....and the clock waits so patiently.....

The time is ticking away, tomorrow I'll be 53.

There's been times I didn't think I'd make it this far.

12 years ago we were on a camping holiday on an island in Wales connected to the main land by a cause way. About 5 o'clock I started with a nose bleed that just wouldn't stop. After about an hour, the Boss, who is a nurse decided it was more serious than just a normal nose bleed and packed me into the car to head 15 miles to the local cottage hospital. The tide was coming in and she just made it to drop me off and then get back to the kids before being cut off. (Some friends were looking after the kids). The hospital struggled to stop the bleeding but eventually managed it. The next day it started again. Foolishly we decided to head home (over 100 miles).Packing the nose and with copious amounts of cotton wool on hand we made it back but I was very pale. That night it started again. The Boss phoned an ambulance, of course by the time it arrived the bleeding had stopped and she had to use all her powers of persuasion to get the ambulance to take me to the local hospital. The ambulance set off down the road to turn round , when pow! The nose let go and the inside of the ambulance looked like a slaughter house. It shot back past our house with the blues and twos going. I ended up with two doctors and three nurses working to cauterise the bleed, which they managed to do, but they reckoned I'd lost about 4 pints over the two days. I also got to try pure cocaine before the cauterisation. How people take it for fun I don't know.

About six years ago, I woke up with a fixed right pin prick pupil. I went to work and phoned my GP who insisted I went straight to hospital, I tried to resist, even phoning the Boss to tell her, She too insisted I went, so I did. At the hospital they admitted me and kept checking my blood pressure with lots of low key conversations, but told me nothing more than my bp was up. After about three hours the Boss got there and I announced my decision to discharge myself, she told me I was on my own if I did. I persisted, so a nurse came to check my bp again before I left. He casually turned the machine round so I could see it. It read 243 over 137! The nurse said he'd only seen a bp that high once before and the guy died a few hours later. I decided to stay. I was in hospital for a week before my bp dropped enough to allow me home but I was off work for three months and still need meds to keep it normal.What caused it? No idea. I had every blood test going including for all the STD's and the only conclusion was a virus was responsible.

So all things considered I guess being 53 ain't so bad.

The lyric is from one of my favourite songs....Rock 'n' Roll Suicide by Bowie.

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth.
You pull on a finger, then another finger then your cigarette.
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget,

Ohhh, you're a Rock 'n' Roll suicide.

You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clock waits so patiently on your song.......


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