Breath Of Life

The life and times of Mr Mark Allen....

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Vampires and a Tory MP

Wow Bloggettes...busy busy busy

I took a picture of the dining room full of my IV drugs...Its a pity your screen isn't scratch and sniff...

Yesterday I had to get up at 7am have my nebulisers and other drugs and draw up my IV antiobiotics and take them, in their syringes, to Salter's Meadow..

(This is not, despite the name a new-age hippy drop-out or bunny-ridden field, but the local GP surgery.)

I then was supposed to have blood taken, before and after injecting the stuff into me, so they could measure the 'levels'.

Too much antibiotic can cause kidney damage, too little won't do any good...

But I fogot the little form and had to phone mum to get her to bring it...Then I had to do my IVs in the room while nursey took blood from lots of other people..

Then there was an hour gap before they could take my second blood sample..vampires..

An hour seems like a day when you have to spend it in Burntwood. I looked for the black pudding factory that the blood goes to fuel...I couldn't find it!

So I found refuge in Cornerstone, a cafe on the site of the former cinema...To think BURNTWOOD once had a CINEMA eh?!

Then we met my favourite Godmother Carrie S and hit Stafford...my former home town and spent an hour-and-a-half around the shops...

Stafford is an odd but strangely engaging place. The Big Issue seller doesn't speak English and can't understand British money (doh!)...

'The Soup Kitchen' is an up-market cafe and not a relief station for down-and-outs...It has a 'Gatehouse' which isn't a gatehouse, but a theatre...get the gist?

There is even an 'Ancient High House' which isn't very ancient, not high and definitely not a house! Ho hum...

The town is also a retirement home for has-been musicians and former also-rans...Perhaps that's its charm? I like it.

By the time we got home there was just time for my IVs and nebulisers before my PC class....Both assessors couldn't find the bug which continues to bug my new site..

Thursday was the farmers' market in Lichfield...(It takes place underneath the bust of its most famous son Dr Johnson...He wrote the first dictionary...)

It (the market, not the dictionary!) is hotch-potch of local producers, wine-sellers and 'organic' vegetables...!

After a long wander I met mum for a coffee in the Garrick Theatre...and who was there..but Michael Fabricant MP, who is a jovial man...

He is a journalists' dream of an MP, always ready with a quote on anything and very media friendly. I once went on a mountain rescue weekend with him in Kendall..

The Chairwoman of Lichfield District Council came over and said hello too.

It was the opening of the new Tourist Information Centre inside the theatre and a prize giving and photo shoot for kids who designed postcards....very surreal.

I did see two girls I used to go to school with later, MP and LP but they were on the other side of the road and in my condition I can't shout or cross over quickly...

So if they saw me...I wasn't being rude or ignoring you ok!

Stats time: Tomorrow is Day 10 of my IVs...Jo+39 and day 522 on transplant list....


BBC 'serious' pic of Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant who I met today...

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MUSIC: Gorillaz, Royksopp, Green Day,
BOOK 'According To Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge'

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