Supposedly this could be D day, if I get the news that I’m going to Dublin tomorrow. Should know before lunchtime today. Finished the ‘Girl who played with Fire’ book 2 in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series, absolutely brilliant how the pace of the book drags you along at full speed to the end, almost leaves you breathless and eager to start book 3 ‘The Girl who kicked the Hornets Nest’. I will get round to that ‘on the other side’, it’s a brick and I wouldn’t have time to finish it before going to Dublin. Pity there won’t be any more from this brilliant writer. Started reading ‘Beautitfull Noise’ by Helen Seymour,a somewhat smaller brick only 360 pages, thanks Janet and Margeret for that,never received mail before in hospital, quite the resident! This one is all about Pirate Radio in Dublin, funny so far! Great blue sky start to the day so far, a good omen perhaps, will come back after 11am or thereabouts hopefully with news of Dublin!

Talking with Elaine from Doctor Blanaid’s Surgery, she wanted to know if she had been mentioned in this blog, as the lunatic running backwards and forwards to the surgery on the day of the ‘event’ looking for a needle for doctor Blanaid to stick into me! up to now I would have to say I was not aware of this feat, as well as reading this particular Blog, I realise it stops here, some 24 hours before going to the Mater. So for Elaine….thankyou and for the rest of you who had been reading this up to now and wondering what happens next, I shall continue, although from here on in, (Today is 11th November 2014),  is from memory.(it will be two years ago next February), as all of the above was done on the fly from my hospital Bed.

If my memory serves me correctly, I think the trip to the Mater was confirmed during the afternoon, and I was to be shipped out later that evening. The ambulance was ready to go around 7 pm and we started the long trip to Dublin shortly after. I was wheeled on to the ambulance and stayed on the stretcher for the entire trip, unable even to look out the window, but I do remember going through the toll just outside Port Laoise. looking up at the roof of the ambulance had become quite monotonous for the previous hour and a half. We eventually arrived at the Mater about 10 pm but this hospital too was undergoing a major refit, such that my ambulance driver couldn’t find the entrance for nearly 45 minutes, because of the upheaval of the roadworks around the Hospital.

Eventually discharged from my ‘Charabang’, I bid the boys farewell as they eagerly made a move to extricate themselves from the ‘building site’ and return home to Limerick. I had been fasting since breakfast and was taken to a darkened ward deep in the bowels of the Mater where I was set upon by a junior nurse from somewhere in deepest Africa, who’s main task for the remainder of her evening shift was to hack away what hair I had on my chest with what appeared to be one of those ‘toy’ shavers out of a Cracker! Had I been pre warned of this little exercise I would have happily turned this task into my pet DIY project of the day, sorry night, as it was I had no say in the matter of this ex………..crutiating sequence of events, that seemed to go on forever and ever. Once my dark destroyer had got some sort of approval from Matron I was again put on a trolley and whisked away by 2 more nurses one male one female, into an altogether different type of corridor, at the end of the previous ward. Much lighter and longer than previous experiences within the Mater, even the smell was different somewhat comforting, when arriving at ‘ground Zero’ 3 more nurses appeared, examined my bare chest, changed my bed clothes…..again and threatening to put me under I barely felt the needle, goodbye cruel world………..zzzzzz