As every morning, we were listening to the RTE News this morning and heard that Beaumont Hospital asked all visitors to ‘stay away’ to prevent the spread of the vomiting bug Norovirus, against the” backdrop of an increased incidence of the winter vomiting bug in the community”. Restrictions had started last weekend when Pádraig was getting ready to leave for Germany – and his friends and family wanted to say ‘good-bye’. Many of his friends cancelled their visits, his GP was stopped on the corridor on her way to see Pádraig and was told to leave. While everybody agrees that patients need to be protected from dangerous bugs, you wonder who poses the greater threat: visitors, who are just seeing their one family member or friend, or staff, who are moving from patient to patient, and from ward to ward – at times, as we have heard, without observing even basic hygiene procedures like cleaning their hands.

Anyway – today Pádraig was as relaxed as he had not been for a very long time. We were used to heard rates of 120 and fast breathing – when we came in to see him this afternoon, Pádraig was the incarnation of relaxation: heart rate down to just above 70, breathing not much more than 10 breaths/min. We asked his second favorite nurse (!) whether something was wrong, or whether he had been given medication. Nothing was wrong, and no drugs had been administered – we were told. A doctor had seen him and they had checked him out, but all was well. The nurse told us that she had been feeling Pádraig’s presence and that she thought he was communicating with her. We think he might be in the process of finding back to himself through rest and relaxation. We can’t wait to see him tomorrow.

For us – we are still learning how to find our way around. Working on getting a decent internet connection in the middle of the German countryside is as challenging as getting it in Leitrim. There is an endless number of forms to be filled in for the hospital, the insurance, the city council, social welfare, … . And, we are trying to find the optimum speed for the close to 300km return drive to Hamburg – not too slow (saving time), but not too fast either (saving petrol).

One thing is for sure: we will not stay away from Pádraig – and we are hearing with delight that there are family and friends from Ireland planning to visit him over the coming weeks. Hopefully, he will be out of the isolation room by then and it’ll be easier to visit him.

PS1: Today’s German Music tip: Reinhard Mey, Über den Wolken… (1974). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the slightly psychedelic original version, but here is one from 1998:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu57mDP75Jo
(Watch or: listen out for the “Luftaufsichtsbaracke’:)
PS2: Just missed the 12 o’clock deadline for the second time in a row – so, despite showing Sunday’s date, this is Saturday’s blog!