Am I doomed?
Fed up with some age related things, and the loss of a million quid, a wife and all quality of hearing, I was fairly pragmatic about the end coming. But, I seemed to have a fantastic heart-lung mechanism. Climbing the oft-mentioned Hipkin's Slope at Walton on the Naze, I reminisced with the owner about zooming down it on soapbox carts over seventy years ago. He said, and now you go up it like it's not there. 60 feet + from sand to top in 75 seconds. This winter it became 90 seconds with a pain in me right chest. Every time.
This week I was also slowed down by gout. History of it. 30 years old, 45, and another time it was bad. Allopurinol for ages but gave it up to see how I'd get on. Years a borderline uric acid reading. I perhaps should have taken the drug.
Recently I've had swollen feet. Not like me at all. Must be to do with the gout. Looked it up last night only to find out it tallies with the right side of the heart packing up. Correlations like that pique one's attention.
I've bequeathed my human form to Addenbrooks. I hope they want it on the day. I have to be within 40 miles, so I've suggested to the Rivetess that she bribes an Iceland (frozen Foods) delivery driver to drop me off on an appropriate park bench. The other method was to go to Addenbrooks and play with Mr Muscle cleaner, which I react to, to near anaphalaxis. Sp? My doctor thinks this is a plan. He's desperate to get rid of me - on the grounds that I argue my logic to the point even his sarcastic Germanic sense of humour fails him. Last visit he said 'eighty' I stared at him. 'Eighty, he said, again, 'there's one thing you don't understand about eighty. Most of your contemporaries are dead. It's the way he said it, but it made me laugh.
But what should I do? That bit of beach is my aerobics track. On a good day I come down again and go north to the 176 steps up to the Naze Tower. That tower's got a history. Vicars shooting their actress lover stone dead on a London Theatre's steps. Oooooo you mustn't anger a vicar with one of the Walton hell-fire actresses. I think he shot the Lord someone, not her. Not sure. Anyway he was hanged.
The tower is a teahouse now, and an art gallery. What would Trinity house think if they could see it now? Anyway, it's the tower again tomorrow. None of that cringing in Aand E Is what I promised a while back.
The other odd thing is when I'm reclined in my leather chair, half way to make it work, I almost stop breathing. Odd that. In a lucid dream-like state, I mini-breath until big breaths flow again. It's happened several time. I look stone dead when I'm mini-breathing. Not the tiniest movement. That's odd as well.
Two things: I explained to Rivetess and one of our kids when I went round for dinner tonight. I don't want to fester for a week or so in someone else's house. They'd charge a fortune for it to be exorcised before the next let. So got to be planned.
Wife has got me bank details, and I've got a red nose. Yep, that's right. I want to confirm my sense of humour is in tact by slipping a red nose on just prior to a mini-sleep in which I don't fight to come back. Trouble is, the laughter will make me breath again. I'll figure a way. Just wear it all the time I'm in my semi-reclined position which is where these mine-sleeps start. They are bizarre. I barely move for an hour, sleep so shallow I don't know how I stay alert. Right, better get on with the sorting of me stuff.