Where to begin!

Added on Sunday 22 Nov 2009

Photo: barry paton. I just do not know where to begin this month..............

It all began very simply with a few visits to clinics & doctors for Fiona. Within a very short time Fiona was diagnosed with a very large cyst on her ovary and an hysterectomy was recommended very quickly. This was all done so quickly that I had hardly time to think for myself and Fiona went into a private clinic in Brive for the operation. At the same time we had a big problem with France Telecom cutting us off,

The payment that I get monthly was cut (something to do with the fact that I was 65 that day), the internet connection (ADSL) was also cut and I had no money, no Fiona and was feeling a bit lost!

At the moment Fiona is now back out and at home where I am doing my best to look after her..everything has to be done slowly..I am fortunate that part of my background has been with medical people and I understand all this but I am surprised how many males shy away from the mention of a hysterectomy, it is as if they do not want to know. Would it be the same if they had their balls cut of? I wonder.

By great good fortune my bank has been incredibly helpful by giving me a modest overdraft without too much hassle so the shopping and day to day stuff has been taken care off for the moment with the only problem being that I have to walk a kilometer to the supermarket with me bad leg! I try and cheer up Fiona by saying that she will be well after another 3 weeks or so and here am I with an open wound and nurses to change dressings every two days some 15 months later! Some justice?

Fiona is only now just realising exactly what she has gone through, i.e. a major operation with all that it entails, a fairly lengthy recovery period is all part and parcel of it all. This frustrates her immensly at her inability to do certain things and of course she gets very tired and down occaisionaly, some good days and some bad, but on the whole she seems to have been very lucky in the general terms of the recovery from surgery.

The cats have been very good at looking after Fiona by going upstairs to her bed and more or less ignoring me. Because I am sleeping in the spare room at the moment in order not to disturb Fiona the cats have taken to by-passing me and go straight into the master bedroom and really only acknowledge me when food is required... which they seem to think should be on demand. Not with me it's not!

The long saga with our ADSL internet connection has gone beyond a joke and I am not very fond of Alice our internet provider. Some weeks ago France Telecom cut us off for a few days, but that was re-instated very quickly but in the process Alice cut our ADSL line and I am now having to use the dial-up connection and when we got in touch with Alice by phone (many times I may add) they have said that we have to renew everything despite nothing having been changed. I eventually spoke to a techichian at Alice and he told me that they had made a huge mistake (but not to say this to anyone) and had basically ballsed our connection all up. The consequence of all this is that we have to wait up to 14 days for it all to be put back in place, so that we have the same e-mail addresses and connection parameters that we had before, no amount of shouting, pleading with Alice has had any effect at all. I am very confused as to whether this was caused by France Telecom's mistake or if it is down to the fault of Alice. However I have decided to dump the line from France Telecom and do everything through Alice which wil cost me less than before and I even get most of my phone calls free through the internet. We shall see when I am re-connected if this is all going to work and if it is not then a complete change is going to have to be done, something I dread having to do as I am on so many sites around the world.

We are waiting at the moment for Mr. Lacombe from across the road to deliver some 2 cube metres of timber for the fire, by good fortune the weather here has been very mild with temperatures in the 18 to 20 degree mark, so we cant really complain at all but the weather is supposed to dip this week back to the seasonal averge of about 14 degrees. Mr Lacombe was waiting for acces to the ground where the trees are before cutting it for us, as he returns from a week away tomorrow I expect that we shall have it very soon.

I must apologize for not including any pictures this month but I am having to use my old computer which is not geared up to accept the digital camera as yet, I shall get round to doing that if it is possible soon, but then I should not have to use this old one at all, I am just glad I didn't get rid of it before...at least it gives me a lifeline to the world, albeit slowly! In fact the nurse, Nadine, has just been round to change my dressing and was telling me a few horror stories about her internet connection and all the problems that she has had. I don't wish any of these problems on anyone else but is nice to hear that it is not just us!

Rural France? I love it (but get frustrated by it every day).
(c) Barry Paton November 2009.