{"id":9596,"date":"2017-08-14T20:31:19","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T20:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=9596"},"modified":"2017-08-14T20:31:19","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T20:31:19","slug":"monday-14th-august-2017-at-the-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=9596","title":{"rendered":"Monday 14th August 2017 &#8211; AT THE HOSPITAL &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; the news is not so good.<\/p>\n<p>While the blood count is up slightly at 9.6 from 9.5, something else in the body (and I&#8217;ve forgotten what it was) has plummeted by over 25% &#8211; from 39 parts to 29 parts.<\/p>\n<p>This has caused a few raised eyebrows and they wanted me to come in again to see if it might be just an errant result.<\/p>\n<p>But no chance of that! My flight to Montreal is at 15:20 and I intend to be on it &#8211; and I won&#8217;t be back until 12th October. So my appointment is on 13th whether they like it or not.<\/p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s a thing &#8211; I asked the hotel manager whether it&#8217;s cheaper to book a room over the counter or over the internet by a booking agency. To my astonishment he replied &#8220;over the internet&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>That was the last thing that I was expecting because I know how much commission these booking agencies charge. But if that&#8217;s what he wants me to do, then that&#8217;s what I will do.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being awake at about 06:00 or something, there was no chance of me moving. It took the alarm at 07:00 to shift me from my stinking pit. And after breakfast I came back here and attacked yesterday&#8217;s <em>magnum opus<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/1708\/1708063.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/1708\/1708063.jpg\" alt=\"sncb bruselles gare du midi leuven belgium aout august 2017\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\"\/><\/a>That took me up to shower time, and then a slow meander down the road to the railway station.<\/p>\n<p>And my luck was in too. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the trains to Leuven run at peculiar times &#8211; there are three all at once and then nothing for 40 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>And so no-one was more delighted than me when an Inter-City pulled in just as I arrived at the station.<br clear=\"both\"><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/1708\/1708064.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/1708\/1708064.jpg\" alt=\"sncb bruselles gare du midi leuven belgium aout august 2017\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\"\/><\/a>It was a double-decker too. Very nice, comfortable and modern, so I went off to sit upstairs.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Brain of Britain had forgotten his book and so he had to sit there and admire the scenery for the whole route.<\/p>\n<p>Not of course that he was complaining about that too much.<br clear=\"both\"><\/p>\n<p>At Leuven we had a nightmare of queueing for a new travel ticket &#8211; mine is on the verge of running out. But once it was organised it was off on the bus to the hospital and my appointment with Destiny.<\/p>\n<p>I walked back through the town, picking up some stuff for lunch tomorrow as well as a nice sorbet as a treat. I reckoned that I had earned it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/1708\/1708065.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/1708\/1708065.jpg\" alt=\"sncb leuven bruxelles gare du midi belgium aout august 2017\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\"\/><\/a>You know about the irregular running of the trains between Leuven and Brussels. But here again I was in luck.<\/p>\n<p>The train to Knokke was running late so just as I arrived on the platform, so did the train. otherwise I would have had an uncomfortable wait for the train from Welkenraedt.<\/p>\n<p>These trains are old, dirty and rattly but they are here and that&#8217;s the important bit. I was soon back here.<br clear=\"both\"><\/p>\n<p>We had another disaster for tea tonight. I&#8217;d been saving my plate of lentils for tonight but after they had taken my order and having waited for 20 minutes, they told me that &#8220;lentils were finished&#8221; even though I&#8217;d seen a plate in the cooler.<\/p>\n<p>I ended up with a bag of chips instead.<\/p>\n<p>It seems that I&#8217;m fated to have bad luck with my meals this time round. And so I&#8217;m glad that I&#8217;ve bought some emergency supplies for the plane tomorrow, to go with the crisps that Alison gave me on Sunday and which I forgot to mention.<\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style1 like-9596 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='like' data-post_id='9596' data-nonce='c58cce5dc8' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-9596 lc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style1 unlike-9596 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='9596' data-nonce='c58cce5dc8' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-9596 unlc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div> <div class='status-9596 status align-left'><\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; the news is not so good. While the blood count is up slightly at 9.6 from 9.5, something else in the body (and I&#8217;ve forgotten what it was) has plummeted by over 25% &#8211; from 39 parts to 29 parts. This has caused a few raised eyebrows and they wanted me to come in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,3,7527,4507,8338,3173,8481,3371],"tags":[5920,1673,1104,5222,199,2560,10013,8351,5911,8482,389,5918,1331,462,2380],"class_list":["post-9596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belgium","category-brussels","category-brussels-midi","category-eric-hall-2","category-gare-du-midi","category-hospital","category-hotel-midizuid","category-leuven","tag-alison-weihe","tag-belgium-2","tag-blog","tag-blood-count","tag-brussels-2","tag-eric-hall","tag-food-issues","tag-gare-du-midi","tag-hospital","tag-hotel-midi-zuid","tag-httpwww-lesguis-com","tag-leuven","tag-montreal-2","tag-shower","tag-sncb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9596","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=9596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9597,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9596\/revisions\/9597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}