Then the ambulance wouldn't start...

Last Sunday didn't start well. No day that involves the house being awake before 4:00AM can claim to be starting well.

Hints, more than hints if we bypass the denial, of pneumonia symptoms. No, not starting well at all. So, some self-assembly required, and actioned, and off with ourselves to the emergency room.

A busy night it seemed. One doctor and two harried nurses/assistants. An x-ray taken, and blood (pin cushion anyone?) while various and sundry other indignities are visited upon the patient. All this - and draughty paper clothing being the only thing between self, the elements, and any remaining shreds of modesty.

Pneumonia was confirmed and, while not as bad as some years before, a hospital stay mandated. Poked, punctured, two (count 'em - two!) drips installed and we wait for the transfer.

I can no longer focus and spend the time looking around at the technology. This, to my eye at least, is a valuable use for computers - except, please shut off that infernal alarm.

The transfer crew arrive - weighed down with paperwork and even more technology. The transfer to the gurney is effected and to the waiting "rig". The crew take their seats, doors close with reassuring solid thuds.

And then the ambulance won't start...

Some days just don't begin well...

Talkative - I'll take any distraction I can

I had to go for a follow-up blood test today, to see about the effects of cholesterol-managing medication. I am not at all in favor of someone puncturing me with a needle (we'll table the discussion of my tattoos for another day - I happen to be inconsistent, sue me).

The phlebotomist, or perhaps nurse, was wonderfully down-to-earth and quite talkative. The entire procedure was straightforward and mercifully brief yet in that time I learned quite a lot about my interlocutor.

So much so that I really didn't notice what was going on at the inside of my right elbow. Nicely done Ma'am. I, for one, appreciate that.

Of course, distractions are not always so welcome. Or, perhaps it's that they are too welcome.

I am no more than a third of the way through typing in my NaNo novel. There are always other things to do, sites to see, even sights to see. To say nothing of other things to read.

Wearying this.

I have to fall back on words from Maeve Binchy (yes, of course we're quite the item, don't I have 20 letters of hers? Well, me and anyone else who owns "The Maeve Binchy Writer's Club" - but it wouldn't do to spoil a good name dropping opportunity, would it?)

Anyway, her words are: "I hope...you will never be among those who say that you could have written if you only had had the chance."

I'm a "chancer" as we say (we, the Irish, that is). So, I'll continue (again) to take the chance.

Oh, and Happy B-Day JG