Monday, what a fuck up today was. My partner and drive to the local hospital so that my partner can attend the endoscopy department for a procedure having spent all of last night drinking copious litres of pre procedure preparation, which tasted foul. I pop her through the door at 9 o’clock and leave her as no “others” are allowed in and go for breakfast in the Cosy Café around the corner, while the snow falls. I am on my third coffee at about 12 o’clock when my partner rings me to tell me that the hospital is refusing to do the procedure because the appointment is not six weeks from the the referral and that there is therefore a clinical risk that the doctor is not prepared to take. So in essence the hospital has made an inappropriate appointment and my partner has a gut full of pre-med crap that she need not have. I’m furious but reasonable, my partner is understandably upset having had all the anxiety as well while preparing for the appointment. Another appointment is pencilled in for the the 11th of January so that will be with us over Christmas. I drive us home, neither of us saying anything.
We get home and my partner eats and drinks some normal food while she recovers. I spend time curating my poetry and trying to decide which, if any poem I am going to take to the Poetry Stanza on Saturday. We drift through the afternoon doing nothing other than tinkering around the edges of living until its time for me to walk down to the GPs to get my twenty eight day injection. Its a locum nurse and its the end of the day, so empathy and care have run a bit thin. The injection is into the right side of my gut today, which is the more sensitive side, not to mention the most “side effect bumpy side”. The result is a fast injection and a quick exit. I go home and stare at the walls, eat soup, and watch the Strictly results and Strike, by which time my injection site is letting me know it is there. In an act of domestic heroism I clear the kitchen, put Daisy dishwasher on and bring the car onto the drive from the road. I add paracetamol to my night meds and go to bed without doing the blog.
Tuesday. I wake at about 9:30 with a very sore gut where my injection is sitting like a hens egg in my gut. I’m not impressed and lay in bed checking my social media and messages. Nothing of import on social media and no messages so it was a quick life admin session. I get up and my partner brings me a coffee as I dress, one has to make the effort. I fix breakfast, empty Daisy dishwasher and clear the kitchen and once again try to select a poem for Saturdays Stanza meeting. In the end I select the following:
ALIEN AT HOME So once again it is hotel time, sitting alone to eat and drink, I inevitably write. Another to add to my hotel collection the jottings of an itinerant clinician. This time there is no observation. Perception is low, Caring even less. It’s a world of fugue, the downward eyes the slumped back and slow foot drag. Joy is at a premium, too high for most as they scrape the barrel, come up empty and try again. When you are in the jam jar someone else needs to read the label, until then it’s more of the same. The same gets you the same until hope is sucked dry and someone has to be blamed. Bloody Albanians!!
So as you can see I was in a cheery mood when I selected the above to be my public look on Saturday. To top it all we are supposed to take finger foods and non-alcoholic drinks. Outside in the real world the old plastic and metal bus stop outside our drive has been demolished along with its sibling across the way. They are supposed to be being replaced with elegant wooden shelters. My partner and suspect they might burn quite well and not last long in these cold days. At the very least out expectation is that within the first twenty four hours some enterprising Banksy will have either chiselled or painted a cock and balls on it. That’s the exuberance of youth for you. We wait to see if our jaded view of the community is accurate or not. It does mean that we will have to go and look at the new shelter regularly, which in itself it probably not normal behaviour, but I like to think its an extension of the neighbourhood watch. By noon I am feeling a little more human and draft the blog although still feeling a bit adrift and then something lovely happens. The deliver man delivers a a small bendy parcel and I immediately feel excited and uplifted. A friend has sent me a Christmas book and its a corker, I am immediately happy and know what I am going to be reading in the immediate future. It is Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett, a discworld novel, suddenly the world is a brighter place.
Of course I shall watch the World Cup semi final tonight and the final episode of Strike but Wintersmith will fill the rest of my time, apart from the training session on the rower that I must do this afternoon. These Rocket days are hard when its this cold but this is all part of the medicine and its never wasted effort. My partner returns form the local shop where she hears the Christmas banter. Apparently the most popular response to “what are you doing for Christmas?” is “I’m having my heating on all day”. Says it all really, good old British humour, that’s the spirit. Set the controls to the heart of the sun! I send a book to a friend inspired by my own gift and then I make it to the garage to train. 3 degrees and feeling like crap post injection, these are the hard yard. I enter my zombie like football watching state for the evening, eat tea and survive till night meds and bed.
