Two hospital appointments, one Monday afternoon.
According to Irene, my dietician, I’ve lost weight again. Not much, but enough for her to say something. And, if she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s pregnant again, then she’s too late and lost the fight already.
I’m with her for about 20 minutes, at the end of it, she tells me to come back and see her in about a years time. I start to cheer up and that is just the beginning…

Well, I just about did it. Having a good shake and putting it away and doing my best not to spill it. I put the white cap back on the urine container and wash my hands. Chore number 2 out of the way.
Number 1 was to get weighed. I’m 72.4 Kg’s. That’s according to the digital screen.
So I go and sit down again.
I look at the other people waiting and there are quite a few.
The Blackwater Suite is quite full, the reception desk has a line of light brown files on top of it and one of these is mine.
James Hewitt, MRN 868224.
My address is on here as well.
They’ve redecorated in here and a little further along the corridor, there’s more decorating going on.
I am, I note, a little early for my appointment. On the letter, it reads: 15:20. I look at my watch and it tells me it’s just after three. I decide to have another mint and as I do that, from somewhere, I hear a voice, “James Hewitt?” the voice is quite soft, very feminine and I stand up. There in front of me is a tall, dark haired woman in a black and white patterned dress, black tights and shoes, she turns and I get to look at her as she walks in front of me, what I find is that I can’t take my eyes off her. I’m staring and I’m getting a little worried.
We go into the consulting room, I’m not sure if she tells me her name, if she does tell me, I don’t hear her.
What I hear is: ’Would you take a seat?’
I sit down, placing my helmet on the seat to my right. I get comfy, resting my left ankle on my right knee and it feels like I’m in here for a casual chat. The Doctor takes her seat and I’m looking at her again. What I can say here is that she is so pretty. Her dark hair is collar length, her fringe is arranged along the line of her eyebrows and I just have to look at her. Her skin looks slightly tanned, a real gentle colouring and she has a few moles on her face that I simply fall in love with. She starts talking again, now I start to listen, her voice is soft, and she smiles and that sets my heart jumping, she has a gorgeous smile, and a wonderful overbite, then she turns to the computer, and I look at her as if she were undressed and I close my eyes and pretend that didn’t happen.
Oh, but I wish.
Why do I feel like this?
She turns from the screen, looks at me, smiles, and turns back again.
Does she know what‘s happening?
Can she see what’s going on?
My details come up on screen. She runs through the last bloods that were taken, my Potassium levels are steady, Creatinine, which was always too high, is still high, but has remained around the 210 mark, it should be in double figures. From this, she works out that my kidneys are working at about 30% and I believe her. Why wouldn’t I?
She would like to do my blood pressure and if she does this right now, I could be in trouble. I say something to slow her down, but she’s standing close to me again, pulling the monitor towards me and this close to her and I want to touch her, I fight that away, rolling up my sleeve, telling myself not to look at her, please Jim, just don’t…. I don’t listen to myself, but then that soft puffing sound as the cuff around my arm tightens, then slowly releases and I realise I’ve been holding my breath, because she’s so close to me, I want to reach out and touch her, that voice of mine seems so loud and I can’t, although it’s clear that I’m desperate to do just that.
She calls out the reading: 112 over 72. Pretty damned good, I’d say.
Pushing the monitor away, she goes back to the desk and I think she knows just how close I came to touching her arm, her smile again and I’m pulled in by her eyes, a fabulous bright green and so soft looking, this time I don’t look away, but my fingers dance nervously on the arm of the chair.
She then says that she’d like me to do a blood test, she scrawls on 2 forms and I’m not liking the fact that this is drawing to a close. Make an appointment for 6 months time, she then says.
My heart falls as does my head.
That’s it then.
I stand up and take the forms from her, picking up my helmet from the chair, I get to walk out that door and almost no chance of ever seeing her again.
I feel awful, like I’m leaving her and that’s just bloody stupid.
The opposite then happens, I feel so happy, I don’t know if this is elation, but boy, I feel like I’m so happy, giving blood and being quite chatty, then back to the reception desk and my appointment.
The walk back over the road to where Baby is parked, I smoke, then thinking about what she’d said about me smoking, a small dig, I suppose but when she did that, she smiled at me again. I wondered if she was normally like this, because in all honesty, I’m not. Today, Now, I am. I’m still happy and I do my silly voice routine while waiting to cross the road, the people heard me and I don’t care, silly voice takes over and I just don’t care.
Helmet on and key in, me and Baby again. Let’s go home…

I fly, or perhaps, we fly, Baby and me. I’m thinking about her and Baby underneath me, her slight rolling motion as we make the turn off all too quickly, a dab of the brakes and Baby settles and I’m on auto pilot, thinking about her. Cruising along the R610, okay, not cruising really, sort of flying again and I’m still thinking and then, back at the flat and the dumbest thing of today suddenly hits me.
What is her name?
I put the kettle on and that doesn’t really help.
What is her name?
You know, I have no idea at all.
I have to know her name. It suddenly becomes so important, she has to have a name and I need to know it. Now, I’m beginning to sound so not like the Jim Hewitt that I know so well, I’m someone else and I’m about to lose my last set of wheels and go crazy…
But, I have an idea.
Stupid, dumb, whatever. I have to know. I get up on Tuesday morning and the first thing I need apart from my tablet and tea is to know her name. The weather is bloody shocking, but I have wet weather gear, me and Baby can do this. it’s not like we’ve never done this before, but I need to calm down, I’m getting excited and a little stupid.
All because I need to know.
I set off about 20 passed 1. It’s pissing down but me and Baby get going. I decide to go through town, why I don’t really know, safer? Perhaps. But with the amount of water on the roads, it just won’t make any difference.
I park outside CUH, (Cork University Hospital), in the bike bay. This I hope, won’t take long.
I’m drowned, dripping water all over the place and I go back to the Blackwater Suite and start from there. I get redirected to the 2nd floor. I have no idea where that is or how to get there. The Doctor I saw yesterday is not here, that’s okay, I just need her name.
I go back out to where the friends of the hospital meet and ask them, I sound so sweet and polite as I ask and a lady shows me where I can get the lift. Apparently, I need the 2nd floor, 2A and 2B. Along that corridor.
2A and 2B are surgical wards, which I find fairly easily, I turn back and on door number 30, there’s a sign stuck to it.
The Doctor’s secretaries.
Mine is Doctor Eustace and his secretary is Robert O’Sullivan. I knock and go in. No one at home.
It’s after 2 so I wait, perhaps they’re at lunch.
A little while later, a woman enters the room. I give her a minute or 2, then I go in. I tell her what I’m looking for, but she says that Robert is at lunch and will be about 10 minutes.
I start laughing, I’m feeling happy again.
I wait, and water is puddling around me. Then a short, fairly young man passes me and goes in. I hear voices and he comes out, a beaming smile on his face.
I ask him for the lady Doctor’s name that I saw yesterday, In Dr. Eustace’s clinic. He asks for my name. Then asks me to wait.
At this point, I get a little scared, so I tell him why I would like her name. it’s for my journal, I said, I do a daily journal and about the things I do. He smiles at me and probably thinks I’m a little simple, but hey, if it means I get what I want, I can play any fool you like.
I wait by the window, he comes out and says: ‘Doctor Sarah Browne.’ With an ’e’. He’s very clear about that ’e’. I thank him, almost hug him and write her name on the piece of paper I carry.
Then I run off as happy and as crazy as I can be, getting lost in the corridors but all the while I’m saying out loud, “Sarah Browne!” and even when I put my helmet on, I’m still saying her name. I go out and it’s pissing down, I’m saying her name.
Me and Baby are flying along, in the pouring rain, and by now, I’m singing and it’s still her name.
I get soaked through, I get destroyed, I have to go shopping and I stand by the counter with water all around me and as I pay, I almost say her name again.
I get back to the flat and I’m looking like the proverbial drowned rat, but I don’t care.
I set out to find out her name. I did that. A twenty six mile round trip in the pouring rain to find a woman’s name.
Would I do that again?
You bet your arse I would.
Make no mistake, I do some stupid things but this was not one of them. Call me what you like, call it what you like, but I have not felt like this for so long and as one who genuinely believes in love at first sight, it caught me and that feeling has not gone away, in the years that I have been on my own, perhaps if nothing else, it has shown me that I still have love.
I haven’t lost it after all.
Maybe, I’m chasing rainbows, but so what? Let me have my dream and don’t rip it to pieces, this is all mine and what an encounter could possibly be. To have someone have me stop like that is just amazing, fantastic and maybe I am so wrong about this, but for a few moments, my heart and my head both agreed and that doesn’t happen that often.
Perhaps, in all reality, I’m not as cold as I think.
So, I thank you.
Dr. Sarah Browne. Just look what you did.


(Jim Hewitt, October 2009...)