Thursday, February 05, 2009

Hallsfoot, doctors and braving the snow ...

Ah these one day working weeks are a tough life, you know, but somebody's got to do it. Pause for the inevitable tomatoes to be thrown in my direction ... ideal for my hair colour indeed. Today I have struggled to make some kind of sense of my meditation zone and eventually came up with this:

Meditation 65

The desert is a choice
you make
when the cities, the farms,
the breathed air
cannot give you
what you seek:
a lightness in your shoulders,
a sense of acts
not taken.

What counts
and whether you return
is what you take
for the journey:
blood, guilt, shame,
memories sliding
on your skin
that might draw you back
one day.

Goodness me, that's a lot of words for a morning poem. I must be using up yesterday's ration too. Or perhaps tomorrow's. Who knows. Anyway, for the rest of the morning, I've been getting to grips with Hallsfoot's Battle and am now at just over 87,000 words. I've formed a strange kind of link between the Lammas Lands and the mind-world where Simon and the Executioner are currently gallivanting about, which I might be able to do something with. Lord knows what. Oh and the mountain-dogs have cropped up again. They do get about - frisky little beasts. And they're pretty damn hungry by now ...

Oh and I've also braved another phone call to the doctor's to attempt to find out my blood test results from 6 January (ye gods, if it had been terminal, I'd be dead before they told me ...) and to try to get myself on this new HRT the consultant wanted me to go on (the one that will make me more depressed but may save me from having to have another operation at some stage - ah what a hellish choice to offer indeed). I was a bit quivery when I rang, but the good news is that they have at last got the consultant's letter so I can pick up my new HRT prescription tomorrow. I didn't ask how long they'd had the letter and why nothing had been done about it of course - these days our health seems very much in our own hands, my dears. It may have been the case that they've only just received it, but nobody's saying.

Whilst my scrap of courage remained, I also asked about the blood test results but the receptionist said the letter didn't mention it so it was probably okay. Ye gods! Do they think that's reassuring?? At the last check, I had thought this was my body so I had some kind of right to know the facts, but evidently this is not the case ... So in the end I've rung the consultant's secretary at the hospital who spent some time finding my notes, but the good news is that my blood test results are perfectly normal and the endometriosis is under control, hurrah! Though I'll need to keep it that way with the new HRT, sigh. I still wonder though if I'd have ever found out anything if I hadn't been doing the chasing. Really, it shouldn't be like that, I think.

Anyway, this afternoon, I'm braving the threat of snow and disappearing trains and going up to London to see Jane W and wander round The Wallace Collection. Always a lovely thing to do in London and so free and so peculiarly unknown. Well worth a visit if you're ever in that area. I'm only hoping I'll be able to get back. Should I take a flask?...

Today's nice things:

1. Poetry
2. Hallsfoot's Battle
3. Good blood test results
4. Seeing Jane W
5. The Wallace Collection.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website - wrapping up warm for the duration

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Anne, I'm happy to hear your health is good. Sometimes it does feel as though our health files are some secret document hidden in a government vault. I've got a test on Feb 26th also. I've got another funny lump and they want to probe and inspect it. This getting older business is great for the soul but hell on the body.

I also liked your poetic meditation. It makes me think of reincarnation, both literally and symbolically.

Anne Brooke said...

Thanks, Val - sorry to hear about your tests too though. Hope all well for 26th - will be thinking of you loads.

Love & hugs

Axxxxxxxxxx