Peter’s Hospital Diary

Well not strictly true because on my arrival at the haematology department I was met by the receptionist, Jenny, and then ushered in for the ritual blood letting that makes the highlight of the day! After that bit of routine stuff, I was then seen by Rachel, my tame dietician, who wasn’t as fierce as last time as I have put on a couple of pounds! She is also pleased generally with my diet (and the daily scandishake) and said that she thought I was looking healthier! The strength in my right hand was slightly down on last time, but the strength in my left was much greater – must be carrying a briefcase into work! (I carry it in my left hand, although I am right handed.)

After the chat with Rachel, it was in to see one of the medical team. A quick examination, no surprises and then I was finished for the morning, so it was off to the shops for a while.

I was back in good time for the oral clinic in the afternoon, and went in on time for an examination by Dr Shah. She was pretty thorough and remarked that my tongue seemed to have a bias to the right. She went off to get the consultant, Dr Shirlow, and a clutch of medical students, so my powers of oratory were required to present my case! Dr Shirlow had a good poke round, and again remarked about my tongue. The upshot was that as there was nothing sinister there, and my speech had become ‘slurpy’ after the biopsy, the likely cause of the slurpiness is the lack of mobility in the right hand side of my tongue, and that is almost certainly caused by some nerve damage when the biopsy was done. In fact she did get an oral surgeon to have a look too, and he pretty much confirmed it. It is unlikely to get any better, but I will probably learn to compensate for it as time passes. As it is, my voice is clearer, with just a hint (to my ears) of a lisp on the ‘s’ and ‘sh’ sounds, and although it is a pity that the damage is likely to be permanent, it is a relief to know what the cause is, and that it isn’t anything to worry about.

I did have a few tests, two saliva collection tests (one involved dribbling into a test tube for 10 minutes, the other involved having a suction cap placed over on the the glands in the cheek, and a drain attached, while it was stimulated with citric acid!) And delight of delights, more blood taken to check on iron and vitamin levels! I also left with another large carrier bag of pills and potions.

I suppose I have no option but to see about getting the damaged tooth removed – I will look for a referral back to Guy’s for that and have it done there – doped up to the eyeballs with valium or whatever else they have on offer!

So it was a long day, and I didn’t get home until well after 7pm.

It was good to see fellow transplant Mark, who was looking much better than he was on the last two occasions I have seen him. He had a DLI 6 weeks ago, and the GvHd is just kicking in. He is on weekly check-ups, much to his annoyance as he is planning a longish holiday! I think he was planning some negotiation with the team! By the way, mark, the VoIP site I was talking about is www.sipgate.co.uk. Hope you got the check-up arrangements sorted to your satisfaction!

The tweaking of the blog server has continued, with a couple of longish (about an hour) downtimes, so if you haven’t been able to log on in the evenings that is the reason. The main bit is done, but the last section (migrating the root file system to a logical volume – to be technical) is proving more problematic – the system won’t reboot after I have done that. It isn’t THAT important from a practical aspect if I don’t achieve it – but from an intellectual point of view, I am keen to achieve it, both because it is a challenge, and secondly because I will learn something from the exercise! That means there might be one or two more periods of down-time while I carry on tinkering!

So onwards and upwards!