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Day 1
The alarm clock runs at 09.00h, very early but hey I haven't slept much anyway due to the adrenalin. I want to leave a bit early, so Henk has some time to make a few pictures on the boat before we leave.
Henk pushes me on the gangway (correct word?) with my wheelchair, where we are being received by volunteers who show us the cabin. One of the volunteers unwraps my suitcase, shows me how everything works and then I am being pushed upstairs in my bed to the salon where I can watch and wave at Henk outside.
At 10.45h we leave. Henk left the boat a bit earlier. As I saw him outside I had to cry a bit... I already missed him.
Everyone is very nice here and my view is beautiful here at the window. A bit later a volunteer comes to talk a bit with me and at some point she says she will make sure that I can take a bath at least twice this week if I want to and when I am able to.
At 12.00h I go up with my bed to the covered sundeck.

Around 13.00h I get my food; I may choose... eat below with the rest in the diner or where I lie now... I choose where I lie now: I got a beautiful view and besides my food is only a shake, real food is something I can't think about for awhile without getting sick and almost vomit. A bit later I go with my bed through the doors to the deck, it blows a bit chilly though. As we lay still at a sluice (correct word?) we notice how warm it really is. I have met a real nice volunteer, Douwe is his name. He regularly comes to visit me and then we have a lot of fun.
Around 15.30h I go back to the sundeck, the sun is gone and it has become a bit too cold. Meanwhile I have severe pain and I tell that the mattress is much too hard for me. Luckily a bit later they come back with some kind of an air mattress with wholes in it. They help me in a chair, lay that air mattress on the regular mattress, make up the bed again and help me back into bed. Aaaah, this is better, a bit less air... yes, great... the pain is also a bit less now luckily.
Someone I know from the Dutch ME-Platform would come to visit me in Gorinchem at 17.00h. Just know they said we have a delay and will dock at 21.00h!! SHIT!!!! I got a cell phone, but I have no idea how it works. Someone else luckily does. Thanks to him we found out her telephone number. She had called me before and luckily I have such a cell phone which saves the number. So I call her with the bad news, we both are a bit fed up about it, we really would have loved to see each other in real life.
Henk calls me to ask how I am doing; if he should come to get me, he misses me. I tell him that I have some kind of an air mattress in my bed and that this hurts less otherwise he indeed could have come to get me. I also tell him that we dock too late and so that Marianne and I wouldn't meet each other because of this and that this sucks. I also tell him of course that I also miss him... even very much.
I suspect that I crashed around 16.30h at the sundeck and fell asleep, because somewhat later I wake up really sick of a loud voice... I don't know what it said. I am exhausted and ask if they want to bring me to my cabin. Apparently I am so exhausted/sick that they almost don't hear and understand me. A bit later I am in my cabin... luckily no one there. I put on my eye mask and go back to sleep. Around 18.00h they come to ask my for diner. Food??!! Yak, no thanks, want to sleep. Apparantly I still talk too soft and unclear. Considered afterwards it's better that we dock too late in Gorinchem, because Marianne probably wouldn't have had anything about me. Around 19.00h I regain a bit and a bit later I wrote all this down.
I call for a volunteer, brush my teeth and let me bring to the salon with my bed. At 20.15h we dock at Gorinchem. I am doubting if I should call Marianne that we have arrived, but I don't. First of all because she has to drive for a half hour (back and forth) and she needed to look for a baby-sit for her boy and second because I didn't want to make her feel obligated to come. Around 20.45h we play some bingo, this was real funny. They told a fairytale but with numbers in between and those numbers you had to cover on your card. For example little red riding hood has a basket which contains 72 breads, 43 kinds of cheese and 12 bottles of wine. It was really very funny. At 21.15h we were done, everyone had won something. Who had bingo first got a blue-white dolphin, I loved it a lot but unfortunately I didn't win. After bingo we could join each other and talk somewhat. A guest came sit with me followed by 2 other guests. We had fun and laughed a lot. I took my cross-stitch with just in case I would get bored, but I only had made 7 crosses. At 0.00h I went to sleep. At least I meant to, but my neighbour (it are cabins for 2) was very short of breath. They even came for her with an ambulance and at 0.45h I could again try to get some sleep.

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