Going it alone

I had my last treatment for my lymphedema in Ancona on Monday. Damaris came with me so that she could do the clever stuff and talk in Italian but, when it came down to it, I’d guessed most of it.

Basically I see the whole thing as an equation. I have to endure three hours in the back of an ambulance, sitting sideways on, not wearing a seat belt in the proper manner, being thrown around all over the place while the various drivers refuse to accept they are not on a ’shout’, I am only going for an appointment and it is not life and death. That is the minus side. On the positive side, I get some treatment but it is not very ‘vigorous’ as Damaris would call it. They just lightly touch the soles of my feet with electrodes (which came apart on Friday and I had to fix) and then wrap my legs in bandages which are so tight around the instep that I am in agony the rest of the day.

The final straw came when Damaris spoke to the doctor. At the beginning he had been very supportive and different from the other quacks I had seen over the years. On Monday it was back to situation normal. First thing he said was that my problem is that I spend all day in bed. How does he know that? All he knows is that I’ve been getting up at around 7am to get the ambulance every day for just over a week and that I told him at the outset that I got my edemas from sitting too long at a computer working for the company. Where did this ‘lying in bed’ bit come from?

The second thing he said was that he had been discussing my weight with the person who supplies shoes. Perhaps he could have broadcast it on the radio or had a chat with the kitchen staff, too. He knew how sensitive I am over it – that was not necessary.

Finally, I am to blame wherever the hospital has failed. For example the radiographer who wouldn’t let me use his table to lie on was because I refused to use it. Ah, that makes more sense now.

I can’t work with people like this. He clearly cannot be trusted and his judgement is terminally impaired by prejudice. ‘Fat and lazy’ are inseparable as always. Why not ’stupid’ too?

What my wife did notice was that her meeting with him was interrupted for a long time while he discussed an exotic venue for a forthcoming medical ’symposium’ with a rep. Shit always smells like shit ultimately.

So, that’s it – alone again, naturally as the song went. I’m now having to find an alternative as I can’t continue carrying around this amount of weight with this level of pain. As I see it, the only thing I can do is to save up enough money to get into a clinic somewhere. I’ve no idea what it will cost – I know it will need to be for at least 6 months so I’m guessing £40,000 to £50,000 but it could well be more. I need to sell a lot of advertising space which means a lot of writing which means a lot of sitting at the desk which means my edemae will get worse before they can get better. It’s a race against time.

I have to keep stopping because of the pain. The soles of both feet are constantly burning up with heat. From time to time and without any warning or precursor, a searing pain will shoot through them and I will cry out with the agony. Because of that, I have to keep lying on the sofa every hour or so. That said, the swelling and the pain is usually less in winter and, according to the weather forecast, the temperature will plummet and a storm will start (I can hear the rumblings of one now as I write this).