Paddy Murray Is (a bit) Unwell (this time)

DAMMIT.
Back in hospital.
The cure didn’t cure me.
I have no intention of going into all the gory details (and believe me, they’re gory) but suffice to say that the ghastly infection in my foot is still doing its worst.
It’s damned sore - up around 9 out of 10 (on a male scale. It’s probably only about 4 on a female scale.)
I have been pumped full of so many antibiotics, that I’m pretty sure, 99 per cent of the world’s infections wouldn’t come near me. Wouldn’t dare.

Sadly, I’ve got the macho one per cent, the Rambo of blasted foot infections, the one nasty piece of work that is doing to my foot what Eric Cantona (bless him) once did to a loudmouth fan.
So the little bag has been packed again, the bottles of water have been purchased, the sweets stuffed into my little locker, my toothbrush and razor laid neatly beside me and I’m back in my jim jams, back in a hospital bed and thoroughly miserable.
Well, no. That’s not fair.
I’m miserable. But it’s not thoroughly.
I know that what’s wrong with me is relatively serious. It’s not as bad as, say, leprosy. But it’s a lot worse than a grazed knee.
So while hospital is where I don’t want to be, it’s the right place to be.
I desperately miss Connie and Charlotte. I hate saying goodbye to the little mite (that’s Charlotte, not Connie) even though I haven’t been much fun for her these past few months.
She thinks daddies are people who lie on couches complaining all the time.
If and when I get better, and if prayer makes people better I’m half way there, I am going to play with Charlotte all day every day until I can stand it no longer.
Or until she can stand it no longer.
Today, I was seen by a total of five doctors. Sometimes, it takes five doctors with different specialties to come up with a solution to a difficult problem
And my foot is a difficult problem, a bit like the rest of me.
It’s not been the best three months of my life.
But three years ago, I was in hospital for a long period.
And that ended with me being given the cheerful new that I was no longer editor of the Sunday Tribune because ‘we want someone who’s there all the time, not someone who’s sick.’
Hopefully, i am in more secure employment these days. And anyway, the Sunday World is a better newspaper than the Sunday Tribune. At every level.
And, of course, three years ago, I probably had some daft picture of Eric Cantona or Denis Law or maybe even some place in the South of France as my screensaver and desktop display.
Now, I have Charlotte’s picture.
And even when some days are a bit dark, that’s always there to cheer me up.