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[Oct. 7th, 2007|03:41 am] |
| [ | Mood |
| |  pensive | ] |
It appears that our upstairs neighbour has been having a kidney transplant recently, and none of us had any idea until, well, today. Granted, he's not the most talkative of persons, and neither are we, but I still feel kind of bad that we haven't been more inquisitive about his well-being.
Y'see, for a couple of years we have been hearing these horrible coughing noises; not regular coughing, but rather the sound of somebody that, by all accounts, are trying to cough their lungs to itty-bitty pieces and then gag them up. For the longest time we all thought the sounds came from the neighbour directly downstairs to us, a frail-looking elderly man. But then he died, and the coughing continued, and we were confused, obviously. Until I - after a couple of incidents earlier this year where I, sitting in the bathroom, could hear Upstairs Neighbour talking to his dog as it was jumping around on the floor inbetween the coughing - realised that he was the person emitting the horrible noises. About the same time, his moustache appeared to turn grey practically overnight, and suddenly I noticed that he himself seemed unusually feeble and pale. This, of course, made me worry, but what with the constant coughing and the fact that he'd been smoking for as long as I could remember, I had been thinking more along the lines of COPD rather than renal failure as far as diagnoses were concerned. I guess what finally made him speak up about the situation was the fact that he's missing his dog - he's not allowed to lift anything over 5kg, and I suppose that extends to walking a big German shorthaired pointer that pulls a lot, so it's staying with a friend of his.
So, yeah. It's difficult. How do you express concern over another's health without coming across as rude or intrusive? We like this neighbour, he is always friendly and has been living directly above our noisy selves (plus ditto dog) for 20+ years without ever complaining. We have never had a habit of discussing serious matters with our neighbours though; it's mostly been comments about the weather or the excessive tardiness of the postman and other such mundane things. It seems a bit late to change that now. I just hope everything works out with this new kidney. |
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| Comments: |
Slip a "Get Well Soon" greeting card under the door. Nothing too personal, just a little friendly 'we care if you die.'
Would you believe, I actually hadn't thought of that. I really must stop posting in the middle of the night. | |
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