Transport

Monday 4 June morning

I guess we both had a quiet night. In fact, I was apparently sleeping so deeply that, in the middle of the night, I failed to notice that Lara crawled under the bed on her knees to check if the control unit for the automated inflatable mattress was working properly! (It was, by the way.) Needless to say, the next morning everybody was all over her, and she admitted she'd been stupid. This is how she could easily fall again and hurt herself. (I think she was secretly proud of her own dexterity having done this, but she will never admit so, of course.)

We are still trying to find a nurse and a physician who would be able and willing during off-hours to administer a couple of batches of red blood (and perhaps platelets, too) to Lara at home. It is amazing how Northern Europeans routinely start out by giving you ten reasons why this can't be done! (Too complicated, too risky, hard too find the right people available, people don't want to be responsible, we never do this, and more of similar ilk.) Sonya, our Mahgrebian garde-malades (the best of the lot by far) is now working the phones, with a mafish mushkilla attitude. We will see how far she gets.

Lara is busy at this hour trying to keep her breakfast down and the coughing fits are not helping. Starting the day with a tablet of Pantomed, she has received a perfusion of Litican against nausea, followed by a swig of Gaviscan. Then she ate breakfast (strawberries, blueberries and soya yoghurt) followed by Kaolin solved in water. Kaolin is purified and refined white clay from China, of the same kind our Golden Age grandfathers used to manufacture their long white pipes from. She takes her mild cough syrop to assuage her, eh, cough. I tell her to take a snooze.

She lies quietly in between coughs, wearing a black skirt, a black sleeveless top and a red vest from a cotton twin set. Quite spiffy actually.

People are beginning to send us photos of Lara (and me) taken at different point in our lives together, dished up from computer stashes long forgotten. The fact that people go through the trouble is touching in itself, The product of their search is more than touching: it is transporting! Thank you, and keep them coming.