If only the purchase of an
elegant new laptop computer guaranteed the production of a new and elegant
writing style! Alas! How ever much one lavishes on technology, the
writing still demands that the brain does the majority of the work.
So, with far, far too much
expense under my fingertips, how will I justify the splurge of money that I
cannot afford on technology that I do not really understand through the words
that you are reading now?
Perhaps I can give you some sense
of the breadth of the life that I live by letting you know that my new computer
(Dell XPS 13 9370) was not the only purchase that I have realised (because I
actually paid for the thing some time ago but I’ve only just got it in my hot
little hands) today. Oh no, not by a
long chalk. The other purchase I am
wearing or perhaps displaying might be a better word.
Today started well with my waking
up at a reasonable hour so that I got to the swimming pool bright and early and
completed my regulation 1,500 meters in time enough for me to cycle home from
the pool, have a well-deserved cup of tea and then prepare myself for my 3 months
check up at the local hospital.
Parking in the hospital car park
was a true nightmare. As my appointment
was for 12.10 everyone in the world had already parked there and there were not
spaces to be hand, not even for ready money.
So, I began my lonely round of circling the parked cars in the hope that
somebody, anybody, would suddenly appear and produce a space. Perhaps lonely is not the right word as there
were a number of us circling, like lazy Indians waiting for a weak spot in the
wagon train to appear. No weak spots
did appear. False hopes, yes. A space would appear to appear and, as you
eagerly made your way towards it, it rapidly became apparent that the space was
illusory, the left-over space from a badly parked car overstepping the line and
ruining two other spaces.
I eventually found a space into
which the car could fit, but I couldn’t get out. At the time the idea of crawling through the
hatchback did not occur to me so I moved on.
The more I drove the more spaces did not appear until I was driven (so
to speak) to return to the thin space and see if there was any way in which I
could make it work.
By dint of
driving&reversing&driving&reversing for few minutes I managed to
create a space on the passenger side which looked doable. I crawled over and eventually out. I have to admit that I would not have been
able to insinuate my way out a few months earlier, but the diet of low fat, no
salt, little taste eating that I have endured did mean that my stockily svelte
figure sashayed thought the gap with minimal (but significant) pain!
The hospital itself was packed:
at least the bit that I was in was.
There was no seating available for patients in the area of the
consulting rooms and I had to take a spare seat by the large windows in the
corridor. I was, to put it mildly,
depressed at the number of people waiting to be seen and I knew from past
experience that such numbers meant a long wait.
I kept my eye on the door to
consulting room 36 and was further depressed to see no movement whatsoever: nothing! From other rooms people emerged, some in
white coats, called out names, and indicated an order in which people were
going to be seen. From room 36, nothing. I had arrived in good time and it appeared
that I would have been able to waltz in hours later and still not miss my
place.
Three minutes before my scheduled
appointment, a doctor and a nurse suddenly appeared and went into room 36. A minute later the nurse reappeared and said
those magic words, “Stephen Morgan?” and I was up like a long dog and into the
room before anyone else with those unlikely first names took my place.
The main aim of my visit (at
least for me) was to get the doctor to change my twice daily injections for a
simpler pill. If possible. Please.
I had qualified success. The doctor agreed that a pill would be better
for me as my stomach (the site of 180 injections so far and counting) looks
more like a fleshy war zone, with lumps, bumps and bruises, than a repository
of fat and salt free comestibles.
Tomorrow I have to return to the hospital and have a series of blood
tests to check the progress of the blood clots or rather their dispersal that
are the cause of all my problems, and, depending on the results of those tests
I will be able to stop sticking myself and allow my much-abused stomach to get
its own back and dissolve a pill instead.
All of this sounds like good
news, but one aspect of the meeting has had a colourful consequence. For the first couple of weeks after I had
been discharged from hospital I had to wear a pair of thoroughly unflattering
pressure stockings. It took the two of
us to get the damn things on and I could not wait for the two weeks to go to
get rid of them. To my undisguised
horror, the doctor that I saw today told me to resume their use. The only concession was that I needed to wear
only one and it could be just up to the knee rather than thigh length.
I am now the proud possessor of a
bright blue (still unflattering) tight blue stocking. Which I have to wear. Until when?
I sincerely hope not long.
Meanwhile, life goes on. Although my appointment tomorrow is for 9 am
I would not be unhappy for it to drag on for hours. The simple reason is that tomorrow is also my
Spanish lesson day and in our last lesson we had a surprise test and I have
absolutely no desire to find out exactly how I have done. Because I know exactly how I have done!
It appears that I am, after all, capable of shame!
