To Germany!

Clive is at last due to leave the Lymphedema Clinic in Germany where he’s been for 11 weeks.

I travelled there on Monday 14th with the Italian Croce Bianca (White Cross), leaving just before 10.00 am and arriving at about 7.00 pm.

We went the fastest route, which is notorious for a very long stretch of badly pot-holed road.

There was snow on the peaks in Switzerland, and smooth green meadows and dreamy blue lakes lower down.

Dreamy blue lake in Switzerland

I tried to phone Clive just before our arrival but I couldn’t get a proper signal so he had quite a surprise!

The Feldberg Ghost

The Lymphedema Clinic where Clive is receiving his treatment is a relatively old building which he’s been told was once a Sanatorium for children with tuberculosis.

This may or may not be relevant.

Does something like this inhabit the cafeteria?

In any case, Clive has heard someone or something moving furniture around in the cafeteria in the middle of the night, around 3.00 am one night and at 3.40 am last night/this morning. The room is locked. There’s a way into it off a shared balcony, but that’s blocked off.

He’s not the only one to hear this disturbance. Other patients have heard it and he’s discovered that it’s a recognised phenomenon of the place. In fact it’s been named the Feldberg Ghost or, more correctly, ‘Der Feldberger Geist’.

Clive could hardly be more cynical about such things, but he hasn’t been able to come up with an explanation.

Could it be a poltergeist or something of the kind?

White Cross crossed out

First thing this morning I had an urgent text message from Clive in the Lymphedema Clinic asking me to go online and get in touch, which I did.

Things had come to a head with regard to the treatment he is having and the refusal of the therapists to either acknowledge or take into account the level of the pain in his back.

His attempt to cancel today’s sessions to allow himself time to recover was totally ignored, and he had had a row with one of the members of staff who had advised him to leave .

In short, he needed to come home ASAP.

Not the colours they use, but a White Cross nonetheless

So we made arrangements. I phoned the White Cross (Croce Bianca) and asked for the services of the minibus over the weekend, and also arranged for the dogs to go into kennels. Clive phoned the hotel where the White Cross drivers had stayed last time and reserved a twin room for them.

We had no sooner done this, than the top director (grandson of the founder of the clinic) walked into Clive’s room. The conversation took place in English and I was able to listen.

From a cynical point of view, the guy had come to ask Clive to stay in the interests of saving the face and  reputation of his clinic. But no-one could deny that he is a man of action. I’d been nagging literally for weeks, even direct to one of the doctors over the phone, about Clive being given a second mattress so that he could sleep more comfortably. This man had achieved the delivery of a mattress within a matter of a few hours.

It remains to be seen if the therapists can alter their approach, but we cancelled all the going-home arrangements and Clive is going to stick it out a bit longer.

An eye for an eye

Yesterday evening in the orchard something happened to make my right eye swell right up and my forehead come out in huge lumps like those of the elephant man.

This morning, as things were no better, I phoned the doctor who said that I’d had an allergic reaction to either an insect bite or a plant. This was pretty much what I’d figured. I once did have a bad reaction to a plant – blisters all up my arm – but this is a bit different and my money’s on the insect. Some kind of horse fly, perhaps.

Anyway, I can scarcely see out of the affected eye, and certainly wouldn’t want to drive to get the medicament the doctor suggested. I’m making do with some anti-histamine cream I had already.

I look like a very evil pirate.

My current insignia

This was the best I could do for a photo of  myself. Notice the swelling under the eye – it has just started extending down my cheek.

Two eyes with a camera flash for a nose

When the vet came yesterday to see Taylor, he was obviously looking at my eye (which I hadn’t seen myself by then). It occurred to me afterwards: did he think Clive had clocked me one?

“Some reach,” Clive said when I mentioned this to him. A thousand-kilometre reach, no less!

Lady with the lamp

Last night I was talking with Clive on Yahoo Messenger till about 1.30 am.

We don’t necessarily talk very much; a lot of the time there’s a companionable ‘parallel play’ situation whereby we each listen to the other typing or doing something of that sort.

Actually a miner's lamp, I believe, but maybe Florence Nightingale had one like that

Suddenly it went quiet Clive’s end. I thought maybe I could hear breathing but I wasn’t sure. I called and there was no answer. There had been no ‘click’ of him signing out and anyway he hadn’t said goodnight.

I gave him a while to come back to me but he didn’t.

Being on your own half way up a mountain with no neighbours very near, a thousand kilometres away from your nearest and dearest, is not very conducive to being calmly rational and going to bed assuming all will be well in the morning.

So I phoned the Lymphedema Clinic.

The phone was answered in German, of course. I scarcely speak German so I stammered something about being Clive’s wife, and his room …

“Phone back tomorrow,” I was told, and the phone was put down.

I rang back. “Do you speak English?” I asked.

The response was to bring someone else to the phone.

“Do you speak English?” I asked again, in growing desperation.

“A little.”

“I’m Clive West’s wife. I think he may be ill. Could you …”

“Do you know what time it is? It’s two o’clock in the morning!”

I snapped: “I know perfectly well what time it is. You’re a night nurse! Please can you check Clive West is all right?”

No answer, but footsteps as the phone was carried upstairs.

A sleepy Clive came on the phone and explained that the clinic’s WiFi network had gone down and he hadn’t been able to reconnect. He’d assumed I would guess and go to bed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “And tell the nurse I’m sorry, too. But” (I couldn’t resist this parting shot, half hoping that the woman was listening in,) “remind her she’s a night nurse!”