h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You are surprisingly sensible for a , Pierce.

It's what has kept me alive for all these years

I hope it will keep you going for a good many years to come.

The feeling is mutual, dear brother paulh

I'm hoping that the health crises of the last three months were a fluke. Indeed, the doctors tested my heart and said it was fine. They keep testing for signs of cancer, and haven't found any yet. The fluid around my lung was drained. As of tomorrow, I will have been on blood thinners for a month.

So, every problem that they found has been solved, or is under treatment now. My appetite has come back, yet I haven't regained much of the weight I lost.

The sole remaining glitch is my left leg, which swells up and causes pain in the foot it's attached to. I won't be making many Christmas shopping trips to the malls this year. That means online shopping, but only if I can do it very soon, so the stuff doesn't come too late!

I take it's not a peg leg then.

Recently I have been very popular among the doctors myself. All sorts of funny tests have been run on me and I have been running on a treadmill and so on. Still the quality of life is appalling and they consider cutting me open and rearranging things a bit. The idea is scary, so it has been postponed. I am allowed/advised to keep my fingers crossed.

Good friend of mine has been exercising and taking good care of his body in all other ways thinkable for many years. Now he is facing some troubles - and finds it sooo unfair.

- But Kurt, I tell him, - You are 65, for Bob's sake. Did you believe you would be perfectly fit every day until you kicked the bucket at - what? - 105?

Life, I tell you! Some of us have taken different meds for longer than we can even remember!

But of course, if you've been lucky so far... Oh well

It would be a shame to die being perfectly well.

"But Kurt, I tell him, - You are 65, for Bob's sake. Did you believe you would be perfectly fit every day until you kicked the bucket at - what? - 105?"

Good point, Pierce. Being perfectly fit has never been my objective, though I suspect my doctor wanted me to achieve it. Now he realizes that my efforts to be as fit as I can be were probably wearing me out and leaving me vulnerable to disease.

Of course, maybe some of my objectives *were* a little unrealistic. I had hoped to be able to continue swimming until I was eighty (I started when I was thirty). As long as that silly clot stays in my leg, the doctor doesn't want me doing something strenuous that might loosen it so that it travels to my heart or lungs and becomes a dangerous embolism. Everything I've read suggests that it isn't a large clot, and it's in a place from which it's unlikely to dislodge. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that it will be gone in any particular time frame. Some clots take two three months, others six or more months, and a few *never* dissolve. I wish someone would tell me which kind I have....

One of my sisters had a clot like yours for years and she is fine now. There is no reason why you should not be either. Here's hoping

Almost every day I figure out something new in terms of living with this condition. A cane is useful for a lot more than just walking. When I'm in the grocery store and I see something on the top shelf,I don't neew to reach upfor it. The cane has a great hook for pulling things my way.

When I had a leg in cast I found out that I could operate my stereo from my bed with one of my crutches

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about, Pierce.

My leg has been doing much better in the last week, as I have begun walking much more than before. The downside is that the exercize speeds up my metabolism, which in turn breaks down the blood thinners I'm taking. So, now I have to take more of them.

*brews some herbal tea for two old *

Thanks!

In real life, I'm fond of blackcurrant tea.

for

*spices up with some fin old island rum*

Paul, would black currant liqueur do?

It might, but there's no need for. I have almost six boxes of blackcurrant tea bags, enough to last me at least six months. It tastes great with cookies or cake, and there are almost no calories.

Yes, the calories are all in cookies or cake.