Love and marriage…

Television warned me about it, but I’m going to try it anyway. Dutch bureaucracy and medical realities willing S. and I will get married in the next two weeks. Not so much from a deep seated romantic need for a marriage as an symbol of our love (though that is nice) but to make sure our legal situation is stabilised just in case. As y’all know, S. has been going through a very rough patch this year after the kidney transplant what with opportunistic infections and other calamities, so now that she’s fully recovered from the previous bout the doctors want to schedule a long overdue cleanup operation. I won’t go into details, but the idea is that if the operation is succesful it will break the cycle of infection-recouperation-reinfection, by tackling several sources of infection at the same time. It’ll mean S.’s basic health level will be up, helping her cope better with the anti-rejection drugs while still able to fight off new infections. But it’s heavy duty surgery, things can go wrong and we want to make sure that if somethings happen, everything that needs to be arranged can be arranged with the least amount of legal hassle. It’ll make it that much easier to actually undergo the operation, scheduled for less than two weeks from now…

The hospital has been incredibly helpful, the doctor in charge having contacted the city council to help arrange an emergency wedding, which could be held in the hospital itself, and I have an appointment first thing monday sharp to see if we got all the paperwork to actually be able to marry, something already complicated as the Dutch bureacracy seems to ask for certain documents actually unknown to their English counterparts. Oh well, my job the last few years has largely been about convincing well meaning but rulebound civil servants to things my way, so how hard can it be (famous last words).

So no flowers, no ring, no big party, just get it done and dusted, get S. out of hospital hopefully to not return there soon and we’ll see about a proper party sometime next summer, when her family can be there as well (we hope).