Slough of despair

(UPDATE BELOW)

After my oesophogealitis episode, my innards are not right. I changed doctors practices because of the lack of care.

No one listens to my story, my theory that since such violence in my vomiting, I have displaced summat to the left of my sternum. But before I saw the new doctor, I wrote an email to him which was delivered to him by the receptionist. He read it through whilst we were there, and ordered an ultrasound and local pain clinic visit at the town’s hospital. That’s an improvement because the last doctor made it clear I’d be referred for that to some hell and gone place in the Midlands, miles away.

I am now able to see my patient notes on “Patient Access”. Let me assure you, they are pauce, badly written, and lacking in any useful detail.

I have fallen into a slough of despair about doctors.

They can’t write.

They can’t summarise.

They never commit themselves.

They actually know nothing about you.

The date for my ultrasound is set. So at least someone is going to look!

In the meantime, Bass, our dog, is behaving very strangely. He’s not eating, lying in dark places/funny places, simply lying about. The vet says there’s nothing wrong with him. That cost £75.

Mr Furlong says “It’s almost like he’s mourning.”

That’s put a cat amongst my pigeons!

I hope Bass is not mourning for ME….

UPDATE. Mr Furlong has had to rush Bass, the dog, to the vet. The dog is ILL, not mourning. Awaiting results.

Death

These old Furlongs’ friend died. When you get to our age, your friends die.

This is the first one for 2023.

We got notified by mail.

Our friend simply toppled over whilst serving Sunday lunch at the kitchen table. And that was that!

She always had good taste.

We laughed a lot together with her. I will tell you the best story ever.

When she was younger she lived in a block of flats where the ground floor flats had a small piece of grass outside each flat. One day, she was out walking her dog. As she arrived home, her dog peed on her next door neighbour’s grass. The neighbour burst out of her door and exploded with rage. Our friend said, “Please don’t worry, this can be easily sorted. You go home and make a sign saying KEEP OFF THE GRASS, and I’ll go home and teach my dog to read.”

Our friend was always quick off the mark when it came to humour.

And Death.

No lingering, just DO it.

Good on you lovely friend. Go well.

RIP my contacts

Today I awoke feeling quite dismal. I wondered who my friends were. It occurred to me that people who were once good friends many years ago in the “old” country had simply evapourated from my life. I decided it must be something wrong with me to push all these friends away. Was it my fault when old friends ignored my attempts to reconnect?

Was I unpleasant?

Was I strange?

Had they taken offence when we came “home” to the UK? Were they angry at us? Well I think a goodly few were. We deserted them. We also deserted two grownup and married Furlong children. I know that hurt. It still causes pain when I think of what we have missed.

Some unexpected friends still communicate, and, even, occasionally, came round for tea on trips to the UK. Or they phone me. Or e-mail and WhatsApp me. I must have meant something to them.

We have been in the UK for twenty years. I have made a few friends to whom I’m quite loyal. I have quite a few acquaintances. And, in business, we have met many many people.

So I went through my contacts list on my phone to find real friends.

For some reason the contacts list on my phone is full of contacts whose names and telephone numbers are meaningless to me. Who the hell are THEY? Why did I record their phone numbers? Haven’t a clue. Some have been imported from my email accounts – like all my students’ e-mail addresses, one off email addresses like Utilities enquiries, old business queries etc.

But I did find a disturbing trend in my contacts. The trend is observable with old friends and students.

Lots of them are dead. RIP my contacts. You were meaningful to me.

Sleepless night

A while back, I started this blog to be a companion to me because I was not sleeping well. I thought I would sit up and blog instead of wasting time trying to sleep.