Hospital

I've been getting more acquainted than I would like with Bournemouth hospitals. First there was the laser treatment to avoid horrible things happening in my eyes. Then there was a visit to a skin cancer clinic to check out an odd thing on my shoulder that I'd woken up with one morning on Erin Mae. At first it had felt like an insect bite, but it didn't go away and grew into a blister. The specialist thought it wasn't a cancer, but didn't know what it was, and six weeks later it's still in evidence. Next was a gastroscopy to check why I was getting too much acid reflux. That was a horrible procedure! It showed an inflamed area where the oesophagus enters the stomach so, among other things, for the next two months I'm off coffee, chocolate and the small glass of red wine that has usually accompanied my evening meal. Grrr!

Finally, following a routine annual blood test, the GP rang me (yes, the GP rang me!), asked me to come round to the surgery, and told me I needed to be admitted immediately! I spent two nights there, on a drip and being investigated for liver problems. This went some way to explaining the unusual fatigue I'd been feeling for a week. After an arm-full of further blood tests they discharged me with instructions to keep drinking lots and to come back in two days later for more examination.

It was after I got home that the jaundice really turned my skin yellow and scratchy, but the tests so far haven't identified the cause. Being boaters, we'd wondered about leptospirosis, which they got Porton Down to test for, but that was negative, as were the tests for various forms of hepatitis virus and Lyme Disease. So at the moment we still in the dark.

On the positive side, this has excited lots of caring emotions in my best beloved, so I'm getting lots of top-notch attention! And, over the last few days, I've actually been feeling less tired. We've gone for some walks along the sea-front and the cliff-top, and today we drove up to Erin Mae to put her to bed for the winter. This meteorological high sitting over the UK means she would shortly freeze up at night if we didn't, but it made for the most wonderful, bright day as we travelled up to Great Haywood.