{"id":20780,"date":"2026-01-13T22:07:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T22:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=20780"},"modified":"2026-01-13T22:07:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T22:07:57","slug":"tuesday-13th-january-2026-i-dont-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=20780","title":{"rendered":"
Tuesday 13th January 2026 – I DON’T KNOW … <\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"

… why they send me on these wild goose chases halfway around the country and back so that some specialist in some hospital somewhere can tell me exactly what I already know and have known for several months.<\/p>\n

As if I don’t have enough to do with my time.<\/p>\n

And especially if it means crawling out of bed at some ridiculous time like 05:00.<\/p>\n

Yes! 05:00! So last night I went without any food for tea, dashed through my notes, which were on-line at 20:27 precisely, the earliest time … "and by a long way too" – ed<\/em> … that they have ever so been. And by the time that I finally made it into bed, it was just coming up to 21:00.<\/p>\n

And when was the last time that I’d been in bed that early when I’ve not been feeling unwell?<\/p>\n

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed<\/em> … it’s an absolute waste of time going to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning. So there I was, tossing and turning in bed, trying desperately to go back to sleep at just before 02:00.<\/p>\n

That was a waste of time too, and I lay there, semi-comatose, until the alarm went off at 05:00 when I hauled myself out of bed and staggered off into the bathroom to make myself look pretty.<\/p>\n

And that was also a waste of time.<\/p>\n

The taxi came a few minutes early and luckily, it was one of my favourite drivers, the one who “presses on” like an old-school taxi driver and always has plenty to say for herself. She helped me finish my packing and then we set off.<\/p>\n

So far, I’d been without food for almost twenty-four hours and without drink for about fifteen hours. I work on the principle of “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out during the journey” \u2014 after all, four hours or so in a taxi is a long time. Nevertheless, I packed a couple of slices of my “energy flapjack” and a small bottle of water in case I have a diabetic crisis along the way.<\/p>\n

We had a good run and a good chat all the way as far as Mantes-La-Jolie, in between Rouen and Paris, and that was where we hit the traffic and the farmers’ demonstrations. A wrong turn on the prif<\/em> led us out on the autoroute towards Rungis and Orly further complicated affairs, and what was looking at one stage like an easy 09:45 arrival for my 10:30 appointment turned out to be a panic-stricken 11:25.<\/p>\n

Having to find me a wheelchair (it’s a different building so I didn’t know where the doctor was and how far I’d have to walk, and we were already hours late) and having to understand the unnecessarily complicated system of lifts didn’t help matters.<\/p>\n

While we were stuck in traffic, I’d telephoned the doctor to say that we’d be late, so he let in several patients ahead of me, which was quite natural. Consequently, it was 12:25 when I was finally seen.<\/p>\n

He poked and prodded me, put all these needles into my muscles and passed an electrical current through them to test my nerve reactions, and then examined the results.<\/p>\n

Before he began to test me, he asked me how I was feeling and whether there was any sign of improvement. I told him that I was feeling lousy as usual and I was sure that there was a definite deterioration since my examination last January.<\/p>\n

His conclusion was "I’m very sorry to say that there is no improvement, and you are right about the deterioration."<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

As I said just now, I could have told him that without having to go all the way to Paris. What a waste of a day!<\/p>\n

While I was there, I asked him about the stabbing pain in my foot. He told me that as my nervous system is slowly breaking down, things like this are to be expected and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. He actually put it into a more scientific explanation, but that was the gist of it.<\/p>\n

My chauffeur was waiting for me when I came out, and after I’d been to warm my feet, we headed to the car. Getting out of the wheelchair was exciting, but in the end I managed it and we headed for home.<\/p>\n

On the way back, I fell asleep twice, which is no surprise considering my bad night, and we arrived home to disappointing weather. In Paris, it had been bright sunshine, beautiful clear blue skies and quite warm for the time of year. Here in Granville, it was overcast, raining, windy and cold. At least we’d had no hold-ups on the road to delay us.<\/p>\n

My faithful cleaner was waiting to help me into the apartment and instead of a disgusting drink, I had a caffeine-packed energy drink. And I needed it too after over twenty-four hours of nothing to drink.<\/p>\n

Having disposed of that, I came in here to listen to the dictaphone notes. I was actually surprised that there were some.<\/p>\n

\n I can only remember fragments of this dream but there was something about being at home. We were in Vine Tree Avenue and there was something about the weather, but I can’t remember what. Then, my mother came into the living room to find out what we’d been doing. In this little box, I had a very, very small puppy. My mother asked about it and I replied that I’d found it somewhere. She had a look at it, and she agreed that it was really small, and because of its small size, we could keep it. There was much more to it than this, but I can’t remember anything once I awoke.\n<\/div>\n

What interrupted my reverie, as I found out later on, was that in reaching for the dictaphone, I dropped the battery charger and all of the spare batteries onto the floor from off the little table behind the bedhead I shall have to pick that up in due course. But me with a puppy? Not that that’s ever likely to happen. Dogs and I just don’t get on. Give me a cat or two … "or three or four" – ed<\/em> … any day.<\/p>\n

Tea was the other half of Sunday’s pizza, which I wolfed down because there was football on the television, Y Barri v Llanelli. Y Barri scored a goal after two minutes but surprisingly, Llanelli, well-adrift at the foot of the table, managed to equalise.<\/p>\n

It was only delaying the inevitable though, as Y Barri scored four more before the hour was up. You could see than Llanelli had effectively abandoned the game after that because their heads went down and they lost interest in chasing the ball, but Y Barri, once more, refused to turn the screw and played possession football for most of the rest of the game instead of going for the jugular. <\/p>\n

That was disappointing.<\/p>\n

And so, with aching foot and totally exhausted, I’m off to bed.
\ngranville
\nBut before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my trip to Paris and the Neurology department … "well, one of us has" – ed<\/em> … the doctor told me "there’s some good news and some bad news#34;<\/em><\/strong>
\n"What’s the bad news?"<\/em><\/strong> I asked.
\n"The bad news is that you are going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life"<\/em><\/strong>
\n"And what’s the good news?"<\/em><\/strong>
\n"I can get you a fair price for your crutches."<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
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… why they send me on these wild goose chases halfway around the country and back so that some specialist in some hospital somewhere can tell me exactly what I already know and have known for several months. As if I don’t have enough to do with my time. And especially if it means crawling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1710,12054,44,4507,1616,8571,3173,15483,16250,1308],"tags":[4788,829,5577,1302,5180,212,1712,2560,5287,5565,8581,5911,15484,1217,1118,1311,1029,2547,5164],"class_list":["post-20780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cleaner","category-doctor","category-dream","category-eric-hall-2","category-france","category-granville","category-hospital","category-hospital-pitie-salpetriere","category-n6","category-paris","tag-bad-night","tag-barry-town","tag-cleaner","tag-crash-out","tag-doctor","tag-dream","tag-early-night","tag-eric-hall","tag-football","tag-france","tag-granville","tag-hospital","tag-hospital-pitie-salpetriere","tag-jd-cymru-premier-league","tag-llanelli-fc","tag-paris-2","tag-taxi","tag-traffic-jam","tag-vegan-pizza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20781,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20780\/revisions\/20781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}