Comings & Goings

After a disturbed night where I finally managed to get off to sleep around 4:30 a.m, today has been one of comings and goings.

The Health Care Assistant arrived to collect some more blood. I had earlier in the week been asked by the anaemia team at hospital if I could ask for serum ferritin and iron profile tests to be carried out at the same time. I rang the local surgery yesterday and a note was made of this request. In the event the message got through and the Health Care Assistant turned up with the necessary "Green Form" for these tests. This is noteworthy because collaborative sharing of information and willingness to be flexible has been allowed to lapse in recent years.

We talked briefly about gardening and computers and because she had not been able to make use of her notebook computer since her son had upgraded it from XP to Vista I showed her Ubuntu and Open Office and gave her an installation CD for both, which would get her back to being able to produce the odd invoice in Word and to use the Internet and email again.

When the she was about to draw blood the phone rang and it was the community physiotherapist calling to arrange a home visit for Monday.

Shortly after the Health Care Assistant left the door bell rang again. I was expecting the local hairdresser to call in on her way to opening up her shop. By the time I transferred from office chair to power chair the visitor had turned to leave.

On her way back to her car she spoke to a neighbour who confirmed that the man who has just had an operation lives where she had already rung the door bell. My neighbour had himself the previous day been to the local hospital for a hernia operation on a day patient basis but he was on the ball enough to realise that she meant me.

By the time she got the door a 2nd time I was waiting to gesture her to make her way in.

After making a cup of coffee I positioned my chair in the middle of the kitchen and she placed her bag of tricks on the breakfast bar and started to trim my hair.

When it was cut I found a soft broom and like a knight with a lance on horseback I proceeded to chase the fallen grey hair into a neat pile ready to dispose of (probably by feeding to the worms in our organic composting kit).
Before she left the hairdresser brought the post in and I saw that my imminent out patient appointment with the renal team had been pushed back by 6 weeks. Unfortunately as she left my son's cat who we had been looking after for the last 6 months decided to sneak out.

After having soup for lunch I settled back into the study and a few minutes later my neighbour let himself in and we compared operating notes for a couple of hours. As he left I asked if he could see if the cat was nearby and if so to leave the door open for him to return if he wanted. The cat was patiently waiting right outside.

No sooner has the cat settled down to a bite to eat than the front door has just opened - its my wife returning from work.

So now , before I have even published this posting I can tell her all about the comings and goings of this day as well.