I thought I was OK, that I had got off Scot Free. But no, something is lurking on my xrays that may or may not be old scars.
Haven't been feeling too good lately.
CT scan yesterday so hopefully I can give whatever it is a name-and start to see it off.
Just to let you know why I've been quiet.
Monday, 31 October 2011
Sunday, 16 October 2011
A SNAPSHOT.
I have been having flashes of a an image, rather like some cheesy 'whodunnit' where the heroine with repressed memories sees fragmented scenes of a faceless man ...a tattooed arm...a shoe crunching on broken glass, you get the picture. Usually it is the genre of film where she goes up into the attic of the very old unlit house during a violent thunderstorm and we know the assailant is there, waiting and playing very creepy music to ease her way up the stairs.
My flashbacks are thankfully totally benign. They are of me, on a bicycle aged 16 1/2 on a lovely summer's day in 1950 ; visions brought on, I have no doubt, by the book I am reading at the moment by Frank McCourt 'Tis, the sequel to his masterpiece Angela's Ashes. The time line is familiar and his story of the pale sore-eyed semi-literate fighting against all odds to study, his longing to belong, to be able to discuss Dostoevsky with other students, to know how to talk to girls/anyone in authority shamed as he is by bad teeth and eyes like 'piss holes in the snow' -resonates with me.
So there I am riding the deserted Sunday lunchtime streets of The Bay; I know where I have been and where I am going.
I have just come from the house of a couple who are close to my current boyfriend Hugh. Hugh is an orphan and he is a fairground boxer. The Hudsons live in a fine detached house...a Grange or a Lodge with out- buildings, a gravel drive and a paddock behind the house. Mr. Hudson has two artificial legs...Mrs Hudson is the image of Googie Withers. They are superior beings. They have a library in their house, a small room of crammed shelving, a dark wood table and two leather chairs. He asks what would I like to drink and I catch Hugh's eye, he looks as non-plussed as I. I ask for a Port and Lemon because it is the only drink I have heard of...I do not know what Port is but with the lemon in there it should be drinkable. He serves it to me in a cocktail glass with a piece of fruit I do not recognise stuck to the rim. I don't know if I must eat the fruit before or after taking the drink. or must I not eat the fruit at all. Hugh is drinking water and the Hudson's something clear containing something on a stick but I watch them anyway. She takes the stick out of her drink and nibbles at the green berry, while he holds the stick out of the way while draining the drink, then he puts the berry into his mouth. No help to me. I sip my drink, it is delicious and the smell of the fruit begs me to put it in my mouth. It is pineapple though I do not know that, I just know that it is delicious and juicy and I want more. I drain my glass and eat the fruit. I am offered another and because I have no knowledge of how to behave I accept.
These are pre-lunch drinks; the Hudsons and Hugh are going on somewhere... sounds very exotic to me. I say goodbye and ride my bicycle very fast all the way home. I think that the Hudsons thought I was unsuitable for Hugh...He did have the most elegant manners for all that he was a Fairground boxer. Perhaps they adopted him. The sun was warm on my legs and the drink had worn off by the time I reached home. I never said a word to mum.
My flashbacks are thankfully totally benign. They are of me, on a bicycle aged 16 1/2 on a lovely summer's day in 1950 ; visions brought on, I have no doubt, by the book I am reading at the moment by Frank McCourt 'Tis, the sequel to his masterpiece Angela's Ashes. The time line is familiar and his story of the pale sore-eyed semi-literate fighting against all odds to study, his longing to belong, to be able to discuss Dostoevsky with other students, to know how to talk to girls/anyone in authority shamed as he is by bad teeth and eyes like 'piss holes in the snow' -resonates with me.
So there I am riding the deserted Sunday lunchtime streets of The Bay; I know where I have been and where I am going.
I have just come from the house of a couple who are close to my current boyfriend Hugh. Hugh is an orphan and he is a fairground boxer. The Hudsons live in a fine detached house...a Grange or a Lodge with out- buildings, a gravel drive and a paddock behind the house. Mr. Hudson has two artificial legs...Mrs Hudson is the image of Googie Withers. They are superior beings. They have a library in their house, a small room of crammed shelving, a dark wood table and two leather chairs. He asks what would I like to drink and I catch Hugh's eye, he looks as non-plussed as I. I ask for a Port and Lemon because it is the only drink I have heard of...I do not know what Port is but with the lemon in there it should be drinkable. He serves it to me in a cocktail glass with a piece of fruit I do not recognise stuck to the rim. I don't know if I must eat the fruit before or after taking the drink. or must I not eat the fruit at all. Hugh is drinking water and the Hudson's something clear containing something on a stick but I watch them anyway. She takes the stick out of her drink and nibbles at the green berry, while he holds the stick out of the way while draining the drink, then he puts the berry into his mouth. No help to me. I sip my drink, it is delicious and the smell of the fruit begs me to put it in my mouth. It is pineapple though I do not know that, I just know that it is delicious and juicy and I want more. I drain my glass and eat the fruit. I am offered another and because I have no knowledge of how to behave I accept.
These are pre-lunch drinks; the Hudsons and Hugh are going on somewhere... sounds very exotic to me. I say goodbye and ride my bicycle very fast all the way home. I think that the Hudsons thought I was unsuitable for Hugh...He did have the most elegant manners for all that he was a Fairground boxer. Perhaps they adopted him. The sun was warm on my legs and the drink had worn off by the time I reached home. I never said a word to mum.
Sunday, 9 October 2011
LAST WORDS ON THE SUBJECT: PROMISE
SATURDAY : JP is downstairs with an English friend watching France-England in the World cup. England are getting clobbered and [bless him] JP's usual ecstatic yells for French victory are subdued- I even heard him tell the chap- 'Not to worry-Eengland always comes back in ze second 'alf.'
He has been up since six...walking a very startled but grateful dog, trying his best not to make a noise. I have not let him know that I have been awake since five.
Yesterday Dr. D. came for a home visit. Dear Dr. D.
How to describe him without him appearing to be in some way too odd? If you did not know him and were asked to give him a profession you would answer, an aesthete...theologian perhaps...a Quantum Physicist with bad social skills...very slightly autistic... not too great at the tactile business of Doctoring...very shy and extremely funny in a throwaway mumble aimed at his desk blotter. Wears tweed summer and winter. He has never let me down, misdiagnosed or rushed me when in full-self-diagnostic flow.
He was on holiday when I needed him last week and his Locum gave me all of four minutes, and a prescription for antibiotics. I faithfully took them, they made me drowsy, killed what small appetite I had, did nothing for the cough which combined with awful intercostal pain made breathing a challenge.
Dr.D did a number of things which did not involve touching, though he did listen to my chest and to me, that is his forte...he knows what to take on board and what to discard. He prescribed a limited dose of Steroids.
GERONIMO!
The man's a genius. I sent JP next door to fill the script and took the first one that day. Slept like a baby that night so that on Saturday morning I leapt out of bed, took in a lung full of air and felt no pain.
I cleaned the cat's Poo-palace and surrounding area. Vacuumed and dusted, showered, blow dried my hair, put on some slap and presented myself downstairs all before breakfast...and still felt capable of doing more.
SUNDAY: I'm on my third day of these wonderful recuperative s, four more to go and I dread to think how I shall manage without them-why I do believe they are having an effect on my brain power.
But then again... the smart bugger has probably given me placebo's - aware [as he is] of my utter belief in his powers and having diagnosed this last illness as 'all in the mind'.
Whatever...it has worked.
PS: 14th smokeless day.
He has been up since six...walking a very startled but grateful dog, trying his best not to make a noise. I have not let him know that I have been awake since five.
Yesterday Dr. D. came for a home visit. Dear Dr. D.
How to describe him without him appearing to be in some way too odd? If you did not know him and were asked to give him a profession you would answer, an aesthete...theologian perhaps...a Quantum Physicist with bad social skills...very slightly autistic... not too great at the tactile business of Doctoring...very shy and extremely funny in a throwaway mumble aimed at his desk blotter. Wears tweed summer and winter. He has never let me down, misdiagnosed or rushed me when in full-self-diagnostic flow.
He was on holiday when I needed him last week and his Locum gave me all of four minutes, and a prescription for antibiotics. I faithfully took them, they made me drowsy, killed what small appetite I had, did nothing for the cough which combined with awful intercostal pain made breathing a challenge.
Dr.D did a number of things which did not involve touching, though he did listen to my chest and to me, that is his forte...he knows what to take on board and what to discard. He prescribed a limited dose of Steroids.
GERONIMO!
The man's a genius. I sent JP next door to fill the script and took the first one that day. Slept like a baby that night so that on Saturday morning I leapt out of bed, took in a lung full of air and felt no pain.
I cleaned the cat's Poo-palace and surrounding area. Vacuumed and dusted, showered, blow dried my hair, put on some slap and presented myself downstairs all before breakfast...and still felt capable of doing more.
SUNDAY: I'm on my third day of these wonderful recuperative s, four more to go and I dread to think how I shall manage without them-why I do believe they are having an effect on my brain power.
But then again... the smart bugger has probably given me placebo's - aware [as he is] of my utter belief in his powers and having diagnosed this last illness as 'all in the mind'.
Whatever...it has worked.
PS: 14th smokeless day.
Sunday, 2 October 2011
What's up Doc?
100 words: an exercise encouraged by Mr London Street.
I'm early, he’s late. Forty minutes; enough time to imagine a thousand ways to die.
The duty Doctor- he’s new to me, but he knows me from the screen.
‘What seems to be the trouble?’ I hate that question with the emphasis on ‘seems’...as if we love the surgery so much with it’s uncomfortable red leather seating and ‘whoop on a loop’ music we will make up sickness just to be here.
I don’t lie; I tell him I felt ill and chesty before I stopped smoking.
He listened; ‘breathe’ and here ‘breathe’ then ‘again’.
‘A bad chest infection.’
Reprieved!
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