Leaking

My wellness has actually been leaking out.

Yesterday I made my regular visit to Northampton General Hospital's Maxillo-Facial Department to have my mouth and teeth inspected. When I walk through the corridors I am thrown back five years to the time after my accident when I was wheeled or when I walked through the maze to and from the Head and Neck Ward.

I recall having to hold my hand over the tracheotomy wound to talk and dragging along with me a thing that carried my food or urine or pain killers or whatever it was. I remember injections in my stomach that I couldn't feel and medicines delivered via the tube to my gut. I remember heat and discomfort and insomnia. I remember fear and grief and exhaustion. I remember gratitude. I remember not wanting to leave the safety of the ward. You go and you lose all that - the people who care.

Anyway, the doctor told me I have swollen lymph nodes and I should rest. I have not yet rested. He also recommended Vitamin C. I ate two oranges.

I felt guilty for not being well. But he has had both his vaccinations so even if I did have the coronavirus, one hopes he'd be safe. They checked my temperature before I came in, asked if I'd been coughing. No, no. Just the tiredness. The feeling low. Maybe I should have eaten more fruit and less sourdough.

The picture - there seems to be a little leak in the water pipe. Though maybe that's a big leak and I should have reported it. Or maybe it's only a pipe draining water from the fields... though if it were, then why not run it into, rather than across, this drainage ditch. You wonder, how much water does that represent? Enough for a family in a drought stricken nation? What waste! What wickedness. What abundance we have that we can let the water wash away... Unlike my wellness, of which there seems to be something of a shortage. I need to plug up that leak.