Returning Briefly.

The complete absence of blog posts for what seems like a very long time has been consequent upon three factors:

1. The development of a persistent state of chronic depression resulting in a lack of any desire to communicate.

2. A regular succession of anxiety-inducing circumstances.

3. The concomitant conviction that nothing I have to say is worth saying.

These might not be the only factors, however. All my life I’ve had a tendency to indulge a mild form of monomania with regard to my favourite activities until I felt that I’d milked them dry and there was nothing more to be done. At that point I’ve dropped them and walked away, never to return. Each of them usually lasted for about ten or eleven years. Whether that will prove to be the case with the blog is still unknown.

Nevertheless, the past couple of days have been eventful and I’m sufficiently convinced of their newsworthiness to warrant making the effort to report them. The easiest means of doing so would be to copy an email I sent to somebody last night when I got home. It reads:

Bit of excitement this week - emergency admission to A&E at the Royal Derby Hospital at 2.45am, courtesy of urinating neat blood in copious quantities (plus soreness, nausea, dizziness and other forms of discomfort, approximately every ten minutes.) It was both scary and messy, but I did have the presence of mind to clean the toilet bowl before the ambulance crew arrived just in case it indicated some terminal condition which would preclude my ever returning home. Didn't fancy the idea of somebody coming into the house and finding that mess. I considered it unreasonable and improper. My mother would have done the same. 

So, no sleep that night (the problem started at 11.00pm, but it took a while to get over my aversion to going to hospital.) And because of the various processes and movements between wards, I got no breakfast or lunch the following day. A nice nurse at my final resting place in the Surgical Assessment Unit got me a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea at around four o'clock. I like nurses.

Anyway, a team of urology doctors (including a rather spiffing young one called A***** P**** from Portugal who had black hair, olive skin and an athletic walk) used a combination of experience, instinct and some procedural evidence to conclude that the whole thing was consequent upon the last cystoscopy (being a UTI complicated by my blood-thinning medication which they told me to leave off until they'd sorted the problem.) The next day they told me the problem was sorted – hopefully – and I could leave once the discharge papers were completed and I’d been issued with my meds. That was at around 8pm. The NHS kindly paid for a taxi, but I gave the driver a tenner tip anyway because I felt sorry for him having to come out at night just to drive me the twenty miles home. But all day yesterday and today I've been worrying about my garden birds having no food for two days. I like birds.

In short, not much fun but hoping it's now dealt with.

That's my latest news.

(Forgot to mention: the best bit was having my cannula removed - the one they'd put in to deliver an antibiotic drip - by a Chinese nurse. I think the fates must have been feeling sorry for me by then.)

So there you have it, a rare blog post. I hope it was worth reading. Maybe I’ll be back some time. Maybe.