity to do a huge pile of shopping at the Leclerc – what with food prices in France being much less than in Belgium – and then tracked down the hotel where I’m staying.

It’s a very impressive hotel from the outside but it’s all very 1960s from the inside. And there’s no internet in the bedroom which is very depressing to say the least. I’ll have to sort this out somehow but I’m quite tired after my drive. I made a butty (because I wasn’t able to check on what the surroundings had to offer) and had an early night instead.

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Thursday 27th October 2016 – THIS WAS NOT WHAT I WANTED

I went to hospital this afternoon for my tests. I had the usual catheter fitted and blood sample taken. And then I had to wait.

My blood pressure is up again and my legs are starting to swell up. That’s a couple of things to worry about, but the lymph nodes that have bedevilled me – the doctor can’t find them. If they really have gone, that will be the best news that I’ve had for ages.

I had an echograph this afternoon and my kidneys appear to be quite normal as far as their make-up goes, but there is still a problem in that according to the urine sample that I gave, the protein loss from my body is accelerating.

But the worst news is about my blood count. That’s now down to 10.0, a loss of 9% over the last two weeks. Considering that while I was away in Canada for – weeks, then over that period of time I lost 10% of my count – that’s about a third of the current rate of loss.

That is causing them a considerable amount of concern and so the upshot is that I have to come back … next Thursday!

Yes, just one week, and that’s not even enough time for me to go home and come back again. How I hate all of this. But at least my little room in the hostel hasn’t been taken so I’ve moved back in and I’ll stay here. But what I’m going to do next if i’m on weekly visits I have no idea.

I had a difficult night last night – it took me hours to drop off. And then I had a very disturbed sleep. I was off on my travels too but as usual I forgot absolutely everything as soon as I awoke.

After breakfast I tidied up my room and then had a good shower and a change of clothes. And once I’d organised myself I went off to fetch Caliburn to load him up with the stuff from here. And I nearly squidged a cyclist who rode straight out of a side street without even a pretence at a glance at oncoming traffic.

I sat in the lounge here until it was appointment time and then walked up to the hospital for my appointment with destiny. 14:15 was the time of my appointment, and I was seen at … errr … 14:10. A far cry from the situation in the UK
“I needed an urgent appointment, and the hospital has made a special effort to fit me in. They are going to see me at 20:20”
“You mean at twenty past eight in the evening?”
“No – I mean in four years time”
Such is life with the British Health Service.

And I made all of 20 yards down the corridor on the way home with my catheter today. I’m improving.

And now I’m having an early night. I’m exhausted.

And fed up too.

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