This blogger had, initially, intended merely to ring his local medical centre for a bit of general advice and to book in an appointment for, perhaps, later in the week with one of the doctors. But, receiving a call-back from Doctor Nasir - whom this blogger had previously sought advice from but had not seen in some time - brought about a conversation which had Doctor Nasir concerned enough to arrange to come to The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House in the afternoon. For a shufty at the grotty state yer actual Keith Telly Topping had got himself into, chiefly. In addition to the back problems, Doctor Nasir was most concerned about the diarrhoea, the light-headedness, dizziness and fainting and, most of all, a symptom which Keith Telly Topping hadn't even really noticed but which Doctor Nasir correctly identified straight-away as a potential cause for some, if not all, of these other symptoms. Anaemia is a deficiency in the number or quality of red blood cells in ones body. Taking one look at Keith Telly Topping slumped in the Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House pit, apparently white-with-a-tinge-of-yellow-as-a-white-and-yellow-tinged-sheet and looking as anaemic as one of Count Dracula's victims, caused Doctor Nasir to exclaim (only not in so many words) 'Good God, Keith Telly Topping, you look as white as a ginger bird's arse. Off with you to the hospital this instant ... or, within the next four hours as I've ordered you an ambulance.'
Approximately
five-and-a-half hours later (once the ambulance men'd had a - one trusts - particularly fine extended tea-break), the doors of Stately Telly Topping were fair knocked off their hinges as the duo arrived whilst Keith Telly Topping had, temporarily, fallen asleep in his chair having waited far longer than he'd been led to expect. The overall situation wasn't exactly helped by their decision to get Keith Telly Topping and his assembled-during-the-afternoon overnight bag (
and The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House walking stick) into the ambulance and then to conduct the initial 'so what's wrong with you, then, pal ... though you
do look a bit peaky?' (the answer to at least one of the questions they asked was: 'I've been shitting pints recently, guys, it's been a
real problem') whilst the sliding doors of the ambulance remained
wide-open. And, at least a couple of The Stately Telly Topping Manor Estate
youths were riding their bikes up and down the street within earshot of the ensuing conversation going on inside. Keith Telly Topping, at this point, asked if there was 'any chance we could do this
with the doors closed, lads? Some of it's a bit sensitive.' So sensitive, in fact, that Keith Telly Topping is now writing
a blog about it.
Turns out they
could and, indeed, did. After a thorough pumping - including such gems as 'so, to sum up then, you're feeling much,
much grottier than normal? Even
more grotty than them shirts George Harrison didn't like in
A Hard Day's Night?' the ambulance sped off. Perhaps mercifully, they did
not knock over either of the Estate-youths-on-bikes, the ambulance lads' driving abilities proving to be considerably more skilful than their tact and discretion when it comes to private medical information. Shortly after 8pm on Monday evening Keith Telly Topping arrived at The Assessment Suite of the - world-famous -
Royal Victory Infirmary in Central Newcastle (established 1752,
twice winner of an entirely deserved Outstanding Rating from the Care Quality Commission) for a damned good dose of that there
assessment.
This took place over approximately the next hour -
much quicker than yer actual had expected - and, aided by Doctor Nasir's jolly helpful suggestion that Keith Telly Topping should use his time whilst waiting for the ambulance to make a list of all the various symptoms which this blogger had described to Doctor Nasir earlier - it was decided that Keith Telly Topping should be kept in overnight. To be moved into
The Assessment Suite-proper and given a right good
further assessing by the magnificent NHS staff. This having been done by 10.30pm, Keith Telly Topping then enjoyed a slightly-disturbed-by-drugs night's kip. Let it be noted, the staff were every bit as utterly
superb, helpful, caring and on-the-ball as this blogger - a fan of the NHS his entire life - had expected. In particular Doctor Lottie and Doctor Christian, aided by Nurses Molly, Claire, Grace, Lewis (with whom Keith Telly Topping
really hit it off) and Kay were terrific and, very quickly, came to similar conclusions as Doctor Nasir with regard to the most important and potentially serious of this blogger's symptoms - the diarrhoea, the dizziness
and the anaemia.
One wishes the same could be said for the
other numbskulls taking up beds in The Assessment Suite along with yer actual Keith Telly Topping. The Assessment Suite clearly being a general dumping ground for ninetysomethings with dementia whose idea of a good time is to spend the night bellowing '
HELLO!' and keeping us other - less 'mental-bloke' - patients awake.
This blogger then spent a reasonably comfortable Tuesday morning, afternoon and evening. And a perfectly
hideous overnight-Tuesday-into-Wednesday, a long-dark night of the soul whilst he threatened, with increasing loudness - and increasing seriousness - to go across the ward and give the chap bellowing '
HELLO!' for the fifty seventh time a damned good fisting in the mush.
Really hard. Finally, just as this blogger had managed to drop off to sleep (having earlier made the idiotic suggestion that the bellower's bed could, perhaps, be moved into the corridor so the staff could put up with what
we'd been putting up with for the previous twenty four hours - a suggestion that this blogger was
astonished to find taken seriously and then
adopted), The Assessment Suite chose
that moment (4am on Wednesday morning) to move this blogger. To
Ward Thirty, which covers a variety of complaints, one of which was/is Gastro-Related. So, the rest of Keith Telly Topping's already much-interrupted Wednesday night's kip was interrupted further by moving wards until unconsciousness finally biffed him in the gut like a bowl of warm custard and he surrendered to welcome, blessed oblivion sometime around 5am.
Wednesday, itself, after a long, long,
long lie-in wasn't actually too bad a day, all things considered. The various tests continued - lots and lots of blood tests (mostly into the back of this blogger's black-and-blue hand as finding suitable veins in either of his arms often proved to be too difficult), a
CAT-scan, some chest x-rays, regular checks on this blogger's blood sugar-levels (he is, of course, in addition to everything else, type-2-diabetic) via those fingers-prick-type affairs and, blood pressure and ear-temperature tests. None of them too unpleasant,
per se.
That joy was to come the following day. The heroes of Wednesday were, in no particular order other than the purely hierarchical, Doctor Shannon and Doctor Alex, Sister Emma, Nurses and Auxiliaries Vicki, Lianne, Kayleigh, Jovie, Danielle, Georgina, Lily, Patricia and, this blogger's particular heroine, Trainee Nurse Sarah who
really came into her own on Thursday.
Firstly, she managed to organise - and, indeed, aid - Keith Telly Topping in getting a hot shower first thing in the morning, washing his greasy hair (although, efforts to get The Stately Telly Topping Manor chinny-chin-chin shaved to anything approaching acceptable levels, were abandoned very quickly). Then, in the afternoon, Sarah got to accompany Keith Telly Topping on what was, without doubt, one of the worst experiences of his life,
an endoscopy. Type that word into
Google, dear blog reader and you get a rather bland-sounding explanation, 'a test to look inside your body. A long, thin tube with a small camera inside, called an endoscope, is
passed into your body through a natural opening
such as your mouth.' Mouth? Yeah. Right. That may be
one definition of the procedure but, it hasn't been Keith Telly Topping's experience on either of the two occasions that he's gone through it; rather it would be somewhat more accurate to say 'having a stick with a camera on it rammed right up yer sphincter.'
Keith Telly Topping was given an endoscopy
once previously, six years ago and has always described that as 'the single worst experience of his life.' That record, dear blog reader, was equalled, broken and then shattered into a million tiny fragments on Thursday of this week. Afterwards, apparently, Sarah was happy to tell her colleagues that I'd been 'very brave' during the endoscopy. That was
a lie, dear blog reader - though bless her for saying so. This blogger doesn't feel he was that or anything even remotely like it; in fact, at one point he almost lost his shit completely - if not literally - when the chap doing to procedure expressed his 'interest' in the fact that, although (thankfully) no obvious lesions or other potentially life-threatening points of 'interest' were on display, a - marginal - thickening of the sphincter wall was causing the chap some (mostly aesthetic) intellectual curiosity. 'I'm glad
someone's finding this
interesting' wailed Keith Telly Topping, full of self-pity and woe.
After what seemed like forever but was, probably, about twenty minutes, it was all over with many - sincere - apologies offered by Keith Telly Topping to the sphincter-probing staff. For his damned poor performance as A Man and lack of ability to demonstrate some stiff-upper-lip in the face of - not
that significant - adversity. We then had a half-hour wait for someone to wheel a sore Keith Telly Topping back to Ward Thirty during which time Sarah expressed interest in Keith Telly Topping's writing and journalism career with Guinness, Virgin and Telos back in the 2000s and we chatted about some forthcoming telly of, ahem, 'interest.' Keith Telly Topping advised Young Sarah to catch up with
Peaky Blinders (
really good interview with
From The North favourite Cillian in the
Gruniad this week). Sarah herself, meanwhile, extolled the virtues of a former
From The North favourite
Westworld - albeit, unusually, she is more of a fan of the critically-less-than-slavvered-over
series three rather than the acclaimed
earlier episodes. We chatted about
Buffy,
Angel,
Doctor Who,
Life On Mars,
The West Wing,
Qi,
Would I Lie To You?,
24,
Kermode & Mayo's Film Review,
Last Night In Soho,
Nobody,
No Time To Die - the usual malarkey, in fact - and eventually, we got back to the ward in, more-or-less one piece. Keith Telly Topping was now off the 'no solid foods' regime he'd endured for most of Thursday (which shall forever be referred to as 'The Day The Camera Went Up The Arse') and he was able to eat something.
A word about that. Keith Telly Topping had, of course, heard all of the 'hospital food' horror stories and jokes over the years but, a couple of overnighters during his childhood notwithstanding, had little previous experience of lengthy hospital stays and he found the food not at all unpleasant. And, as a consequence, he tucked into his (for example) mild chicken curry with boiled rice and jam roly-poly pudding with some relish (or, some
hot custard anyway). In fact, this was a good sign as although Keith Telly Topping hadn't (and still hasn't) entirely recovered his missing-in-action appetite, at least he was getting fed a bit more than he had been of late at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House.
Keith Telly Topping also had another meeting with Doctor Alex and Consultant Sara about his case and, the general impression he got was that they couldn't wait to get him out of their nice clean hospital and back to the filth and squalor of The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House at the earliest given opportunity. The general consensus of the medical team was that, yes, Keith Telly Topping
was - and remains - quite sick and the previously undiagnosed anaemia was still a cause of concern. The main reason for the majority of Keith Telly Topping's symptoms, it appeared, was directly related to this and whilst some of his blood-levels were, as yet, less responsive than hoped, the hospital had, at least, identified
one of the causes,
B-12 Deficiency. 'What are the symptoms of vitamin B-12 Deficiency anemia?' you ask on
Google and it lists several which even someone as medically-useless as yer actual Keith Telly Topping could easily recognise as belonging to him, personally. Weak muscles, numb or tingling feelings in the hands and feet, decreased appetite, weight-loss, irritability, lack of energy or tiring easily, fatigue, diarrhoea, smooth and tender tongue - something Keith Telly Topping had/has but hadn't even thought enough about to mention in any of the various chats he'd had with medical staff - and a fast heart rate. Yep, all perfectly present and completely correct (the irritability
isn't new, incidentally, that's a permanent feature of Keith Telly Topping's life - you may have noticed). Keith Telly Topping was prescribed with a series of B-12 injections ('sharp scratch' noted the nurse administering the first ... to be followed by what Keith Telly Topping can only describe as 'something like what Janet Leigh goes through in the shower scene from
Psycho') and, also, folic acid tablets. And, that was it for Thursday evening; they'd found the cause of much of Keith Telly Topping's current (and recent) medical woes, if not the
entire cause and, much-less, the reason why it had suddenly appeared around Christmas time. Cautious good news.
This blogger must confess, dear blog reader, that he was probably more relieved by the fact that they found
something rather than what it was they actually found. For the past three months Keith Telly Topping been telling anyone he thought might be interested about how
rubbish he was feeling and, frankly, no one seemed particularly interested and just wanted him to go away and bother someone else with his self-pitying crap. There was, genuinely, a moment when this blogger thought he might end up with a gravestone containing similar sentiments to those of the late, great, Spike Milligan.
What then followed was the second
horrible night in a row experienced by Keith Telly Topping. He just could not find himself a comfortable place in his hospital bed from about midnight onwards as ruffled undersheets on a rubber mattress, getting woken up every three hours for more blood pressure checks and finger-prick blood-sugar tests occurred as did some
seriously disturbing nightmares (at least one related to a camera going up Keith Telly Topping's rapidly-shrinking ringpiece). All of which made this blogger wake up in the early hours of Friday morning feeling far more irritable than, he believes, the compilers of that
Internet list of symptoms related to B-12 deficiency ever through was possible in a human being.
On Friday morning, Keith Telly Topping met yet
another Doctor, Cameron (no,
not the character from
Doctor Finlay's Casebook) who was another model of efficiency. Except in one regard, but we'll come to that later in this already overlong bloggerisationism. This blogger noted his conversations with Consultant Sara and Doctor Alex the previous day and the general impression he'd been given that, whilst there were several aspects of the case which were still baffling to medical science, they'd gotten somewhere close to the bottom (
ahem) of it. That new drugs would help and that a - future - series of outpatient visits to the RVI over the next few months would, hopefully, fill in most of the still-existing gaps. And that, a couple of further blood tests notwithstanding, Keith Telly Topping could go home. One - marginally amusing - sidenote; one of the things that brought Keith Telly Topping into hospital in the first place was diarrhoea. This blogger was, of course, required to provide a stool sample to the hospital which he did, in the early hours of Tuesday morning and which he poured into a stool sample container with the dignity of a far-from-sober man. What happened to that particular plastic bottle of dirty brown liquid is now completely lost in the midst of time and inner workings of RVI Newcastle. It simply disappeared ('this is
horrible shit, go away and fetch us some
nicer shit' was, perhaps, a not-at-all-unreasonable conclusion to the contents).
Anyway, at more or less exactly that point in the story the Keith Telly Topping bowel-system suddenly decided not to co-operate any further - with anyone, not least Keith Telly Topping his very self. Four days on, this blogger remains as constipated as it is possible to be without someone ramming a sodding great cork up there; this despite a regular course of
sodium ducosate being administered by the hospital, the resumption of, at least a taste of, solid food and, last but not least, having things
probed up there. When Doctor Cameron (
not the character from
Doctor Finlay's Casebook) mentioned that they'd like stool sample to add to their already
massive collection (the fact they'd already had one and
lost it, notwithstanding) this blogger
did offer that if that was going to be a deal-breaker, they might be in for a long await. But, the need for this blogger to vacate his hospital bed was, seemingly, far more important a priority than the need for him to vacate his bowels and it was decided for that to be an issue for another day.
The blood tests were scattered throughout the rest of the morning and, by 2.30pm, Keith Telly Topping drew a visit from Pharmacist Molly suggesting that the hospital had been in touch with Keith Telly Topping's local medical centre, who were perfectly happy to administer the next few B-12 shots and that the addition of folic acid tablets to Keith Telly Topping's regular prescription was not going to be a problem. So,
sorted, then. The
peripheral venous catheter which had been inserted into the back of Keith Telly Topping's right hand and which had been feeding him occasional fluids and medication over the last few days was removed (to Keith Telly Topping's immense relief since, whilst not painful exactly, it
had been a bit - that word again -
irritating and dangly in its catheter-type malarkey). One final blood test was taken and the waits began. And, this blogger says 'waits' for the simple reason that there were, in fact, two of them. Firstly a bit of context, upon meeting Doctor Cameron (just to repeat
not the
Doctor Finlay's Casebook character), Keith Telly Topping explained that one aspect of the Telly Topping psyche is that Keith Telly Topping suffers from a - not massive and but, frequently,
very irritating - splash of
OCD. You might have noticed, dear blog reader,
From The North is full of examples. In Keith Telly Topping's world if he has ninety nine problems at any one time then he can
only concentrate on one of them to such an extent that
this one issue
becomes, effectively, Keith Telly Topping's World. Until it is sorted, at which point he can, happily move on to 'I got ninety
eight problems cos the first one ain't on Ze List any more.'
Keith Telly Topping's immediate problem at that exact moment was that, as he explained when he first entered to hospital he has, recently, been on Ze Sick, covered by what is - with laughing daftness - these days known as 'A Fit Note'; and that his current 'Fit Note' was due to run out over the coming weekend. Still not knowing at this stage if he would even be in a position to spend the weekend trying to track down someone at his own medical centre, much less someone who was going to be
au fait with four days of the constantly shifting narrative on what, exactly, is
up with yer actual Keith Telly Topping this blogger wondered, nicely, if there was any way someone at the hospital could issue him with a Fit Note. One covering, say, the next few weeks and which made clear Keith Telly Topping is, in addition to all of the rest of the things that are wrong with him, suffering from B-12 deficiency-related-anaemia, a serious - if not exactly
deadly if treated correctly - condition (with other, as yet undiagnosed, related causes of which further outpatient tests were/are pending). Would it be possible, Doctor Cameron, Keith Telly Topping idly wondered, for
you to do this for me? To Keith Telly Topping's immense relief Doctor Cameron (
not the
Doctor Finlay's Casebook character) said, effectively, 'yeah, that won't be a problem.' As it turned out it
was though only in so much as it then took Doctor Cameron (just to repeat definitely
not the
Doctor Finlay's Casebook character), until after 5pm to finally get around to it so that yer actual Keith Telly Topping could concentrate on worrying about
other stuff. But, to be fair to the chap, he was/is a jolly busy man with, you know, actual proper
sick people to attend to. Eventually (a word which no one with even a smidgen of OCD likes to hear), a successful outcome was, indeed, achieved. On
that score, at least. Keith Telly Topping noted, that he would have hugged Doctor Cameron ... if he hadn't been wearing PPE at the time.
With regard to the other waiting issue, Keith Telly Topping had to wait for a final package of drugs to be delivered to him so that he could get his sorry - even though the camera stick had been removed - ass out of the gaff. And, so an afternoon and early evening of the least-enjoyable aspect of hospital life, clock-watching, began. Whilst Keith Telly Topping waited for someone up on the next floor in Pharmacy, to put together - in the end, a rather small and disappointing - bag of one box of folic acid tablets and those four future B-12 shots to his bedside. So he could then ring up his sister-in-law and impose upon the kindness-of-family to get a lift back to the cold, after five days of being empty, Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. Something which both Our Maureen and Our Colin had assured Keith Telly Topping was
not in the slightest bit a problem (because they're, you know,
nice) but which this blogger was feeling more than a touch guilty about (because he's, frequently,
not). So, Keith Telly Topping waited. And clock-watched. And clock-watched and waited. You get where I'm going with this?
Keith Telly Topping's time was not entirely misspent on Friday afternoon; he was
still worrying about his Fit Note for much of this period - until he
wasn't. He spent much of his time chatting with Nurses Lianne, Patricia, Alyson and Jacky. He finally plucked up enough courage to walk down to the reception to administer that most British of things a Sergeant Wilson-style 'I'm terribly sorry to bother you but I've been waiting for five hours ...' when he really wanted to scream 'just
what the fek is going on in Pharmacy? Have the tea-breaks been extended to All Day now, or what?') to Nurse Molly and Administrator Jacqui.
Keith Telly Topping also had the opportunity to witness the only displays of 'entertainment' he'd had since leaving The Assessment Suite, one chap apparently coming down from Very Hard Drugs deciding he was going to stage of jailbreak and leave (he failed, spectacularly). And another - seemingly very reasonable and affable but also apparently quite long-term - resident, breaking down in floods of tears and getting all agitated, stroppy and discombobulated when told he was drinking too much coffee and tea for his own good and he was being rationed to a maximum daily limit of three cups. He was
not a happy man. So, anyway, if on the off-chance that any of the
Trust Directors of the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, The World happens to be reading this rambling diatribe of quite obscene proportions, the opinion of Keith Telly Topping (taxpayer) of your establishment is as follows: You run a
World Class hospital, free-at-the-point-of-entry to everyone in way that in, say, America (you know, the people who think they
own the world) simply would not exist. Your Doctors, Nurses, Auxiliaries, Trainees, Admin Staff and Specialists, are
wonderful, caring, smart, helpful and talented people who will bend over backwards and then
still go that extra mile to help the people who've been foisted upon them. It's true that, frequently, you could do with a patient transplant (this blogger with his ceaseless whinging about what are, ultimately, relatively minor matters very much included). But, all-in-all, his five day experience of Great Britain's much-vaunted and much-undervalued by scum politicians National Health Service could not be higher. Except, possibly, for your Pharmacy Department - they're a
collective fucking disgrace and could do with a rocket being shoved up where that camera on a stick went in yer actual Keith Telly Topping's interior the day previously.
Serious point here; in 1966 a member of this blogger's favourite popular music act wrote a lyric which stated (with his trademark sarcastic bent aided by lots of - decidedly non-medicinal - drugs and regular bouts of giving his missus a Saturday night backhander) '
my friend works for the National Health'. This blogger endorses, entirely, Good Old Peace-Lovin' John's views on that particular matter (and many others, if not the whole 'Cold Turkey slipping down the charts' malarkey). And this blogger means that
sincerely (whilst acknowledging that Good Old Peave-Lovin' John may not, necessarily, have).
Established by
this blogger's favourite government in 1948, the National Health Service of Great Britain is
a bloody little marvel, the envy of every civilised nation in the world (
and America), the work of dedicated, wonderful, inspiring people. In a sentiment voiced on more than one occasion this week by this blogger to the people concerned, however much these ladies and gentlemen are getting paid for their work by Johnson and his squalid, sleazy gang of Tory thugs and criminals it
isn't even remotely enough.
Anyway, finally -
finally - the Pharmacy got their shit together, delivered the long-awaited package, this blogger was able to use the - freephone - facility to ring his family (a source of fairly
regular entertainment during the previous four-and-a-bit days) and say, 'could you get me the Hell out of here, please?'
Always add a please when people are doing you a big favour, dear blog reader, it saves so much hassle in the long-run. After five days in a hermetically-sealed and warm environment, this blogger found the cold 'hospital reception in the middle of the chilliest February on record with patches of snow on the ground' thing a bit depressing. But, once Our Colin Telly Topping had rocked up in his jam jar with a MP3 playlist sounding uncannily similar to the Hospital Radio this blogger had spent much of the previous five days listening to, this blogger was back at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. Which was, as he'd expected, absolutely fekking
freezing just in time to watch an episode of
From The North favourite
Qi XL and then crawl off, willingly, to his pit for his first uninterrupted, undisturbed by nightmares and shower scenes from
Psycho, sleep in a week. The two Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House hot water bottles certainly helped.
So,
that's where we are then, dear blog reader. Yer actual Keith Telly Topping is home, deficient in a significant number of red blood-cells and vitamin B-12 (and, possibly, lots of other things but
those will do for the moment). But he's alive, feeling a bit - actually,
more than a bit - better than he was on Monday, with sodding great bruises all over his hands and arms due to the various blood extractions. Also, with one of those little white plastic wristband things still attached to his arm; having re-read a couple of chapters of Mark Lewisohn's
Tune-In - which he'd helpfully packed into his overnight bag along with a change of underwear and a toothbrush - between listening to cross-ward cries of '
HELLO!'; with a precious bit of paper in his hand saying 'this is to certify that yer actual Keith Telly Topping is, like, Not Very Well so, if you could leave him alone for a bit whilst he tries to get his shit together, he'd
really appreciate that'; somewhat housebound at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House (a few future trips to the local medical centre and the RVI outpatients notwithstanding whilst Our Maureen Telly Topping kindly offered to go and get him some necessary perishable supplies ... and a decent pair of slippers). And with memories - of kindnesses shown (and pharmacy inefficiency - sorry, I just
can't let that one go!) which will last a lifetime. However long
that is.
And so to the bottom line here, dear blog reader.
From The North (established 2006, initially merely as a vehicle for Keith Telly Topping to ramble on about any old nonsense he felt like, something to which it has,
admirably, succeeded) will be closing down for a while. Possibly permanently, Keith Telly Topping still hasn't decided on that score just yet. Time, having something even vaguely worthwhile to say (since when has
that ever been an issue in the past, this blogger hears you ask? Fair point, actually) and future medical developments will tell.
From The North may well be back in a few weeks - this blogger had made a tentative decision that this blog had more-or-less run its course on more than one occasion in the past only to have an Al Pacino-in-
The Godfather Part III moment and get pulled back in again. Who knows? Only The Doctor. And, possibly,
The Curator.
As it stands, this blogger is currently feeling - a little, lingering headache notwithstanding - better than he has for a fortnight, at least. So, as ever, all best wishes being sent his way (even if only psychically and in-passing) are always appreciated. But for the moment, dear blog reader,
this is where it all ends; pretty much exactly where it all began in 2006, in
A Mod's Odyssey. It's been emotional.
As this blogger has mentioned on several occasions earlier this year (and a couple of times at the back end of 2021) Keith Telly Topping's general state of well-being (or lack of it) fluctuated between 'feeling a bit grotty' and 'feeling a lot grotty' since Christmas with most, though by no means all, of the concern focused on this blogger's long-standing back-pain issues. All of that changed over the weekend and, particularly, on Monday when a general state of 'feeling much grottier than normal' kicked in big-style at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. The symptoms included (and the list is by-no-means all-inclusive), dizziness, light-headedness and at least one incident of yer actual fainting, a - not-exactly-new-but-certainly-much-worse-than-normal - bout of explosive diarrhoea and, at the same time, a (probably-related) urine infection, a general lack of energy and a lack of appetite. There was also something almost definitely related to the last point, a rather dramatic weight-loss (over two stone in under three months), a re-occurrence of that nasty fungal naval infection previously mentioned on this blog, some overnight leg cramps which caused this blogger a lack of quality sleep, the back-pain (muscular rather than nerve-related, it would seem) and, another oldie-but-goldie, a persistent cough (particularly during the early part of each day). Add-in a recently-acquired 'pressure ulcer' on this blogger's lower lumber (a case of 'too much sitting around whinging about how bad he's feeling to you lot', no doubt) and you have a picture of just how 'feeling much grottier than normal' Keith Telly Topping had found himself. Every bit as grotty, in fact, as those grotty shirts that George Harrison thought were 'dead grotty' in A Hard Day's Night. Effing appallingly grotty in actualité.
