… when I might learn something about my state of health and whether the Hospital at Leuven will do something about it.
But before I can think about that, I have other fish to fry. Hans is coming back from Zeebrugge this morning and we’ve agreed to meet up at the Motorway serviced just down the road from here for breakfast.
I was up early and off out to fahr’n fahr’n fahr’n down the autobahn about 3 miles to the service station where I waited.
And waited.
And then I had a phone call – “just pulling into the Services now – it was Tienen, wasn’t it?” as a matter of fact, it wasn’t. I was at Heverlee and so a quick thrash down the motorway brought me to Tienen and breakfast.
We had a good chat for a few hours and then I had to return to Alison’s, for she was intending to run me into the hospital, which was very nice of her and something that I appreciated a great deal.
First port of call was for a blood test. And sure enough, my blood count has gone quite down. It was 9.1 the last time I was here, but now it’s down to 7.8. That’s set a few alarm bells ringing at the hospital, make no mistake.
The doctor who saw me asked me quite a few questions and gave me a good examination, and then summoned her Professor – the kind of thing that always makes me feel better. But the news that I received deflated me rather rapidly. It seems that the Hospital here at Leuven thinks that I have a different type of lymphoma than that diagnosed by Montlucon. They didn’t understand the need for the removal of the spleen and, in agreement with the opinion of the District Nurses who have been visiting me at Liz and Terry’s, they don’t understand why I need to have these anti-coagulant injections and think that they might be doing more harm than good. The first week or so, yes. But today it’s long-beyond the bounds of necessity and I can stop immediately.
As for treatment, they propose a course of Chemotherapy. There are two types of this – a standard type that is the most common and which is recommended in 99% of cases. There is another type – about 10 times more expensive (and so it’s not reimbursed by the Belgian authorities) and 10 times more effective. And this is what they propose for me – a course of treatment that might last for as long as 6 months and they intend to start it on Monday morning. Furthermore, it has been reimbursed by my Medical Insurance in the past in other cases, and someone from the Social Services department of the hospital will be coming to see me on Monday to “help me” make the application for this treatment. Yes, not backwards at coming forwards, here at Leuven.
They aren’t sure how this is going to pan out though. I’ll be treated as an out-patient but I need to spend a few days recovering from each session. I’ve told them that I’ve nowhere to go to stay (I can’t keep on relying on other people’s generosity) so they told me that there is some guest accommodation at the hospital. The Social Services department will help me here too, to see if I qualify for a place.
And so here we are. I had my operation on 27th January and since then, nothing much has happened at Montlucon with regard to my illness. Here at Leuven, they have a decision within 9 days and propose a course of treatment starting in 4 days time.
It’s very easy to say, with hindsight, that it was the wrong decision to allow Montlucon to go ahead with the removal of the spleen, but there was a good chance that it might have worked and I was worried about any further delay. Had I known that the treatment would begin less than two weeks after my first visit, maybe I might have thought differently. And then again, Leuven has had access to all of the tests and analyses carried out by Montlucon which aided quite considerably the speed of the diagnosis. How long would I have had to have waited for all of this?
We went shopping afterwards to a Charity Shop rather on the style of a Canadian Value Village. Loads of interesting furniture, including a lovely coffee table that, when cleaned and polished, would look lovely in my little house. But all of this is a long way away.
Anyway, I’m off for the weekend. I’ll find a river somewhere and lodge myself in there for a few days to relax. I need it.
