Rad Riders

Mission accomplished. Three days after discharge, I returned to Ruddington Fields in Nottingham for the follow-up visit. It all took around 90 minutes; prodded, poked, questioned. I totally forgot about the 48-hour no alcohol or caffeine rule, but I didn’t let on. First thing I did was get on the booze - mortal after three shandys, standard. I’m still not feeling suicidal, and why would I, my bank account is soon to be in positive figures, for the first time, in ten years. Scary thought that.

Before release, we, the inmates had the last supper breakfast together. The lads told Zaheer how he has been doing everyone’s head in, without him realising it, with his breakfast ritual. I didn’t think it was that bad: The sacrilegious dunking of croissant in the teeny tub of jam. It’s renegade outside-the-box thinking that pushed humanity into inventing such cute conserve containers in the first place.

The conformist approach.

I didn’t go crazy and a lot of that is down to laptopped entertainment; Rick and Morty, BT Sport and fillems wot I streamed. As far as reading recommendations go, I finished a fiction classic: Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse - quite the emotional journey; and a non-fiction unsettler: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Podcast hilarity was provided by #Mumble boys. “The days of general uninformed guesswork and talking over each other are almost over.” - JSL Three expats in Scandinavia come to terms with life as they know it.

I’ll leave you with a snippet of a great Bond moment, Daniel Craig can’t get away with that sort of stuff in this day and age, but it’s nice to see where we were and where we’re going..

Nothing to report. A day without the drug was most welcome. No strict guidelines on eating breakfast, lunch or dinner. Though inmate B104, Tom, did save his crisps for later and they were confiscated by one of the stern nurses. They have the power to “fine” us detainees at a cool £50 per offence. Felonies include: not wearing the designated polo shirt for that day, not wearing shoes, not wearing ID, taking photographs...(best not mention this blog to them then..)

Trying out the time-lapse setting on Jordan’s iPhone several for tomorrow’s law-breaking film session.

Wey aye fishermans’ pie. Gonna miss that yog.

Final dose. The end is nigh. This most work I’ve put into this graft.  Up at 05:45 - stickers on, telemetry machine attached for ten hours. Blood taken every 30 minutes. Vitals and ECG every hour. 

Much like Day 1 I tried to sleep my way to victory.

Gotta get that heart rate down...

Most of the day I spent in bed, sleeping, and feeling a tad miserable, reflecting the weather. A good bit of time was killed dead thanks to today being blood comparison day. Normally to keep ourselves amused on the ward, we compare our vitals daily: Who has the lowest blood pressure (Systolic BP/Diastolic BP) and heart rate. My lowest heart rate is 36 (bbp). Beat that.

In the afternoon of Day 6 though, we got to see the blood results from Day 1, Day 3 and Day 5. A chance to compare the real deal and see how this osteoarthritis drug ONO-4474 is effecting my body; sodium, potassium, creatinine, albumin, calcium, iron, ferritin, haemoglobin, white cell count (higher means your body’s under attack), red cell count, platelet count... 

My platelets are around 169, the ideal range (according to the report above, is 150 - 400 (x10^9/L)) my Aunty living in New Zealand struggles to maintain 100, it was the cause of her stroke exactly one year ago.

I have found no conclusive evidence to suggest that any of the eight of us has actually been taking the drug/placebo. Some mornings I feel as fit as the proverbial fiddle, however lately, and maybe it is a symptom of exercise prohibition and bed-rest, I have been lazily snoozing like a Snorlax for hours and hours. If it weren’t for me constantly saying: 

“Aaahhhhh. Placebo for me, much obliged”

to every doctor, nurse, orderly,spack, drug-doser who’ll listen, I wouldn’t be so convinced I am on the dummy drugl.

I’m definitely on placebo like..

My veggie diet is going quite well, aside from the mix-up on Day 3. I like it. The truth is the options are never that good anyway. If I didn’t get the cheese and onion quiche I’d have been eating chicken kiev with wedges and sweetcorn. No Way Spanish Joseph.