Hospital Date Six

Preparations and getting out

Being much too much of a night person you find that making early morning appointments literally upend your scheduling as you fret and fidget about being fresh and ready for the day.

I had planned two meetings one after the other with the hope of squeezing in two unscheduled ones with my treatment advisor and the pastor at the hospital.

These days, it is better to crowd out the day than spread out the opportunities for interaction into many days.

With that introduction you probably have noticed that it was my 6^th quarterly meeting with my medical consultant and we were scheduled to meet at 9:05AM.

With not much sleep had, the alarm went off at 8:00 not that I was asleep at that time, but I did feel like I should be asleep. Getting up, I cleaned up, ironed a shirt, dressed up and made for the hospital by bicycle, arriving at 9:08AM.

Tipping the scales too high

I was called soon afterwards to have my weight and blood pressure measurements taken, I stepped on the scales and as the digital figures came up, I had to cover my eyes; another 4 kilograms since the last time, it must be my shoes – Not good.

My blood pressure was normal and noted for me to present to my consultant when we meet. I did not have to wait another 5 minutes when he came out to get me warning me that he had an intern as usual – I told him, I am not bothered, I am quite glad that my health and its progress excites enough interest to make it a subject of study.

We shook hands and I took a seat as we began to chat about things in general, the work situation, my health and state of mind, how I feel about things and so on, before we returned to the business of the day. I produced the slip of paper with my weight and blood pressure measurements to which he opined that the weight is good as long as I do not add another 6 kilograms.

The tales in the blood

My blood test results were looking really good, the indicators were a lot better than in December and more importantly we had exceeded a long awaited threshold with regards to my immunity.

That was welcome and uplifting news, I felt quite warm on the inside about that as we discussed the subject of Vitamin D and the Dutch saying that children take supplements to help their bones grow strong in months with an R.

I said, the best thing he could have done for me was send me on holiday to the sun as a prescription to which he replied there will be queues at his door with people looking for a similar prescription.

He thanked me for the present I gave him at Christmas, wished me well and we made a new appointment to meet in just over 3 months.

Other matters

I got the nurse to print out my last 3 test results which had a section saying the number be multiplied by 1.21 for blacks (negroide in Dutch) – a research thing I have to do.

Meeting my treatment consultant I asked for recommendations of Yoga classes and possibly some physiotherapy for my weaker leg. She saw through me thinking the physiotherapy would be better, but that is harder work but in any case we’ll try Yoga first.

I then got to see the Pastor just as they were breaking up a meeting of inter-faith counsellors of the hospital – the conversation was light, interesting and allowed for me to get a few things off my chest.

That just prepared me for the next meeting down the road to see a work coach to talk about issues for employment, assistance and advice.

More to come as the day goes by.