When I got off the Medilink bus I was tapped on the shoulder by one of the trainee nurses who was on the ward when I was in hospital. He is a mature student. A VERY mature student having just finished his first year at the age of 46. He is genuinely pleased that I am up and about and I tell him that I am making progress, albeit very slowly.
My G.P. is fifty minutes late which must be a record even by her standards. One day she was very late and apologised profusely for the delay and I told her it meant that she was doing her job properly and not just allowing ten minutes per patient so I must take some of the blame.
It’s straight on the weighbridge before we start my diabetic review. She is well impressed with the four and a half stones I have lost. “It’s amazing what a bit of bowel surgery can do!” I tell her.
Then we go through my bloods – all brilliant because of my weight loss but my blood sugar is too well controlled and I have got to halve my diabetes medication. My liver and kidneys were functioning well – the blood test shows over sixty different indicators but they didn’t take a haemoglobin blood count so I have got to have another blood test. At least it’s not a fasting one! She says I look pale and a friend of mine is a retired district nurse always says I look “pale and interesting.”
Then she asks if I am drinking and I tell her that I am up to four pints of Murphy’s or sometimes a bottle of Merlot twice a week. She asks what effect it has on my stoma and I tell her that my stoma just does as it likes. Nothing for days and then woosh! and away we go.
So we move on. I tell her that my back pain is now hampering my recovery and we discuss the best way forward. She has given me some Tramadol to see if things are any better. The pain in my bum still becomes chronic when I sit too long as does my back. I have saved the piece de resistance until last. The wrong mole taken off my face. She is horrified and makes a note to contact the surgeon. My blood pressure is also excellent – another side effect of weight loss. I must be her patient of the week and I leave feeling quite smug. All I need now is get rid of the back pain and bum pain and get the oozing from my groin stopped and my wound cleared up and I will be pristine. Oh and Irene says I am going deaf! Whoops! Forgot the cataract in my left eye and the sleep apnoea that the Chinese doctor insisted I had during my pre-op check up. It’s a good job my motto is “eighteen ‘til I die!” or I might be feeling quite old.
I had salad for dinner last night and then went out and had four pints of Murphy’s and I had to get up in the night and change my bag which was threatening to be pushed off and I haven’t felt my usual sparkling self today.
As I have told you, Monday night and I usually take Irene and her little friend Kath to the club and then fetch them back again at closing time. I say little because Kath is well over eighty years of age and is well under five feet in height. In spite of her advancing years she lives s full and active life and really enjoys her Monday night couple of pints and an end of night whisky.
It was a bitterly cold night when I went out to warm up the car prior to taking them and it wouldn’t start. The battery was flat so they phoned for a taxi and still had a night out. It was bitterly cold week so I didn’t want to do a test on my battery and charging system so I decided to buy a portable power pack so I can keep using it because my car is automatic and can’t be bump started although you are now not supposed to bump start cars with catalytic converters as petrol fumes can build up in the cat and can explode. Motoring was never so exciting and dangerous in my day!
I decide to get the bus to Nottingham to go to Argoose – quite an adventure for me on my own although I have been to hospital using the Medilink bus on my own. My bum is hurting on the relatively hard bus seats and I have quite a job walking to the shops but mission accomplished and I return triumphant with my jump start which needs thirty hours charging before use.
Fast forward to Saturday morning and I jump start my car and decide to go to the butcher’s but I am taking the car along the A52 dual carriageway to charge the battery up but when I reached the Gamston roundabout the car stopped dead. Traffic is coming thick and fast. Some helpful souls even toot their horn in long blasts to make me feel better! It was a good job there wasn’t a pile of bricks about or there might have been a few smashed windscreens.
Finally I get out of the car in the pouring rain and re-apply the jump start. In spite of thirty hours charging. I haven’t got my mobile phone. The car is in a dangerous position. The hazards don’t work because the battery is flat. Rain is persisting down. Three police cars drive by. One officer slows down and shakes his head. I stand scratching mine for about ten minutes listening to the everso helful considerate drivers who insist on blasting their horns as they drive by and then decide to walk to the bus stop and get a bus home so I can get some help. I have to cross three dual carriageways to get to the bus stop. No easy task when your top walking speed is an ungainly waddle.
The bus to Cotgrave is every twenty minutes. Fifty minutes later and two buses come together. Neither can decide which one is going to pick me up so they both sail past. I wish a plague of locusts on the drivers and their families. Five minutes later and another bus arrives. They have been stuck in traffic the driver explains. As we drive past my car the bus driver comments that it is a stupid place to park! I make no response.
Tim turns up and we retrieve my car. Amazingly it is still there in one piece in spite of the horn happy motorists. It turns out that a cell in the battery had collapsed. A new battery and £100 lighter put it right. The butcher is now closed which means a trip to Morrison’s. Who says life is dull?
