Home Made Cooking

Friday 27 April

Two sturdy ambulance drivers picked Lara up at around 10:00AM, and manoeuvered her down with all the dexterity these people call their own. Riding the car with full sirenes ablaze was a first for me, I think. Within no time Lara was in a small chamber at the day clinic (hopital du jour) of Saint Luke's, hematology department. At 10:00AM she was hooked up to a batch of platelets; but then things started to slow down.

She was to receive two batches of red blood cells, but they came through at a snail's pace. Lara didn't absorb them very swiftly. In addition,without telling us, the nurses had cut off her access to morphine and tranquilizer to enhance access for the fresh red blood cells. So during the course of the day, Lara's breathing began to be more and more labored. She didn't want to tell me at first, then did anyway, and I got worried in turn. So I asked the nurse - at Lara's prompting - and indeed she explained. We insisted it was not a matter of trust, but of com-mu-ni-ca-tion. The nurse acknowledged and apologized.

This was another example of a jacobinian system of governance. They have the best of intentions but it is about you without you. We know what we are doing, don't ask too many questions, it will just hold us up.

We waited endlessly for an ambulance, and went back to the house at break-neck speed, weaving through Friday evening peak hour traffick.

Now she is back in her bed, eating a meal Andreina cooked for her last night. She gobbled it up. Elisabetta is cooking for the rest of us.