You may, or may not, have noticed the absence of this column over the past six weeks or so. It had been virtually an ever-present over the past five years, delivering news, previews, interviews and reviews of live arts events that have taken place on Lanzarote However, I visited Mioptica (other opticians are available) in Playa Blanca for an eye test in case I needed a change in my prescription glasses and the first in what was to be a long row of dominoes fell over.
And here we are seven months later just beginning to feel as if we have the strength to pick the dominoes up again and stand them in line.
However, as the dominoes tumbled all I could see was spots and dots before my eyes, and my wife then was attacked by pneumonia and hospitalised for a couple of weeks in Arrecife. We saw sights on the island we had never seen before and realised we had perhaps taken for granted a range of fantastic health services and patient and caring medical staff, modern equipment and a superb level of hospital cleanliness that is available here on Lanzarote.
The young lady who conducted my eye test at the opticians was very concerned that I couldn’t see the writing on the wall. What writing? What wall??
We left there and managed to get a following day appointment with the doctor who told me I had a complicated cataract in my right eye that was too far away from also my lesser cataracted left eye to be seen. The doctor told me that he would seek an appointment for me to have my cataracts removed but that even with his signalling the urgent need for treatment it would still be a waiting process of several months.
Dee, at this time, was in perfect health, going to her twice a weekly yoga sessions and joining her yoginis for a Sunday hike along the coast line from Playa Blanca to El Golfo.
I was able to drive, slowly and safely along the back roads but then the next few dominoes fell over. Flat tyres, a somehow drained battery, led to a couple of rides on the trailer provided by our roadside assistance, who arrived quickly on two or three occasions over a period of a week or so. We simply rang our insurance company, they contacted their nearest driver to where we had come to a stop. The driver rang us back immediately and then told us he was about ten minutes away…and he arrived in eight.
We had to drive to Arrecife a few times to order tyres, then to have them fitted etc etc. The management and staff at our Nissan dealership is an award winning team, and those awards are displayed in plain sight.
Nevertheless, a hugely frenetic week, just a few days prior to going in for my first eye operation, cost us over 300 euros in taxi fares, but fortunately all was well enough with our overworked little Micra for it to get us back into Arrecife for my first eye operation. This was after an appointment with the anaesthetist so that he could confirm that my bloods, chest and heart all subject to diabetes etc were in good enough working order for me to have the operation.
The operation itself was, to my amazement, nothing to worry about and I was in and out in about twenty minutes, and the improvement was initially incredible and over the next few days of eye drops became increasingly thrilling. Yellow post boxes and skies and seas of different hues of blue? Who knew.
My wife, Dee, became my eye-dropper and dropped them in at the prescribed dosage. She must have done well because the cataract surgeon, a very friendly but busy young man gave me a check-up and was so satisfied with his and her work that we are now expecting a call to have my left eye done.
However, over the next fortnight or so Dee began to feel ill with what she called a bit of a cold, and nothing to worry about. About six days later she had deteriorated considerably and so I drove her to the Health Centre in Playa Blanca, and I sat outside in the car waiting for her to come out with a prescription of some kind.
Instead a man in a white coat ran out of the health centre towards the car.
A man in white coat. They´re coming to take me away, I thought, remembering a comedy pop song that had charted in the UK in the sixties when I was a kid.
However, it was far more serious than that, and told me he had called an ambulance to take Dee to the hospital in Arrecife as she had signs of pneumonia and was having breathing difficulties.
OMG. Who will put my eye drops in I thought as I told him I would follow that ambulance. The doctor warned me not to try to follow an ambulance, and he was right. As it sped away it disappeared from sight within seconds. About an hour later, I arrived and parked my car at the hospital. The first thing I noticed with my good eye was that all the signs were in Spanish, and not a single word on them looked like pneumonia. My wife speaks Spanish at a level at which she can communicate but I could only ask “Donde esta mi esposa?”
I took a while to find her, all wired up to all sorts of equipment including, worryingly, an oxygen cylinder. I suddenly realised how worn out she looked, and of course that worried me.
However, I needn´t have worried. Over the next two weeks I visited her every day and I learned to feed the five cats we have, and even found out where Dee stored their food. I managed to put my own eye drops in three times a day, and even fine-dined on bread and jam for a week.
When I was finally allowed to bring Dee home only the cats were more excited than I was.
My right eye was so incredible, and Dee looked so much better that it seemed like those dominoes had stopped falling over…..
Within a week Dee was claiming to be fully recovered, so I officially handed the eye drops back to her, I was slightly concerned when she said she wanted to get some fresh air and was going to drive into town and wander round the shops.
Well, that should have been a step in the right direction but instead it was a miss-step in the downward direction as she fell up some concrete steps in the pavement by the boat on the roundabout.
Of course I didn’t know that until she arrived home an hour later, her face literally covered in blood with a number of cuts and bruises on her face, and a particularly severe gash on her forehead. I drove her straight back to the health centre where she was kindly and quickly treated.
She had stitches placed on her forehead and some slight, light cleansing of her other wounds. He eyes puffed up over the next week but didn´t quite blacken and when she returned for the removal of the stitches a proper cleansing of the remaining wounds and I when that was finished I spied with my little good eye that, My God, she´s beautiful!
There hasn´t been a rattle of another falling domino for a couple of weeks now.
So it is time to get serious, and to use these pages to pay tribute to this wonderful island and its people who seem to us to take pride in whatever their role is in society and who genuinely seem to treat all men and women as equal.
We have, over the past few weeks received professional excellence, common courtesy and lots of smiles. Services have been prompt and reliable and all we have done is cause problems for doctors, nurses, roadside assistance and car dealerships.
Thanks to their reactions, we are back on the mend and on the road, wandering the sidetracks and detours we usually take to deliver our news from all across the arts on Lanzarote.
This weekend sees the Los Remedios Festivities in Yaiza and next week we will tell you all about it…..in glorious technicolour !
Soon after that there will be the Artisan Fair in Mancha Blanca.
We hope you’ll join us, now that we´re back again. Thank you for your patience.
Of course, we also offer a special thank you to all the people, official and unofficial, who have helped us through what has been a troubling time.
It is churlish to make comparisons between a country of birth that gave us so much joy and a new country of residence that has so many natural advantages; sun, sea, sand and smiles are a panacea for most ailments.
Honestly, though, I’m sure we couldn’t have been better treated anywhere in the world.
Ed: My goodness, Norm, what a bunch of traumas, and we’re so pleased you’re both on the mend. It’s good to have you back!
