Don’t you just love those long, complex German compound words?
Bauchspeicheldrüse f : Pancreas.
Entzündung f : Inflammation.
Or taken together, the answer to “so, what have you been up to”?
There’s been some of the old extreme abdominal pain which I initially presumed was “just” appendicitis; 10 days in hospital being fed through a tube, which was then removed (don’t go there) and told I could eat watery soup, but must stay away from fresh fruit and vegetables for a while (when the doctors tell you that, you start to wonder about all that advice about eating less lard too). Plenty of tests and probing and inserting objects with not enough anaesthetic to numb the area in question, but enough to stop your mouth being able to properly form the words “Aaaargh! Jesus! Stop it you bastards, that hurts!”
The whole experience was generally not entirely pleasant, and then I got to go home and eat watery soup and Zwieback for another month, whilst regularly visiting a clinic to be probed, prodded and told “you’re losing weight - this isn’t good”. I tried to point out that a bouillon and dry toast diet isn’t always the most fattening, and that the idea of performing more tests to investigate this abnormal weight loss, might not be necessary. But when do medics ever listen to biochemists?
That’s been it really - I’ve spent 2 months trying to do as little as possible and it’s been damned hard work. At least I can sit at a desk and type for more than 10 minutes now. A desk with a pizza next to it that is.
You’ve been linked. Hey I dig this format! You must have to pay for it….right?
Thanks Duncan. And wordpress is free - it’s going to require a bit of fiddling to get it the way I want it though…
Oh, and you need a server to install it on obviously…
i love the word, waschbeckenunterschrank! it’s so literal! wash/basin/under/cabinet all put together to form 1 word! hehe
sorry about having to eat Zwieback. does that really help?!
AnP: Yeah, the whole build your own word thing is kind of neat, although when you’re learning German it’s sometimes hard to know how to break down the complex word into its component parts.
And the zwieback diet was a nightmare - first it was just a drip, then zwieback and water, then zwieback and soup. For about 5 weeks, then I met a specialist who was disturbed that I’d lost 10kg so rapidly who said there was no reason why I shouldn’t have been eating relatively normally. That DID annoy me…..
wow, glad you’re on a normal (if pizza can be deemed normal) diet again! i was on a liquid diet for 5 days after getting my appendix removed last year, and it was HORRID. actually, they didnt allow me to eat OR drink for two days, which was the worst. i lost a lot of weight in those five days so i can imagine how bad it must’ve been to go through it for TWO whole months!!!
Ignoring the onewordandanotherwordmakesanewword discussion (simply because I never know where one ends and the next begins): your link to my blog, to which you’ve added the title “This descriptor shouldn’t be visible”. Well, guess what…
It is, and strangely it seems to be inbuilt in the page source rather than dodgy application of the style sheet or whatever.
The relevant HTML:
AnyhooThis descriptor shouldn't be visible
But you knew that right?
[Typing whilst listening to streaming Radio 4 (to test a connection) gets confusing].
Sorry if this is a repeat, the other has apparently vanished.
Ignoring the onewordandanotherwordmakesanewword discussion (simply because I never know where one ends and the next begins): your link to my blog, to which you’ve added the title “This descriptor shouldn’t be visible”. Well, guess what…
It is, and strangely it seems to be inbuilt in the page source rather than dodgy application of the style sheet or whatever.
The relevant HTML:
AnyhooThis descriptor shouldn't be visible
But you knew that right?
[Typing whilst listening to streaming Radio 4 (to test a connection) gets confusing].
Glad to hear from you! Congrats on getting through all that!
BTW I think you can add another letter to that long word. IIRC it should be BauchspeicheldrüseNentzündung, although I can’t be 100% sure, what with all the crazy Rechtschreibreform stuff they’ve been doing to my poor old mother tongue..
Ah, found you. Sorry to hear about the health troubles but glad you’re OK now. You’re blog rolled.
Ernst: Thanks (and for the link change). I have no idea if it’s drüse- or drüsen- entzündung. Neither does the Dr in the Bericht she wrote (both spellings). On the one hand it is just the one organ, on the other it’s composed of many secretory glands - could go either way really and on the third and final hand I’m not doing German for Intermediate learners anymore, so I don’t have to care too much
Okay, I got out my big book of medical terms and have changed it….
Tim: Thanks for the link - might I ask you to remove the German for… link from your sidebar if that’s possible.
Please forgive the somewhat cluttered nature of the site - and the lack of serious posts, I’m counting on the chances of me deleting everything by mistake and having to start installing all over again being pretty high, so I’m still playing around for a bit at the moment….
I’m so damn’ glad you’re OK. If you need help with WP, let me know. After my installation of the software, I’ve become somewhat adept with sorting it out.
Your ordeal sounds like it has been horrible, but I’m sure that’s something you’re well aware of. Good that you’ve been getting better rather than dying. Don’t you find that your pizza very quickly goes cold if you ignore it and type on a computer instead of eating it? (Instead of eating the pizza, that is, and not the computer.)