Never Go In At Night
That’s right. Never go in at night. Hospital that is. Yes folks. I have been in hospital, again. Got home today. This time I was only in for a few days, thankfully. But, as I say, never go in at night.
Reasons for why.
Ambulance arrives at my house at approx 9.15PM. Arrives at hospital A&E at approx 9.45PM. I get worked on for a while in resuscitation and eventually left to my own devices. I try to fall asleep. I do. At 1.00AM I am woken up by the nurse to take a blood sample and to my stats. Fall asleep again. At 1.45AM I am awoken again to have an oxygen mask put round my gub. Fall asleep (uncomfortably) again. 3.00AM am awoken by the nurse again to have more blood taken and my stats done. Fall asleep again. At 4.00AM I am awoken by the Doctor who has only just got round to seeing me. I am fecked. Totally fecked by this stage. After the doctor has left I try to go to sleep again. At 5.00AM I am awoken yet again by someone who wants to X-Ray my chest with a portable X-Ray machine. I am twisted and turned all ways to get the right picture. I was really fecked now. At 6.00AM I was moved to another bay (in my trolley). At 7.30AM I was moved (in my trolley) up to a ward. All day I tried my hardest to sleep. No bloody way. The nursing staff were not going to let me. More tests throughout the day. The. The…..
That night, there was a new kid on the block. A new arrival arrived ito the same ward as me, and the other guys and lady in the ward. At night time people go to sleep. That’s the general idea of night time, innit? Not that night. No sireeeee. Why? He snored. Not just light snoring. But Motorhead loud snoring. I want to go home……please
I am now home and I am damn sure I will get a good nights sleep. Maybe even a whole days sleep as well. That makes 24 hours.
Here are the reminders again.
Don’t ever ever ever go into hospital at night time (that’s anytime after 6.00PM and before 6.00AM
Don’t get into a position where you need to go into hospital at night time
Keep away from hospitals altogether
Waken the snoring ba*&%^d beside you every 5 minutes
I’m going to bed
Ta rah ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Posted :: Thursday 4/30/2009 11:33:00 AM
July 5th 1969 or therabouts
The date----July 5th 1969. That’s the date to remember. Well, two days before that actually. That’s when Brian Jones died. The 5th was the day that the Stones gave their FREE concert in Hyde Park. The one concert that I really really wanted to be at. Mummy wouldn’t let me go over to London on my own. I was only 14 at the time. Still. Another time. Actually anytime I damn well want to now.
I have just finished watching the DVD of the Stones In The Park. Brill, innit! Every now and then I pull it out from my ever growing pile of Stones Videos / DVD’s and look see to the good ole days. Not only that, Jagger and the boys do the most amazing rendition of my all time favourite Stones song. ‘Sympathy For The Devil’. This is just the greatest (in my mind) song ever done. I must have about 20 different recordings of it in my collection. (no I’m not going to go and count them, just take my exaggerated word for it) I even have a 7” double sided coloured vinyl of the version from the Park. Bootleg of course, but with that song it doesn’t matter. For a first ever live appearance with the band Mick Taylor did himself proud.
I really really must be getting better. I went online this morning and ordered some books. I have ordered the new Colin Bateman novel (for those of you who don’t know Bateman he is a local boy who has done very well for himself on the writing front) He is doing a reading this coming Thursday in the local library. I have read all his books from day one. He has a very bizarre sense of humour with a twist in it. You know what I mean. If my copy arrives in time I may well go down to the library and insult him and then ask for him to sign my book. He will look at me, think to himself, ‘do I know you?’ and scribble ‘To Colin from Colin’ I have this inscription in most of my other Bateman books. Really sad. Really really sad.
I am going to see my GP on Monday. This is my home doctor. I have had to wait all this time to see him since I got out of hospital. Feckin’ ridiculous innit! Anyway, most GP’s have a time set for seeing each patient. Seven minutes is the sort of average. I have taken the precaution of writing down all the stuff I want him to tell me and me to tell him. Methinks I am going to be in there for thirty seven minutes! Who cares. I’m the patient. I need this time with him. After all, I don’t think I come under the classification of hypochondriac. I do think that my needs are a wee tad genuine. We’ll see. He might throw me out after ten minutes!
Today, Saturday, before I sat down to watch my Stones DVD I managed to do some housework. Light stuff. I did the dusting around some of the house. I did notice that nobody had bothered to do any dusting while I was dead / recovering! Did they know I was going to be OK and were just waiting? Anyway, managed to do that. I also managed to make and prepare my wife’s breakfast and her lunch. All on the same day. Thigs are looking good. Next I’ll be doing the hovering!
Thanks to all those messages of support after my last blog. It has been decided (by me) to hold on to my collection of Rolling Stones stuff for the time being. With my Father passing away recently there might be something coming my way (or not) If there is, I might build on the extension I have always wanted and make my museum in it. What do you think? No, go on a cruise I hear you say. OK. That’s sorted. Who needs a museum anyway. I can always go and put my collection on show in the North Down Museum at the back of the Town Hall. After all, other collections go on show there, why not mine?
At the moment, I can’t think of anything more that might interest you so I will sign off
As usual any comments to be made about any of this drivel hit the title above
Ta rah
Posted :: Saturday 4/25/2009 8:50:00 AM
Dilemma. Quandary
I’m in a dilemma. This is no ordinary dilemma. This is a mega-monster hugemongus dilemma. The one that would press the wee red button in the White House type of dilemma. Do you get the picture? Good. Now I will elaborate upon the foresaid dilemma for you pleasure.
It has been suggested to me by someone very dear to me (eg my wife) that because of what has happened to me recently I might consider selling THE COLLECTION so that I can enjoy the rest of my life with the money (does she know something I don’t? Has she knowledge about something from the Doctors? Have I only months to live?) No matter. The thought of selling THE COLLECTION hit me hard to say the least. All those years of tracking down this and finding that and cursing the person who beat me on the final bid on Ebay (really loud blue blue curses )(inside my head of course).
THE COLLECTION is worth a fair bit of dosh, but that is not the point. It is something that I have enjoyed putting together over the years. The big problem is. My son is not interested. My daughter is not interested. My wife is not interested (even though I have tried my hardest by taking her to concerts to see the band in action) What do I do? I would certainly like to see my family benefit from THE COLLECTION once I am gone, but none of them would know what is what and what is worth this sum or that figure etc.
I could always sell my other mini collections (that’s what I call them) just to bring in some dosh to enjoy myself. The likes of my Frank Zappa / Mothers collection or The Greatful Dead collection or the rory Gallagher / Taste collection. All those and more. Much much more. Put them all together and they wouldn’t be a teeny weeny match to THE COLLECTION. So, what’s the point in selling anything? None at all, or is there?
This folks is my dilemma. It takes me back to a time in our married life. We were in our marital home. Our daughter had been born and was doing great. Wee cutsy that she was. Then. Out of the blue. Our son was coming onto the scene. As this was our marital home it wasn’t a great big house of ginormous proportions. Soooo. To make room for him things had to be moved about. We did. There was still one thing that we couldn’t find room for. Guess what? My record collection. Not just any record collection but a record collection that had taken me 25 years to put together. Such an eclectic mix of music no-one had seen before until they saw this collection of mine.
Now this was 21 years ago. Record Collecor magazine wasn’t about in those days to help with valuations. I called in a boyo who was interested in buying some of the collection. He picked through the records and lifted out about 300 albums. The best albums in the collection. He made me an offer. I said no, wasn’t interested. I wanted to sell the whole lot or nothing at all. He went away but came back later with a cash offer for the whole caboodle. As much as I am ashamed to admit it. He gave me £900.00 for the lot. All 2,500 beautiful vinyl albums. Today, if I picked out 10 of theose albums I would get that amount of dosh. Changed times. This is why I am in such a dilemma. What do I do with my Rolling Stones Collection? Do I sell? Do I keep on collecting? Help me please
Whilst I have been writing this sitting in the conservatory in the nice sunshine (odd) I have been thinking to myself. What the feck would I do with myself? I gave up smoking. I have given up alcohol. I can’t get motivated to read anything. I can’t get motivated to do any work (DIY / cooking / housework / gardening etc)(I can’t really even be arsed doing computer stuff, things are that bad)
Heres’s the other thing. Just like selling my record collection all those years ago I really felt bad as I watched the collection being carried out of the house. I reckon I would feel 10 times worse watching my Rolling Stones leaving this house. Dilemma, quandary, call it what you will. What do I do?
All constructive ideas in my favour only, just hit the title bar above.
Ta for now
Posted :: Saturday 4/18/2009 3:05:00 AM
Dying To Meet You---Literally
Well well well. So you have been wondering where I have been . You have talked the biggest load of folkie crap in my absence. In the next few paragraphs / chapters of my new life I will try to explain / describe the adventure I have been on. And no, I haven’t seen the light! (well not that one anyway)
Two weeks ago I died. I was brought back to life again with the pure skill of the medical staff of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service / A&E / Intensive Care Unit and Ward 17. I got home today hence there not being any posting from yours truly.
What happened was, I started to vomit. Not just a wee tad but buckets loads and more. As a result I became dehydrated which lead to a build up of potassium in the blood which led to heart failure. For quite a while I had no idea what was going on around me. (I have since had a lot of the blank parts filled in by members of the family who were requested to come to the A&E Resuc as they didn’t expect me to make it)
When I did get my head round what was happening I began to realise that I was hooked up here there and everywhere with tubes and wires and lights and pumps and machines going blip blip at me. I had tubes coming out of my neck. Out of my left arm. Out of my right arm. Out of my pec…..(well out of another part of my body anyway) At this stage I was in the Intensive Care Unit, the emergency over, for the moment anyway. The staff were wonderful. The staff were great. The staff were just amazing.
By the time I was despatched to Ward 17 things were getting better. For some reason though, I thought I was in the ICU for a couple of hours. I was actually there for 2 days. Somewhere along the way I have lost a lot of time. Anyway, by the time Ward 17 came into the picture things were looking better for me. After being confined to bed for ¾ days I had a certain tube removed which gave me freedom to move around (the bed that is) After a couple more days I fancied a shower instead of a bedbath. This is where the fun really started. The Sister said it was OK to have a shower but only if one of the nurses accompanied me. No probs there. A nurse is a nurse. They have seen it all before. Who do I get? I get the GAY nurse on the ward. No, not a female gay, a male gay. How many of you can say you have been in the shower with a gay nurse? As I said. Nurses have seen it all before, but this just felt a wee tad awkward. It turned out OK anyway. He told me all about himself and his husband. How happy they were and how they love each other etc etc. There was no threat to me.
I am home now on the understanding that I take things very very easy. At the moment I am tired. I am going to bed (my bed) to get a good nights kip. I will continue this saga another time.
Any get well messages to this gack just hit the title above.
Cheers
(It’s great to be alive again)(innit)
Posted :: Monday 4/6/2009 11:44:00 AM
