Hospital Day 17

Time goes slowly when you're counting the days. If you don't believe me, wait until you have to spend two weeks in hospital. This isn't the longest I've ever been in hospital. When I was 23 I was in hospital for five weeks with food poisoning. I was a lot more ill than I am now. I honestly thought I was going to die. For the first three days I was paralysed and couldn't even lift my hand from the bed. And I was awake 24 hours a day, staring at the ceiling. I have a few photos from the hospital that make it look harmless, because I wasn't able to take photos until I was starting to recover.

So  now, despite all my complaining, I'm not as sick as I was 40 years ago. The photo above shows the entrance to the Robert Bosch lung clinic on the Schillerhöhe in Gerlingen. It's an old fashioned hospital, as far as the building is concerned. I don't know how big it is. My guess is that it has about 300 beds, which is a lot for a specialist clinic. The sign on the door tells you what it offers: pneumology, oncology and thoracic surgery.

I slept about four hours last night, from 2 am to 6 am. I would have slept longer, but the morning shift nurses arrived early. One of them shook my arm to wake me up so she could take blood. I don't understand why they have to take blood every day. For the rest of the morning I was drifting in and out of sleep, before I finally decided to get out of bed.

My coughing is moderate, but worse than it was the last few days. The rash across my body and legs seems to have stabilised. It's not getting any better or worse. My eyes barely hurt; there's just a slight tingling.

When I was at the main Robert Bosch hospital last week, I wasn't allowed to leave the building, but it's allowed here. I went for a short walk this afternoon. A very short walk. I was so wobbly on my feet that I had to walk slowly, thinking carefully about every step. I felt like crying. Why have I suddenly become so sick? Four weeks ago I considered myself to be fit. Now I feel so weak and helpless. I don't know how long I'll be in hospital, but I don't want to be like this when I go home. I want to lead a normal life. At the moment I feel like a semi-invalid. It's not nice, I can tell you.

Let's see how my tests go tomorrow.