I think people in my hometown of Lewes, UK, are used to me walking around on a Thursday with a bandage on my arm.

Sometimes once a week, sometimes once a fortnight or, if all is well, once a month, I go to my local doctor’s practice for a blood test because, all year, I have been recovering (I hope) from a serious lung condition known as Pulmonary Embolism – in simpler words, I have two large blood clots in my lungs which make me breathless because they interfere with the flow of blood through the lungs and also cause fluid in there – in my case in both lungs.

Looked at dispassionately, blood clots are pretty things but, believe me, you don’t want them and you especially don’t want them in your lungs where, if left untreated, they can stop you breathing and we all now what happens then.

Fortunately I have been in the safest of hands, the British National Health Service where I am regularly tested, scanned and medicated to make sure that the clots don’t grow any bigger while the body begins the long slow process of dissolving the clots and, ultimately, clearing my lungs.

Pulmonary Embolism, I have discovered, is a very serious condition but it is survivable if correctly diagnosed and treated with the appropriate daily doses of anti-coagulant drugs known as Warfarin. People say that Warfarin ‘thins the blood’ but this isn’t strictly accurate. Warfarin slows down the blood coagulation rate so that the blood clots are halted in their progress. I’m happy that I am now in the therapeutic stage with the medical opinion being that it is now just a question of time and a sensible lifetyle, before I make a complete recovery.  If you think you have Pulmonary Embolism, seek immediate treatment because, ignored, it is life threatening.

So that’s why I have that bandage on my arm.  The blood tests check on my levels of anti-coagulant and that dictates the precise amount of Warfarin that I should be taking each day.

Here am I this morning in the caring hands of Belinda, the Warfarin nurse at my local practice.  I am long past getting squeamish at the sight of my own blood. In fact I’ve grown rather fond of it. Long may it flow freely through my veins.

I am also relieved to see that the computer reading says that my coagulant rate is at the right level so, fingers crossed, I am on my way back to full health. I’m still hoping to be off the Warfarin drugs by the end of September but there I’m in the hands of the excellent doctors and nurses of the British National Health Service. I’m not only truly grateful for their care but impressed by their skills. It’s good to be alive.

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love 

BLUE NOTES, STILL FRAMES BY COLIN BELL

 

My second novel, Blue Notes, Still Frames,
will be published in 2015 by Ward Wood Publishing. It begins with Joe Edevane,
a Brighton street busker with surprizing powers who borrows a towel from
well-heeled strangers, Alan and Rachel, for his Goth girlfriend, Victoria, and
begins a chain of events that changes all of their lives.

COLIN BELL’S PUBLICATIONS:

Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love
Ward Wood Publishing
October 30, 2013

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm

Genius Floored: Uncurtained Window
Soaring Penguin Press
June 15, 2013
Poetry anthology

http://www.soaringpenguinpress.com/publications/poetry/genius-floored-whispers-in-smoke/

Genius Floored: Whispers in Smoke
Soaring Penguin Press
June 6, 2014
Poetry anthology

http://www.soaringpenguinpress.com/publications/poetry/genius-floored-whispers-in-smoke/

Reaching Out
Cinnamon Press
December 2012
Poetry and short story anthology

http://www.cinnamonpress.com/product-item/reaching-out/

Tic Toc
A Kind Of A Hurricane Press
June 2014
Poetry anthology

http://www.kindofahurricanepress.com/2014/06/tic-toc-is-now-available.html

The Blotter
The Blotter Magazine Inc.
November 2009
Three pages of poetry in the American South’s unique, free, international literature and arts magazine.

http://www.blotterrag.com/back-issues/2009-11.pdf

The Fib Review
Musepie Press
My Fibonacci poetry has appeared in this journal from 2009 until the present

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/writers.html

Shot Glass Journal
Muse Pie Press
My poetry has appeared in various issues of this short form poetry journal

http://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/writers.html

Every Day Poets Magazine
Every Day Poets
I have various poems of the day published in this 365 days a year poetry magazine.

http://www.everydaypoets.com/?s=Colin+Bell

In The Night Count The Stars
Bittersweet Editions
March 1, 2014
An “uncommon anthology” of images, fragments, stories and poetry.

http://www.bittersweeteditions.com/in-the-night-count-the-stars.html#%2EU8ZFXY1dXoo

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