The Judge RANTS!
Date: 14/10/24
Becalmed
It was too much to hope that the respite from my physical issues would last very long. Although the ablation was - and continues to be - a great success, about three weeks ago my legs started to swell up. Or, rather, that the swelling which had long been present in my feet, ankles and lower calves had decided to to move up to my knees and thighs. This is, of course, a sign that the pulmonic valve is now seriously on its way to the ramshackle little town of Ballybuggery. I phoned Broad Green to inform them of this latest development, in the hope that that would get them wiggling with regard to the valve implantation which Dr Ashrafi had said could go ahead at any time.
So far...nothing.
Which leaves me with somewhat reduced mobility and seriously deficient energy levels. Getting my shoes on to go out anywhere has become a titanic battle and - as I am carrying a lot more weight due to the oedema - anything beyond going shopping or to the GPs' surgery a couple of miles away requires more effort than I can face.
That this has had a knock-on effect on my mental well-being should be taken as read. As a result, I find myself unable to string more than a couple of coherent ideas - or even sentences - together. For example, there was a piece that I had been trying to write for nearly two months about the renewed tendency for the junior judiciary of Englandandwales to throw absurdly long sentences at people for something that they have written. I have finally had to give up on the idea because not only is it now out of date, with the caravan of media and public interest in the matter having moved on to the latest manufactured outrage, but that writing about it invoked an aspect of my depressive episodes to which I have previously referred, viz. what I call 'the prisoner complex'. That, right now, I most emphatically do not need.
So I sit here listlessly browsing, unable to create anything very much beyond a heightened state of ennui (unlike my oppo, the redoubtable Philip Challinor, who has managed to produce yet another book), although I'm hopeful that Judgements Volume Two may appear sometime in the next few weeks, once I've proof-read the digital version one more exasperating time.
