Hospital Aftermath Day 21

I promised you I'd tell you as soon as I received my test results from the laboratory, and today I received them. Sort of.

This morning my house doctor rang me and told me she'd rung the hospital to ask about my test results. They told her that they'd received the results today, but the doctors needed to discuss the results before informing me. They'd promised to ring me later today.

So I waited... and waited... and finally I received a phone call, about half an hour ago. A doctor that I don't remember seeing at the hospital told me that the results of my bronchoscopy weren't critical, and I need an out patient appointment three months from now. That wasn't enough, so I asked her to tell me exactly what virus had caused my lung infection. She babbled something that I didn't understand. I asked her if the same virus was causing my eating disorder, and she didn't seem to know what I was talking about. I felt frustrated about not getting clear answers, so I asked if she was going to send the test results to my house doctor (Dr. Kriel). She said Yes, so now I'll wait for my house doctor to explain everything to me. So Yes, I've received the results, but No, I don't understand them, and the doctor I had on the phone was incapable of explaining them in words that a layman can understand.

As for my recuperation, it's still going up and down. On Sunday (two days ago) I was walking well. On Monday (yesterday) I had trouble walking to the post office and back. I was exhausted. The worst thing is the stairs in my house. I live on the third floor, and there's no lift. It's 56 steps up to my apartment. I need to take a rest halfway.

Yesterday I drank my first cup of coffee for six weeks. It might not sound like much, but for me it's a real landmark. When I woke up yesterday, I felt like I needed a coffee. I made myself a cup of instant coffee. At first it tasted bitter, unpleasantly bitter, but I continued. By the time I was halfway through the cup, it tasted good. Today I had a second cup, and I also enjoyed it.

After the success with coffee I tried to eat potatoes yesterday. One bite was enough. They tasted dreadful, so I went back to eating boiled vegetables. This morning I tried to eat a rice pudding (Müller Rice), and I couldn't manage it. The sheer thought of eating bread disgusts me. So my regular diet remains:

Morning: a bowl of semolina.

Noon: boiled vegetables with meat on a separate plate.

Evening: a bowl of semolina.

That's hardly a healthy diet, but it's all I can eat.

This morning I went to a local butcher's that I haven't visited since before I was in hospital. First the ladies were happy to see me. Then one of them asked what was wrong with me. "You look ill. Your face is so thin". That's not something I like to hear. She also made a remark about me having lost weight. For those of you who don't know me, I've been overweight for the last 25 years. My weight used to be normal, but in the three years I spent in America my weight went up from 75 Kg (165 lbs) to 105 Kg (230 lbs). (There were reasons for it. I stopped dancing, and in America I was eating different food). Now I'm losing weight fast, but it's not healthy weight loss. I lost 10 Kg (22 lbs) in my first two weeks in hospital. Since then I've been afraid to weigh myself.

I'll write again after I see my house doctor.