…is that my blood count has gone down, and rather dramatically too. 9.7 last month, and this month it’s 9.3.

That’s rather depressing as far as I am concerned, especially as this last couple of days I’ve been feeling rather more sprightly and a little (just a little) of the old me has come back.

The worse news is that this medication that they are giving me – it’s not available in North America. That means that any plans that I had for an extended voyage into the unknown will now have to be shelved and that’s a dreadful disappointment.

Now I shall have to think of a Plan B now. I’m sure that I can rustle up something from somewhere.

Last night was a rather bad night. I didn’t end up going to bed until late, and then I couldn’t settle. What made things worse was that I awoke at 04:15 and couldn’t go back to sleep. In fact I was up and about working before the alarm went off and that’s something quite rare for these days, isn’t it?

It was an early day at the hospital so after the medication, the breakfast, a shower and a clothes-wash I hit the streets.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m frequently stumbling across camera teams taking photos of people, places and objects in the streets, and I delight in taking photos of them taking photos of other people.

Today, though, I’m really in luck.

It’s not a camera crew in the traditional manner of things, but it’s actually a film crew. I’m not sure what it was they were doing though, or why they were doing it.

It was an extremely pleasant walk through the early morning sunshine too up to the hospital.

Walking down the Brusselsestraat I noticed that the sun was shining brightly on the statue of Father Damiaan at the back of the Sint Jakobs Kapelle.

Father Damiaan is something of a religious icon in Belgium. He was a Belgian priest who devoted his life to treating leprosy sufferers in Hawaii ane eventually died of the disease.

And do you remember the block of flats in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan that we saw them stripping out a couple of months ago?

As I was somewhat in advance, I stopped to take a photo of it today.

They are cracking on with the stripping, and it looks ro me as if they are going to be refitting it. I’ll have to look more closely at it in a couple of months to see where they are at.

At the hospital it didn’t take them long to couple me up to the pipes, tubes and bottles but it took longer than expected all told because for some reasons the nurses wouldn’t come when I summoned them to increase the dose, and also when I summoned them to disconnect me when it had finished later on in the afternoon.

They obviously know about me right now.

A couple of people have mentioned to me the possibility of a selenium deficiency. I had it checked last month and they gave me the results. It should be in a range between 5.0 and 15.0 and I was registering 5.7. Pretty low, but not low enough for them to worry about.

Most of the afternoon in my comfortable chair was spent in a semi-conscious doze as the effects of the last couple of days caught up with me.

After they threw me out I headed for home, passing by the Hospital Sint Pieters.

While they might be planning to knock down the main building (the one on the left), they have been renovating one or two of the older ones on the site and in the past we’ve seen a few pics of the work.

It’s definitely all taking shape right now and I don’t suppose that it will be long before the protective fence is taken away.

While I was out on my travels I called by the Delhaize for a pile of shopping for the next couple of days.

Back here I couldn’t summon up the force to do anything. I crashed out on the sofa for a while. Struggling up the hill with a bag of heavy shopping takes it out of me, that’s for sure.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with potatoes and vegetables, followed by a banana and soya ice cream. That was extremely delicious. And then I had a good walk around outside for a while.

It’s still quite early but nevertheless I’m off to bed. I’ll watch a film I suppose, which means that I’ll drop off to sleep in the middle of it as usual. It works every time.

And then tomorrow I’ll have to think of a Plan B.