I swear the doctors and nurses here get a high from needles.

My arms are a sight, with multiple plasters and bits of cotton wool held down with more plasters. From the day I arrived they have been sticking things in me and they haven’t stopped since.

There is the nurse who comes around first thing to suck my blood. A couple of weeks ago I was woken at seven on the dot to donate a couple of fingers full. At apparently regular intervals I am hooked up to the hatstand so they can drip something into me via a cannula.

I hate cannulas as they can be sore [they are nothing more than one or two needles stuck in the arm with taps on] and the bods here claim they have to be replaced every now and then, usually every two or three days. You can imagine how many pricks I have had from them over the weeks.

The problem now is that they have run out of arm. They can’t revisit an old site or anywhere near an old site an my current cannula is in the last piece of virgin territory in my left arm. The problem now is where are they to stick the next one? Actually [no kidding] as I was typing the last sentence Nurse came in and examined my arm – cannula site is infected, so cannula is now removed [another plaster]. Nurse is now psyching herself up to stick another cannula in. Upper arm? Leg? Arse? I shudder to think.

At lunchtime a wheelchair arrived. Pretty nurse who was pushing it said I had to go to get a biopsy done on my lip. What the fuck? I was just starting my lunch [roast pork with peas and mash – not bad at all] so she said she would call back. This she did and off we went. There was the inevitable mandatory wait at the far end, but I was joined by a couple of students so we had a bit of craic. A doctor finally arrived and stuck a hypodeemic nurdle into my lip not once but three times. Did you know that lips are extremely sensitive? They are. I can vouch for that.

on another note [pun] and nothing to do with needles, I have a strange problem.

I have had Tinnitus for the last two or three decades. Note I didn’t use the word “suffer” because over time I have learned to ignore the endless whistle. It does cause problems with hearing sometimes under certain circumstances but that’s not what I am on about here.

The Tinnitus has bee joined by a Country band [as in Country and Western]. There is a bloke with a deep voice singing and he is backed by a small band with drummer, bass and guitar. He has been singing the same song for the last four or five days non stop. Sadly I can’t make out the words so I can’t join in. The weird thing, or one of the weird things I should say is that of course if I actually listen using my ears instead to just my head there is no band. It sounds faint like it was someone in the next ward with a radio, but what radio station would play a single track that so far has lasted about 140 hours. it must be a fucking big record?

the other weird thing is that I am not pushed at all about Country. Not my first choice by far, so it’s not something I heard in the past. But he is still singing away the same old song inside my head. If I concentrate hard I can actually get him to sing a different song. He does a fairly respectable version of a few Irish songs but always segways back to his default one.

Maybe hospital life is driving me insane?