My
daily cup of Earl Grey and my morning injection over, I have the rest of the
day to consider and plan.
I
have found that, much like my time in hospital, meals now occupy much of my
thought and structure my day. Toni is
discovering new skills as he produces the low fat and salt-free meals that I am
supposed to eat, and I have to say that he is showing surprising aptitude in
producing tasty food that I wolf down with alacrity.
Although
I am eating healthily, my enforced lack of exercise does not allow my body to
take full advantage of the calorie denial that it is going through. I am hoping that, after another week, my
ability to go for short walks will add at least some exercise to my sedentary
existence at the moment and encourage my weight loss.
Perhaps
the most significant event today will be A Visit By The Doctor. The capitalisation is essential in this day
and age when such a thing is not exactly the norm. I seem to remember when a child and going
through the usual round of illnesses that a doctor’s visit was a sort of
physical affirmation of the medical rites of passage as measles and mumps and
the like were ticked off the list!
I
have made a list of questions for the doctor.
This approach is a direct result of my mother’s experience when she was
ill. She found that the Bedside Manner
that some doctors had precluded significant questions and at the end of her
time with them, she was able to recollect later that important points had not
been covered. Not one to suffer fools
gladly (especially when she had been hoodwinked by technique) my mother wrote
out what she wanted to know before hand and doggedly stuck to her points
(rather than the doctor’s waffle) and sometimes cut through pleasantries to ask
the next question!
One head
teacher in my experience had the ‘deflection through mutual intellectual
conversation’ down to a T, and I recall leaving his office with a smile of
satisfaction on my face, but no extra money in the Faculty. It’s a good trick if you can master it.
Anyway,
thrombosis, embolism and dickey heart are not elements that are made better by
‘a smile of satisfaction’ but rather by concrete changes in attitude and life
style. I need to know exactly what I
need to do to get back to where I was.
And indeed if it is possible to get there. I need hard facts or clear details about what
has happened to me and how I can change or work with what is going on with my
body.
It
is easy to feel positive because mine is a no obvious pain condition, but that
in itself, is something that can be a false positive. After the horror stories related to me by the
doctor in the hospital of the fatal results of not following the guidelines for
recuperation, I am satisfactorily unsettled.
I now need to know how to put that unease to good use so that I can
progress to . . . to wherever I am reasonably able to go! With Toni’s eagle eye watching for any
tea-related backsliding, I have the incentive to extend this period of
abstinence from my usual caffeine and fat related diet and make a steady
improvement. We shall see.
My
poetry progresses slowly and haltingly.
Perhaps one of the reason for this is that, since I have returned from
hospital, I have not been writing in my notebook each day. My notebook is for ‘ideas’ that can be worked
on later. Usually I write in this after
my swim and while I am having my cup of tea in the leisure centre café. The ‘notes’ that I make are usually of a
truly banal nature concerning the weather or some trivial details of my daily
life, but the point of always keeping a notebook is that sometimes these
quotidian remarks develop into something more significant, or, almost in spite
of myself, I find a phrase or a sentence that prompts some other writing.
Another
element, just at important as the creative, in my notebook is as a jolt or
reminder of action that needs to be taken.
Sometimes I have gone as far as to write a signed and dated note to
myself, agreeing (with myself) to get something done by a particular date! Having written it down in a book, it is a
constant reminder of those things that, in my case I have not done (and there
is no health in me!) – ah, the cadences of the Book of Common Prayer are never
too far from my way of expression! And
generally speaking they work, my little aide memoires. Because when you really want to do what you
have not done, all it takes is the slightest hint to actually get it started!
The
doctor has called and my conversation with him was both better and worse than I
expected.
He
said that I can re-join the normal life of my fellow humans at the end of this
week, when short walks and drives will be acceptable and I will be able to get
out of the house for the first time.
Well, that’s not strictly true as the doctor arrived when Toni was scouring
pharmacies to find more of the Clexana injections that I take. Apparently these are in short supply, though
god knows why as they seem to be the bog standard treatment for thinning the
blood to treat thrombosis and embolism.
Anyway,
the doctor said that they don’t really know why the thrombosis in my right leg
formed and they were still studying the blood tests to see if there is anything
that might give a clue. They will also
be checking my heart after the extra work that it had to do to cope with the
thrombosis as that might be damaged as well.
The course of injections I am taking will last for six or twelve months,
maybe longer. Although there is a chance
that I will fully recover, that chance is qualified by what may be found out
further. It may be that the damage to
heart and lungs is permanent, but that is taking the most pessimistic
view. Which I, resoundingly, refuse to
accept. At least until further evidence
to the contrary is shown.
I
also asked about tea. When I asked the
doctor looked at me quizzically and said that I could drink tea. I then pressed him by asking how many cups of
tea I could drink. To which his response
was, “What sort of question is that?” to which I replied, “Yours is one only a
foreigner would ask!” At least he
laughed and said, “I’m not going to worry about a cup of dirty water!” Dirty water!
Only a lesser breed without the law would refer to Earl Grey as dirty
water!
So,
although I am going to be able to do the simple things in life a little earlier
than I expected, the long-term problems are still to be discovered. For example, when I asked about my present
low far/no salt diet and how long it would last, the reply was, “For ever!” Ah well!
My
next doctor’s appointment is in three weeks time and then in March I have two
tests back in the hospital to see what progress, if any, has been made.
At
least I will be able to drive myself there!
I hope!
