Five people came walking into my room this morning: two doctors that I’d met, their supervisor, and a young man and woman who are probably interns. Lots of medical power.
The supervisor felt all over my right foot and listened to my chest. He had lots of questions. My response was basically that nothing was wrong before the fever showed up on Tuesday afternoon, except for having had pneumonia five months ago.
He looked puzzled. Turns out he was.
We don’t know what’s causing your blood infection
He talked about further investigations they’ll do, the only one of which I remember is the eyes.
Speaking of which, we made long and pure eye contact as he and his colleagues were leaving. Connection.
I spent an hour in Ophthalmology this afternoon. In Dutch it’s “Oogheelkunde”. Really high tech equipment in there. Five or six tests on various machines and then an extended time with an ophthalmologist. The result: normal for a guy getting older – cataracts gradually becoming worse, no disease.
So on we go to the next …
***
So many people at AZ Sint-Lucas have been kind to me. My very first day, a young woman came towards me in Emergency to take me to my room. As I settled into the wheelchair, she smiled and said:
“I saw you this morning in Panos on the Langemunt [a coffee, sandwich and dessert place]. You told the staff members that you saw they were happy people, and that you were going to check out the seated customers to see if they were happy people too. You walked by us and other tables, then went back to the counter. ‘Yep … they’re happy too!’ I laughed.”
As we rolled along, Céline said that I was so different from the typical Belgian person, who is not spontaneous. She loved the difference. I thanked her for saying something. I was happy that I had made her laugh. Often I do silly things and don’t know whether folks enjoy it.
I reflected woozily on the contrast: today’s morning Bruce and the afternoon version. We smiled and waved goodbye.
***
More stories to come, dear ones … but not today
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