MY blood pressure going down...

Hello all,

Firstly thanks, very very BIG thanks, to all of you who have been in touch. All the hugs and sisterly swears and cat news (and a special thanks to Miss G for beyond-the-call-of-duty cat pix, I love them all, and so will M when I take the puter off to see him) and support has made the world seem a lot smaller.. I don't think I've been particularly stoic, more focussed on the many practical things I could or had to do.. and the schlepping, of course! And the bloody hand-washing...

M was not so good last night, he had a bad headache. The docs (right from the start on Friday) had to make major adjustments to his usual regime of blood pressure meds, and headaches are very common when that happens. When I got to see him, at about 7.30, he was quite pale and clearly in pain. He had an injection of something like "fixupsky" which Xenia assured me would help head, stomach, everything. But in an hour he was no better, and getting very anxious, so I did a wifely intervention and told Xenia I thought he was really quite upset and certainly in pain, could she do anything? Well! Next thing a godly figure sailed into the room, starched white coat and all. This was Doktor Anton, who came over and gripped M's shoulder and delivered (in excellent, elegant English) a short homily on the lack of catastrophe, major advances in healing and good blood test results, successful visa-extending, etc etc, and then said 'You myust nyot worry; all will be wyell in the myornying". He also prescribed M some type of diazepam. Then Xenia returned with another shot (this is all going into the drip so M is not holey) and soon, the diazepam. I left, after administering the only thing a wife can - patting with wafts of Chanel No. 5 - at about 10pm, when he was fading out. This morning he sounded much more cheerful, even managing to swear a bit about having the drip in his hand.

I've not been eating properly, because of the difficulty (perceived, to some extent) of finding cafes at 10.30pm. I've had Maccas twice, mea culpa - the second time definitely reminded me why I don't eat this except in emergencies - and last night I couldn't be stuffed finding even that, I was out of roubles and my leggies didn't want to go the extra half-km to the autobank, so I had a rather pathetic meal in my room... a cheese sandwich, made of stale-ish bread, plastic cheese, washed down with my last mini-tin of gin and tonic. I crept out to the fridge for a little thing of condensed milk for my sugar fix. Moop moop...

It's quite windy at the moment, about 17 degrees and rainy. The wind was making my door rattle, it sounded just like someone pulling the door handle to see if they could get in. Not conducive to sleep. Eventually I had to find something to stuff between the door and the door frame to stop it. I'm not saying exactly what, but Carefree was how I felt when the noise stopped....

Today I've made an effort to get money and come back to the WiFi cafe for real food - grilled chicken and a huge salad - to wash down with my Net fix. Wunderbar! And the travel agent person came to the hotel this morning to get my autograph on a Visa charge, so the tickets for Tallinn are now paid for. The actual tickets are supposed to be delivered to the hotel later on today... we were told we were booked on the 2pm bus; then Paulina rang me to say there was a 'blockage' on the computer (the mind boggles at what a Russian computer might get blocked by!) and there was only one 2pm ticket... this means the 4.45 bus, which arrives at midnight, not purrfect. She was hopeful that the blockage would clear (heh, I can imagine someone taking to the cables with Ratsack) and the 2pm bus would be okay-ski after all. So keep those distant fingers crossed, please.

My only complaint is that I have developed a craving to wear jeans, which I don't have with me. Why? Purrhaps because I do wear them a bit at home ... they're so NORMAL ... I noticed a jeans shop with a sale on (when I was trekking St Petersburg on Monday, getting losted and founded again and enduring the smoky Cafe Max etc etc).. I may possibly have the oomph to go there later on .. haven't seen M yet today, we spoke by phone at 8.30am and then the princess needed some more sleep. M was also complaining that he was sick of wearing his grey jumper and didn't we have another one? The short answer is no, but maybe (heh) I can fix that too! He'll be horrified if I tell him I'm going shopping, so I won't. Tell him, I mean.

I expect there are other things I ought to be commenting on, but my brain is blank. Tourist activity is simply not possible, all my mental and emotional energy is going into the practical things I need to do, and keeping myself calm and trying to get enough rest. The last is the most difficult, because as soon as I lie down the brain goes CHARGE!!!!!!!!!! and I have to invoke major interventions to get it to shut up. ... and thanks to Mal for the excellent training in how to do this.

So, off I go now to waft lots more Chanel No. 5 at M, hear the story of his day, and maybe get that shopping done. I need to buy a blood pressure monitor for M, because his 'case' doktor asked that we keep records of his b/p for a couple of weeks. We'll be in Berlin in about 15 days, and that is a good place to find a quality medical centre and have blood tests, a checkup for him, and get them to review his case notes and make sure all is well. Of course we have a purrfectly good b/p machine at home. Oh well. We also have a purrfectly good coffee plunger at home, and we bought another one of those on about day 5.

Gotta go. Keep writing, please! All news, remarks (esp rude ones), advice, cats and ramblings are very, very welcome. I salute you all!

You already know what today is brought to you by. But let me add cheesecake, because the waitress just blandished me into some.... :-)