Thursday, September 27, 2007

Stone

Having completed the first third of the new novel at the weekend (my original holiday plan was to complete the second third - destiny takes its own course), I've forged onto another quick side project that has been gestating for a few weeks.

Unlike many other stories I don't want to say too much about it as there is, perhaps, a mystery or a twist (we'll know better when I finish it). Suffice to say it is currently called Stone and concerns a young woman's problems getting close to people. I don't think I've written exclusively from a woman's perspective before. At first I was surprised by the 'voice' - it felt different to my recent writing - but have got more comfortable with it afk. And, inevitably, it has all started to come together now the keys are depressing.

On the subject of which, I have received a rather swiftly delivered Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. I dropped a book on my trusty old MS 'gull-wing' style ergonomic split board, which has lasted me three PCs (it wasn't even a USB board!). Haven't had a chance to plug it in yet. The dropping of the book was precipitated by my moving a lamp, usually used as a bookstop on the shelf over my desk, in order to see if there was a footprint in the dust on my window ledge. You see I thought, but wasn't sure, that someone had broken into my house on Saturday afternoon. (I came home, the alarm was going, the internal doors were ajar and the back window was thrust wide open - they had been firmly shut when I left, and there were some muddy marks on my front bedroom floor. But nothing appeared out of place or missing, like the MP3 player sitting on the sofa in the backroom.) Anyway, satisfaction bringing the cat back, I found a footprint and it wasn't mine. The next morning I found one on the front window itself, that I had washed earlier in the week. So I figure the alarm spooked my burglar when they got into the hall and they scarpered out the back window. Nevertheless, my habit of leaving the windows at the front open, to prevent damp on the walls, is now cured. What I'll do now about the winter mildew is another matter.

September has been fun, hospitalised, burgled, and got a year older to underwhelming recollection (although my star of a sister did pull out all the stops), and still a few days left.

Monday, September 10, 2007

They're Here Already

Now that I'm out, albeit 'on pass' temporarily, the strangest part of this whole adventure is how unreal the 'real' world seems. I keep having to resist the urge to go up and pinch people to make sure they're actually there and not some kind of projection. Also I very quickly got institutionalised. You know what time of day it is by when your pills turn up in a plastic cup and your drip gets changed.

I feel like I'm sitting in command control of some kind of robot colossus that looks like me, but somehow doesn't quite move right or feel right, a slowed exoskeleton with delayed responses and sluggish controls. To cap it all I suddenly can't stand milk in my tea and can barely tolerate sugar. I'm still discovering the other surprises in store for me.

Maybe the MRI scanner has transformed me into some kind of mutant (or perhaps back into a normal person). I happen to know the guy who looks after the one in the Southern General they used on me - I may have to have words with him :) If the crime-rate in Glasgow suddenly falls due to a mysterious vigilante it's nothing to do with me, right?

Carry on Nurse

I dropped off the planet recently.

After a long week of pain ended with an even longer night of agony I ended up visiting an out-of-hours clinic a week last Saturday and before I knew it I was in A&E, followed quickly by a bed in Ward 5 in the Victoria Infirmary here on the Southside of Glasgow.

I was disappointed to find that morphine didn't get rid of the pain, it just made the rest of me detached so thankfully a heavy dose of anti-biotics began to make some progress after a couple of days. Really though I put my recovery down to getting some Oxygen on Monday morning.

I am amazed by the things I saw and learnt in just one week on the ward. I saw doctors, and not just junior ones, be doing rounds at 7am and checking up on patients after surgery at 8 or 9 at night. Nurses, from the Sister down, pulling 12 hour shifts. The dedication was something that makes any job I've ever felt challenged by pale into insignificance.

I also learnt more about life in a few days than I have in years. The tales other people had to tell, and those I witnessed, from the guy stabbed 14 times, to the amputee who was up and about barely two hours after getting his leg taken off, to the total crazy hard-man from the Gorbals who wouldn't co-operate with anyone with enough tranquilisers in him to put down two elephants.

I'm only out for a couple of days, but hope to get discharged properly tomorrow. But if I'm ever in a hospital again I hope I'm in a place as good as Ward 5. They may never read this, but I'd like to thank all the staff and doctors who have looked after me there.