Hovering to the shop

I hear this from the end of the driveway as I'm about to walk up and put my key in the door:

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaa-rp!

The only thing I can think of is that the new hoover has done something diresome. When I open the door, Herself is sitting crosslegged like a yogi, hovering about two feet off the floor.

"What's going on?" I ask, throwing my bag under the stairs and my cap onto the hook.

"Medicine," she says. "Have to have the camera job from the doctor tomorrow. He gave me this stuff to drink the day before. Want to try some?"

"Why not?" sez I, sniffing the contents of the proffered beaker. It tastes slightly minty and of horseshoes. In five minutes time, I too am slightly levitating.

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaa-aaa-a-rp!

I hover as far as the counter of SuperValu where a woman is asking for sausages for her childrens' school lunch rolls.

"Oh they won't be ready for a while yet," says the assistant, as if the notion of cooking the hot food before the people want to buy it is ridiculous.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asks, as I bob into and out of sight on the other side of the counter.

"Ham, please," I say, throwing a doughy torpedo over the counter at her. I don't much like ham, but I like cheese and the other miscellaneous cold meats less. Then, when she has put the butter and the ham in, I see roast beef. Feck. Too late.

Paaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaa-rp!

I hover over to the top shelf of the display of tissues and take down some packets of designer snot rags. The run of the mill ones are sold out. I resent paying money too much money for tissue paper.

I hover against the wind back down the Avenue and into the Lawn and back home. Herself is no-where to be found.

"Are you about?" I ask the empty air.

"In the bathroom," she says from upstairs. "That stuff is beginning to work properly."

"Oh dear," I say, unwrapping my sandwich. "It's going to be a busy day on the stairs."

At least I have my health

Following on from cheesy dreams and toothache, I found myself on Monday suffering with stomach ache. And when a stomach the size of mine aches, that's a BIG ache!

There's a gastro- bug going around at the moment and I seem to have got a version. It seemed in my case to only exhibit cramps rather than resolving into anything messier. All the same, I was in bed shivering like a jelly by 9.30 and though I went to work yesterday feeling only a little sore, I decided to take today off to chase off the very last of the bug.

Update on the seagulls: Three of us were looking out the window at the puzzling seagulls on Monday when a small brown blob of fluff on webbed feet scuttled across the roof tiles! The pair evidently have at least one chick, possibly two. Yesterday the parents spent quite a long time away but came back in the late afternoon. I suppose they were out shopping.

I didn't know a nose got indigestion

Fellah on the bus in front of me with long legs looks at the generous amount of space for the legs between the seat in front of me and the seat in front of him, decides, like me, that the back of the seat in front of me is obviously broken which is why it is leaning back on me, sits down and squashes my patient leg.

A patient leg, by the way, is the leg you have to have when you know you are too lazy to move to another seat and you have only started your journey, so its better to stay patient when a long-legged fellah is inadvertantly pushing the back of his seat into your kneecap. Eventually, I managed to crab the leg sideways into a kind of deformed Elvis on stage position which meant *no-one* was likely to sit beside me, although, to be fair, a kind of scarecrow female person (an I.T. student) did sit down briefly on my outside before she figured out a window seat was available elsewhere and moved.

So Daddly Long Legs turns out to have a hair treatment on which, when combined with the fumes from the open window, smells exactly like raw hamburger. A very raw hamburger, bloody and fresh. My nostrils sucked it all up as I sat in my contorted state on my seat.

(Lately, I am beginning to think that the part of my brain which deals with my sense of smell has been entirely overcome with alcohol. I have strange tastes and smells at different times of the day which to me is a reasonable indication of some kind of brain damage.)

To get back to the tale, I actually *like* the smell of raw hamburger, although I would not choose it as a variety of cologne, worn in the hair or otherwise.

It was no surprise to find four Dunnes stores hamburgers defrosting in a microwave oven when I got home then.

But, alas, one at least is trying to make its way back up my neck as I type this. Perhaps it was the association with the bus and the scarecrow person and the hair treatment, because I enjoyed the cooking and eating of my share this evening. Dunnes Stores hamburgers tend not to lodge in my throat, so this is something of a surprise.

I may revisit said burgers later in the night. I hope not.

In any case, I think I may have some colourful dreams because of them. On Sunday night last I ate some cheese before bed and dreamt I (and many people I work with) was called up to serve in an army unit in some kind of national emergency. I liked the camouflage gear and the hand-held electronic device that didn't seem to do anything. I had no idea who the enemy was and when I woke up I found I still don't. Not so much a dream as a general observation then.

I'm off to see what state my sleeping mind is in in the circumstances.

At the pharmacy

"Hello," I say.
"Hello," says the pharmacist.
"Do you have any paediatric Benelyn cough syrup, by any chance?"
"Yes," he says. "How old is the child?"
"Fourteen."
"Okay. Should she not be on regular Benelyn cough syrup at fourteen?"
"No, thank you. She is rather small."
"What are the symptoms?"
"Well, she has a bad cough."
"Is it a tickly cough or a chesty cough?"
"I'm not sure. It's kind of like a permanent head cold."
"I see. Is she bringing up any phlegm?"
"Yes. There is a lot of sneezing and coughing."
"Then you probably need an expectorant. It would be a bad idea to use the other type as this might lead to the phlegm lodging around the lungs."
"I understand. Give me a bottle of the expectorant type then. And can I also have a syringe, please, to deliver the medicine? I don't want to get it all over her fur."

In the background, I hear the other staff looking up the record of my recent medication on the computer. One of them is also looking for the telephone number of my G.P.

Cats. Who'd have them?

When "You're seriously ill" is the good news

My father, Tom, is 79 years of age and apart from diabetes (which hardly bears a mention given his present situation) has had variously a burst appendix, hepatitis, cataracts, bruised ribs, colon cancer and prostate cancer. The colon cancer arose in the past eight years and the prostate cancer in the past five. He has undergone operations to help cure or manage both these conditions. He also received chemotherapy for the colon cancer. The treatments all appear to have been successful until recently when he lost his appetite and complained of pain in the abdomen. The thoughts of his GP immediately turned to a recurrance of cancer of some kind and so he has spent the past couple of weeks in hospital undergoing treatment and a battery of tests.

The family has been fearing the worst, especially since our minds have been concentrated on the matter of death given the recent loss of our Aunt Nelly from colonic cancer and our most recent loss of her (and my father's) brother, Jim, from lung cancer.

In 2006, Tom was diagnosed with an aneurism in an artery. He is usually compliant when it comes to keeping hospital appointments but in February an administration error in the hospital to which he was to go as an outpatient gave him the perfect excuse to walk away and refuse to go back.

Wikipedia says: "An aneurysm (or aneurism) is a localized dilation or ballooning of a blood vessel by more than 50% of the diameter of the vessel and can lead to instant death. Aneurysms most commonly occur in arteries at the base of the brain (the circle of Willis) and in the aorta (the main artery coming out of the heart) - this is an aortic aneurysm. This bulge in a blood vessel, much like a bulge on an over-inflated innertube, can lead to death at any time. The larger an aneurysm becomes, the more likely it is to burst."

On Friday my sisters and I met Tom and the professor heading the team of doctors handling his case. It transpired that the abdominal pain was caused by a stomach ulcer whose initial tests came back clear of cancerous cells. They plan to do further examinations in this area, but he is being treated for a stomach ulcer and is responding well to treatment. Tom is anemic from blood loss, probably from the ulcer, and they plan to treat him for iron deficiency. Finally, a vascular surgeon is going to examine whether or not it would be feasible to treat the now four anurisms in the arteries of his body.

We were so happy to hear the words "You are still seriously ill" because the conference with the professor appeared to rule out more cancer as a cause. In fact, we were positively beaming afterwards. Tom's morale is much improved and he was planning to change out of his pyjamas and into his everyday clothes for the day.

If you had the choice between a potential catastrophic failure with a quick death and a long, lingering suffering, which news would you be happier to hear?