Well, CA still does what it says on the tin, I see! Thanks for all the warm messages on here. Briefly, last Thursday Deb had been to see her surgeon at LM hospital, who had "signed her off" as being beyond further maintenance! This means she will not benefit from any more surgery until she has a new knee - which he says will be after he has retired! This helps the insurers to close the matter, so any compensation may become payable this year, we now think.
On arriving home, she was in her wheelchair, and bent forward to pick something off the floor, when something abdominal went "pop", and she started to feel bloated. We saw the doc that afternoon, who prescribed anti-bloat, as well as other things to stop Deb throwing up, which she had done in the surgery! [I was ready with a poly-bag, natch.] Over the weekend things did not improve, so yesterday we got the doc in here, and she prescribed a trip to hospital. This required a proper ambulance - most "ambulances" in France are just saloon cars - so Deb could be horizontal, quite important when you suddenly feel & look preggers! Deb has now rung a couple of times, is still in effect in A&E, but has been given food (could she eat at last?) and the surmise to date is that there is an infection, possibly of the liver, but clearly they do not envisage early surgery, hence the food.
As I've posted elsewhere, the most bizarre part of all this was early Monday, when I went to the loo in the night, Deb was using her commode - and asked me whether she was on tablets, as she'd found some on her bed, and she felt strangely bloated. She had no recollection whatever of the previous 4 days' events, didn't know what day it was, and couldn't remember 5 minutes later that I'd said it was Monday. You all know how bright she is - probably a bit brighter than me, I often think - so my jaw dropped a bit! We have agreed I will not visit just yet - and we have a man coming to measure up for a stair-lift today, and another chap ditto tomorrow, so those are important "steps" too! More anon.