Bloody Plumbing

That's it! Back from Mougins again, but not sans sonde (catheter) as hoped. My lower pipework is still leaking, as the x-rays they gave me to take home gorily illustrate. So re-admission in a week....

No criticisms of the actual treatment, which was excellent as usual. But the attempt was made more annoying as the hospital informed me, whilst doing the paperwork, that my carte vitale ('vital' is no exaggeration in terms of how indispensable this piece of plastic is) has been unilaterally and without prior warning rendered null and void by the local CPAM, occasioning no end of administrative tracasserie, and meaning that we personally have to foot the very steep hospital and health bills. Needless to say, the CPAM does not respond to our entreaties, and despite plenty of requests, has never clarified my position. We are not alone in being pissed off by them. The victims - mostly French - are legion, and the horror stories are the stuff of urban legend.

Despite all this, it is good to be out of hospital, and the celebratory walk along the breakwater of the quai des miliardaires in winter sunshine was bliss well earned.

Quick Update

Off to Mougins again, to see whether they can remove the catheter. If they can, it only takes a few seconds, but I will have to spend two nights in hospital for observation. If not, then more time in contact with plastic and pipes.

Scrap Metal

For the last two weeks I have been wandering around with a bunch of staples holding my tummy together. Over thirty of them, closely spaced. Monday the nurse was supposed to come and take them out with special, sterilised pliers, but she got the wrong address. There was I, all psyched up for it, and then a no-show. I got a blood test as consolation prize.

Still, Tuesday, she did come, with her black bag of tools and a breezy manner. Boy was she quick! Those staples never stood a chance, and gradually (and almost painlessly) my tummy unpuckered and resumed a more-or-less normal profile.

Staples

Back from the clinic in Mougins, where I spent Xmas in what I discovered was intensive care. I swapped some innards for a temporary catheter, whilst waiting for the plumbing to become watertight. Next visit to Mougins, for a couple of days' stay, will be in a fortnight. I have got used to the journey, though not as much as the BH, who has done two round trips a day for quite a while now.

My tummy is now graced with about thirty something staples between belly button and the dangly bits, exactly like those for paper. They come out on Monday, using a special tool, so I will be able to pass through an airport metal detector again.

Quick update

Last polishing session of the lifeboat this morning, essentially the handrails on the companionway going down to the sickbay, and the protective rails in the engine room. Super shiny for the moment, but greasy or salty hands are the norm when working the boat, so the metalwork won't stay like that for long. Still, it gives me something physical to do, keeps me warm in the unseasonable arctic blast, and whiles away the time before going under the knife.

Just a day or two before hitting the clinic at Mougins for the third time this autumn. Though I could conceivably get out before, I'll be spending Christmas in hospital, as a precaution, for the kind of plumbing I am going in for sometimes involves readmissions, when patients are released too early. By Christmas itself, apart from nosocomial incarceration and a catheter probably still in situ, I should be feeling reasonably OK again. May be wearing a nappy, though, to start with.

The BH will be having a lonely if busy 'holiday', retracing during the school break the same route to get to the clinic she normally takes to go to work. Still, it's good to think that the Munich, Brussels and London contingents will be able to spend the festivities together.

I will be glad to get home for Hogmanay, though it will be back to the old routine of self administered anti blood clot jabs and twice weekly blood tests.

Pilgrimage

Just back from a brief visit with the BH to Brussels, to view and approve the latest addition to the family. C. lives up to expectations: indeed surpasses all the photos and Skype previews. A pilgrimage well worth making, and I can see why the Three Wise Men went to all the trouble when it was their turn at infant inspection.

Brussels Airlines gave us the smoothest landing we have ever experienced, coming into Brussels airport. So good, in fact, that the spontaneous clapping (there were many Italians on board) didn't start immediately, as we were unsure we had even landed. Coming back was a different matter, with some really hefty turbulence descending over the Alps, so hefty, indeed, that in addition to the tightly buckled seat belt, I was clinging on to the seat in front just to stay in one place.

It's been a while

It's been a while since my last post. Over five weeks, in fact.

During that time the lifeboat has been pulled out of the water and given a thorough scrape to get rid of the barnacles, and then repainted with a blue paint which wasn't quite the regulation blue of the SNSM (as the inspecting engineer from Paris dryly remarked), but did correspond to the blue of the previous, mythical vedette. Local sensibilities matter here! The propellers were taken off and remachined, to rid them of serious vibrations caused by unbalanced rotation. Similarly, the engines were given an overhaul, and the propshaft seals and cutless bearings (burnt out from high speed rescues) were replaced. A lot of money and a good deal of crew time went into repairing the ravages of a hard season's rescue service. Most of us are still bearing the odd spot of blue paint somewhere on our skin. Still, the good ship Notre Dame de la Garoupe II is now back on station, though there are still crucial bits of maintenance we still have to do, particularly on the aft hatch for the auxiliary inflatable.

Similarly, this autumn, I have been hauled out of normal life, and have been expensively stripped down, overhauled and repaired. I have been seeing the French health service and hospitals from the inside, and they are pretty impressive. Like with the lifeboat, there is still some crucial work to do on my innards, which will mean passing Christmas in hospital, with a catheter instead of a propshaft seal. Still, I hope to be back on station sometime in the new year.