Greetings from sunny Amsterdam

Spring may officially still be a few days away, but both yesterday and today it was gorgeous weather here in Amsterdam. Even though we had a white Christmas, the winter was largely just dull and grey, with white snow quickly turning into grey goo, cold with barely any sunshine even. It was so depressing, especially for S., who at the best of times is particularly sensitive to the weather. All the medical troubles she went through in the past few months didn’t exactly help. But while the winter seems finally gone, her troubles unfortunately haven’t disappeared quite yet. Thanks to the immunosuppresant drugs she has to take her resistance is low and when she had just one ham sandwich a week ago was enough to give her food poisoning –even though the sandwich was fine. Food poisoning led to dehydration, she seemed to cope for a while, but still had to go back to hospital last Monday. That was quite a scare, as you may imagine. She’s doing well now, still under observation in the hospital, but is worried that this sort of thing will keep on happening, only being able to stay a few weeks at home at a time before something sends her back again or worse, not being able to leave the house much out of fear of catching something…

It’s hard on our kittens too, who seem to miss her horribly; nobody who talks to them during the day and me only coming home late at night, visiting S. from work. They’re desperate for attention when I do finally come home…

On a lighter note, she did manage, once a nurse helped her into a wheel chair, to get down to the main lobby from the fourth floor and then wheel herself outside to the smoking corner. See, nicotine addiction isn’t all bad, it can drive you to recuperate that much faster just to satisfy the craving…