Consultant

THE RECEPTIONIST FROM LAST TIME was having a fag outside when I arrived at casualty 20 minutes early for my appointment. She smiled ruefully but directed me to the right part.

Bang on time a nurse called my name. Went through the fairly needless procedure of asking why I was there... "senior review" it is apparently called...

A very friendly Indian doctor had a look at my marbled chemical burn and blisters thing... confirmed again: no infection (even though it is bright red and hurts all the time a bit and intermittently quite a lot as if the burn is spreading... looks far worse than the illustration (about six times as many and probably bigger) but the pictures I yahoo'd were either far less serious or much worse than mine so I thought I'd veer on the side of not grossing people out today: "if it was infection it would have spread all over by now" he declared. But transferred me to an even stronger antibiotic Augmentin (amoxicillin and clavulanic acid tablets 500mg and 125mg one three times a day). He said keep the flucloxacillin in case you ever do get an abscess. I don't know about "getting abscesses" any more; had enough.

I didn't want to sound all junkie but remembered to ask about these suspected barbiturates in the gear. Yes! Barbiturates cause blistering all over the place, he said and we have our diagnosis. Barbiturated heroin. No wonder I was weaving all over the place last week...

The nurse (only black woman I've ever met with an Aussie accent) rather grudgingly drained about 10-20mls of yellow water (not pus) out of the blisters with a huge needle and syringe. "Sharp scratch," she said. But I felt nothing. Even when she said it "might sting" and I dreaded I would hit the roof I barely felt anything: this sticky brown stuff like cuprinol... Now I have transparent patches all over it (are these for burns patients? They looked highly professional: never seen anything like them before...) All posh packing and bandages on top. One bandage even came on a crown-like fixture I put my foot through then pyoing! ~ It's on my leg... From now on the GP's surgery have to rebandage twice a week so no staving me off from now on else I'll start talking about... actually you probably don't wanna hear.

On the way home I passed a shop selling tiny trotters of the winter white variety (they're twice as big as robbies and have the softest fur I have ever felt on a domestic pet... just like chinchillas they take dust baths... beautiful animals (but roborovskis are more pingy and panicky and exceedingly inquisitive and copy one another more which is hilarious to watch...) I found a beautiful "cage"... it was a glass tank not much bigger than what they're in now; only this has two layers of caging on top fixed with ladders... it's beautiful. But they want £55 for it. Is that too much? Can I afford it? (Not really...) Maybe it will give me more reason to steer clear of that nasty brown rubbish.

I feel wounded and depressed and cannot sleep properly. Lost my appetite too.

Do you want to hear Vanessa? She is the most fluently articulate speaker of English I have ever heard ~ bar no-one ~ can let slip any word in the language past her lips without ever sounding pretentious...

Navigate past the red list on the right to "listen now/listen again": choose listen again Friday 22/2/8. She starts on banned atheletes. But I think her "should cheap alcohol be banned" speech is hilarious... "do you stay at home because you can smoke and get plastered for tuppence ha'penny?..." she piques us... and so on. Blah. Clickonthis if you do...

I just looked up some barbiturates on wikipedia: aparently Judy Garland died on only ten 1.5 grain (approx 100mg) Seconals... they must've been powerful pills!!

Thanks everyone for your messages of support I'm sorry not to have been back to anyone for several days... I think I am getting better. I am trying to be good. Too depressed to bother racing about anywhere...