What a couple of days. I started feeling unwell on Saturday afternoon/evening. There was nothing specific, just a bit achy and a slight tightness in my chest. During Sunday I began to get pain in my left hand. I have some arthritis in my neck and hands and it felt like the onset of that. As the day progressed the pain in my hand got worse.
I know it's bad when I can't even hold my guitar. During the night I couldn't even hold a cup, and as for unscrewing pop bottles..forget it.
I had another restless night on the sofa and in the morning decided to ring the clinic.
I spoke to Staff Nurse Heather and explained my symptoms, adding that I'd been reading those little slips of paper that you find in the drug packaging- otherwise known as the Hypochondriac's Charter.
The upshot of all this is that I was called into the clinic for some blood tests, a chest X-ray and examination by the doctors. They are unsure if the arthritis is connected to my leukaemia treatment, so they wanted to keep me in for observation for 24- 48 hours.
The only problem was that there were no beds available. None. Zilch. Zip.
So they gave some more anti inflammatory pills, more antibiotics and sent me home.
Which is better. I crashed out when I got home, only waking for my dinner.
I woke up at about midnight and feel better. My hands are still sore but the swelling has gone down and I can pick things up.
When I mentioned that we had a parrot, the specialist went "oh". Parrots can pass on pneumonia, so Billy will have to move out or move on. Bugger.
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Dave Clemo's account of living with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Don't forget to add your comments when you drop in.
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My recommended reading
- "The Stars my Destination" by Alfred Bester was published in 1956, so it stands as the last of the pre space-age sci-fi novels. The hero is Gully Foyle and he is a man on a mission. He is out to exact retribution to the occupants of a space liner who ignored his distress signals and left him to die in deep space. It's a brilliant epic story, and is Bester's best novel by far. Neil Gaiman writes in the forward that it stakes a claim to be the first cyberpunk novel, albeit thirty years before the genre was established. I've read it at least four times in the last forty years, and I can highly recommend it. 10/10.
- "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner. First published in 1968. This is a stunning book, written in the 1960s but set at the turn of the 21st century. The title refers to the fact that if every person alive was given a space 2ft by 1ft, they would all fit on the island of Zanzibar. By the time the novel ends, they have overflowed the island and are standing in the water. It deals with the pressures of conflicting world ideologies, overpopulation, how advertising and propaganda can shape our worldview, and features a character called Chad C Mulligan, a socioligist who was so appalled at mankind that he just dropped out. But not before publishing a book called "The Hipcrime Vocab" which was duly banned by the authorities. Brunner predicts legalised recreational drug use, intelligent computers, politics by assassination, and a state of war between conflicting ideologies. And spontaneous riotings and "muckers"- people who just go beserk and run amuck, killing as many people as possible. Spooky. 10/10
- "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. First published 1957. Over 10 years in writing, this is a stunning read. Set in the near future (from a 50s viewpoint), it sets out what inevitably happens when socialism is allowed full rein. Eerily prescient. 10/10.
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