Change of plans AGAIN

Owing to P.'s surgeon double-booking herself, there has been a slight change in the transplant scheduling. I still go into the hospital on Friday to have my permacath installed, but I come home the same day. I'm home over the weekend, then go back on Monday for two days of blood transfer, then on Wednesday we do the transplant. P. goes into hospital on Tuesday afternoon. He should be in hospital for 3-5 days and I should be for a week or thereabouts. That's if nothing goes wrong for either of us. Phew!

Today, I went to the hospital to meet my new surgeon, Tim, who is very affable and informative, then had an iron infusion which took a very long time. I've been all day in the hospital but I suppose I'd better get used to it.

Dinner and lunch

Last Wednesday, I had one of our Penguini dinners. This one was at the Afghan Village in Camberwell and was a lively affair. The food was good as was the company. JY is off to India and JB has a new job. It was very good to catch up.

Today, P., Frank and I had lunch with Lesley P. and Michael P. at Madame Sou Sou's. We all had something different. I had the steak tartare (to increase my iron content and defeat anaemia) which was spicy and delicious. I'll have it again.

Before that, I went to the Melbourne Hospital to be a guinea pig in an ultrasound training session. I was pawed by about 15 registrars, who looked at my insides. With any luck, it will be the last time as, after the transplant, I shouldn't be doing peritoneal dialysis anymore. They want volunteers who have a gutful of saline solution to be detected by the ultrasound. They give you a Coles voucher and a travelcard for your trouble, but I am happy to help with medical training. The trainees are all very polite and thankful.

Arty day

After doing the Sunday crossword, P. and I went off to the Potter Gallery at Melbourne Uni., mainly to see the Jenny Watson retrospective. It's a very mixed bag with some fine pieces: Paris rooftoops, Dubonnet, rain in Paddington. Some of the travel pieces are very flimsy and solipsistic. As well, the gallery has some Napier Wallers and Bunnys from its permanent collection (an acquired taste) and an excellent set of Wolfgang Sievers photos of Melbourne Uni. from 1956-1976. They are mainly architectural portraits, but are very fine as works in their own right, as well as being good documents of a period.

We followed up with lunch at the everlasting and reliable Te Amo in Lygon Street, a thriving business if every there was one. In the evening, we went to Frank's for his splendid homemade pizzas, a welcome reprise, followed by beautiful raspberries and icecream. Now back to work!

Quiet week

Its been a quiet week working away on the non-fiction book and the French novel (which is only for read and report). Last weekend was my birthday and, after the shopping, we had brunch at the farm cafe with Sal. In the evening, we had an excellent dinner at MoVida Acqui (off Bourke Street) with Frank and Lorraine. There were lots of yummy small dishes, which suited me perfectly. They certainly have the formula right, especially good are the little croquettes stuffed with various things.

On Wednesday, we had dinner chez Noel who is not having a very satisfactory medical time, but we had a very good dinner.

Today, we did the normal shopping at the Mall after the Farmers' Market, then had a very good brunch at Madame Zou Zou's in Brunswick Street.

Ballarat and Prostate (unrelated)

P. and I had a good three-night weekend in Ballarat. We stayed at a small hotel, Ansonia on Lydiard which was good (and cool in the heat). For recreation we visited Lake Wendouree and the Prime Ministers' walk (no Julia yet, though there is a KRudd). We also did Sovereign Hill, which was suprisingly good, especially the information in the Chinese camp and our main purpose, the art gallery, to see their permanent collection and a temporary showing of a retrospective of the little-known Michael Shannon which was well worth it, in spite of lukewarm reviews. We dined quite well at various locations, including the excellent gallery eatery. I probably overstretched myself a bit as I was still recovering from the prostate op.

This week I went for the pathology results on the prostate and (yay!) they were clear, so urology have given the go ahead for the transplant to proceed, which it should on 5 March. There's a bit of a flurry of medical things to do in preparation.