Stitched Up

I’m sure if you go back and look at this blog from 18 months ago (although quite why anyone would choose to undertake such a thankless task is beyond me) I am sure that I made a prophecy. When I crossed the threshold of 40, albeit gracelessly and with much anger, I believe I declared to anyone who’d listen that no good would come of it. It turns out that I was right.

Other than having my wisdom teeth removed when I was 16 I’d never been given general anaesthetic for a medical procedure. I only opted for it with the wisdom teeth because they were buried deep within my gums and heading off course towards my existing teeth that such drastic measures for removal were even considered.

Then last year you may recall that I ended up having my gall bladder taken away from me, due to it developing a fault and being out of warranty. It serves no useful purpose these days anyway, much like a cassette player or a Liberal Democrat MP.

Now, another part of my wretched cadaver is suffering from wear and tear and needs surgical intervention.  To be honest, I had assumed that the recent stomach pain I’d experienced was a touch of trapped wind, however on the third or fourth bout of excruciating pain I decided to seek medical advice.

I visited a GP who asked me a few questions and then she got me to stand behind the curtain and drop my trousers. Having spent a couple of nights in hospital last year I’ve lost any embarrassment about such requests and will now merrily drop my trousers at will, whether people want me to or not.

In fact I’m not entirely sure the GP wanted to see quite what I was exposing to her but she didn’t scream or point and laugh, and following a quick prod around my lower stomach she concluded that I probably had a couple of inguinal hernias. To be honest I thought they’d be more noticeable but a subsequent ultrasound confirmed her diagnosis.

So the other week I was back at the hospital in front of a very cheerful surgeon (that’s private healthcare for you I suppose) who gladly signed me up to be cut open and have my hernias repaired and sealed. I asked if this was all really necessary as, despite what the present Mrs Hayward would tell you, I am not addicted to surgery.  In fact I am deeply suspicious of the whole thing.

The surgeon said that it’s best to get them done while I’m still young and fit as hernias can cause problems in later life. Notwithstanding his apparent short sightedness I’m not sure if later life is going to be much of a problem if parts of my anatomy keep packing up or falling apart. Unless this is some long term experiment to turn me into the Bionic Man, which could be advantageous; the special eye thing will be most useful to see if there’s a new guest ale on at the bar without me leaving my seat.

Mind you, if I were a caveman I’d probably be dead by now so perhaps I need to take the hernia on the chin (not literally) and behave in a much more stoic way, rather than whining on the internet. After all, it’s a miracle of modern technology that they can patch me up like I’m a rusty Ford Escort (Mk 2 of course) and send me on my way.

Oh well, it's only a few hours now until I have to show my face at the hospital at the ungodly hour of 7:15am, but that's still plenty of time for me to run through all the potential worst case scenarios, including but not limited to, the surgeon leaving implements inside my body, waking up during the operation, and the whole hospital being staffed by lunatics masquerading as medical staff.

Actually that last one may have happened on the previous occasion. He was called Dr Bob, but that’s another story.    

Flat Out

I’ve just realised that the last time that I updated the virtual world with tales of the real world, I was sharing my anxiety of some forthcoming surgery. Following that post this blog fell silent, possibly leading the more optimistic of readers to assume that I had succumbed to my malaise and expired on the operating table. Well, from my perspective I can happily report that this was not the case, the operation went well and I am now fully recovered. However, it was not without the occasional mishap along the way.

I had ‘gone private’ thanks to a generous health scheme provided by my employer so my arrival at the hospital was all a bit of an adventure, albeit an adventure that started at 6.30am and would lead to me being cut open. The room I had been allocated was better than some hotel rooms I’d stayed in (the Days Inn near Victoria Station for a start) and I could tell that I was a long way from the National Health Service when the first thing I was handed was a gift set of toiletries. They then gave me a menu embossed in gold, which my father-in-law was particularly drawn towards when he visited.

I was also provided with a gown to pop on and told that I was up first at 8.30am, which was terrifying but also a relief at the same time. After some anxious pacing I was eventually escorted up to the operating theatre where I was ushered into a brightly lit room full of widescreen TVs. I suppose it hadn’t occurred to me that a modern operating theatre looks less like an abattoir and more like Mission Control. If I could have detached myself at that moment from the cold, hard reality that I was about to be operated upon I would have marvelled at the state of the art technology being applied just to remove my gall bladder.

My fear was that I would wake during the surgery but would be unable to move or scream, trapped in a world of pain with no way to tell my torturers that I was suffering. Rather peculiarly therefore I was determined to stay in control of my senses as the anaesthetist busied around me. However, after a few short moments of applying a mask to my face (a medical one, not one of those Guy Fawkes ones that seem popular amongst anarchists) I must have passed out.

The next thing that I was aware of was the LED clock on the wall stating that it was 10.30am. The surgeon loomed above my prone body and asked how I was feeling. In a disbelieving and a slightly slurred intonation I asked him if he’d performed the operation. He confirmed that my gall bladder and I had parted company and that they’d take me back down to my room later to enjoy all the comforts that private healthcare can offer.

In fact by the time I was wheeled back down to be reunited with the present Mrs Hayward, I was virtually sat up in the bed and singing numbers from popular West End musicals.  I felt great, absolutely splendid, on top of the world. I laughed with the surgeon when he came to visit and even asked if I could have my gall stones to take home with me. He explained that this was not considered hygienic these days and, even if I wanted to take them home and fashion them into a necklace, my gall stones had been stuck together. The operation had therefore been trickier than anticipated and he’d had to make a longer cut near my belly button. “Really?”, I enquired, “that’s just typical of me, isn’t it?” and we laughed like old friends enjoying a joke over an ale or two, albeit that I was still laughing for some 20 minutes after he’d left the room.  

My overall bonhomie extended to everyone I met that afternoon and I felt an overwhelming love for the present Mrs Hayward in particular and I spent several minutes just staring at her lovingly in a glorious haze of adoring feelings.

Now this is not to denigrate my feelings for my wife or for my fellow men and women but unbeknown to me this joy and laughter was being fuelled by a concoction of pain killers which included, but was not limited to, Tramadol. 

This elation continued unabated for a few hours before wearing off a little. It was replaced by discomfort and waves of nausea. Needless to say I was not able to partake of the fine meals being presented to me at regular intervals. My heart, or in this case my stomach, just wasn’t in it.

By the evening I began to perk up again. I picked at some chicken and rice concoction that had arrived, but found more pleasure to be gained from drinking the custard surrounding a sticky toffee pudding.  The food looked so splendid that I felt bad about leaving it but my insides had been altered and weren’t completely ready for anything of substance. After a long day observing my various states of health the present Mrs Hayward headed home and I decided that I would chill out in front of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ on the impossibly large TV in the room and perhaps even have a bit of a doze.

By about 8.30pm the sequins and twirling had ended and I idly flicked through the channels, finally alighting upon an episode of ‘Dad’s Army’. Whilst sleepily regarding the hilarious antics of the Home Guard from Warmington-on-Sea I suddenly got prompted into movement by a familiar and unwelcome sensation from my stomach.

I’d been urged by the nurses to get out of bed when I could and I felt that this was probably one of those moments. I delicately pulled myself off the bed and over to the bathroom as another bout of sickness seemed inevitable. When I realised that, instead of being stood by the sink and staring at my pale face in the mirror, I was actually lying flat on my back staring at the ceiling I realised that something had gone awry.

I had somehow fallen backwards but I had no memory of doing so. I was just there. After a few moments of enjoying a cool draught on the back of my head I looked around me. My body was laid about two-thirds of the way into the bathroom with my head and shoulders still within the bedroom. Fortunately it didn’t appear that I’d struck anything on the way down but the little bag that was attached to me by a tube into the side of my abdomen to capture any nasty seepage had come away and was now some distance away from me. There was blood, but not too much.

I couldn’t seem to move so laid prone for a while before finding I could sort of get up on my elbows, and so I tried to drag my weakened carcass back to the bed, with only minimal success. At that moment a young lady arrived with a mug of Horlicks. She seemed surprised to see me on the floor and decided that it was probably an opportune moment to seek some assistance from someone who was medically trained. I was not in a position to argue.

Within moments my room was full of nurses and doctors. A tall gentleman appeared and hauled me up from the floor and back on to the bed. The bag was reattached and they left me alone, but I was now subject to regular blood pressure checks as mine had apparently gone through the roof for no discernible reason.

My sleep was not entirely satisfying that night. I couldn’t get comfortable, especially as I could only really lie on my back, and I was being visited every couple of hours for medical tests of one form or another. The hours passed slowly and I was therefore glad to see the sunlight start to emerge from the cover of darkness.

At around 8am I was visited by a chirpy lady with some breakfast and tea. I sat myself up and was ready to tuck into the Corn Flakes she had brought when I became aware of some dampness on the right hand side of my tummy. I cautiously investigated and found I was leaking a little blood out of one of my wounds near the bag. No matter I thought, I’ll ping the bell in a minute after I’ve had myself a welcome cup of tea. As I was pouring and the reassuring smell of English Breakfast tea hit my nostrils I realised that the dampness had now spread. I looked again and was slightly startled to find that I was now sat in a substantial puddle of my own blood. I decided that help may be needed.

I rang the bell and after a few minutes the nurse, a charming young lady called Laura, arrived and calmly investigated. Again, much like the night before, my room was soon filled with what seemed like the entire medical staff from the hospital as they tried in vain to staunch the flow. I heard mutterings of ‘blood transfusion’ but I remained calm as towels from the bathroom were being deployed.

Eventually the Consultant was called in to investigate the blood bath. He surmised that my fall had caused the bag’s tube to pierce a blood vessel. He said that this was probably just skin blood that had been forming overnight and, instead of staunching it, the blood should be encouraged to flow forth. He pressed on my wound and the blood poured from my side like a raging red river.

Once he was satisfied that as much blood that was going to emerge had emerged he sewed me back up, but told me that my abdomen would now swell up and that I will most likely have a fair bit of bruising. There was however a veiled threat that if things didn’t go as he expected that more surgery would be necessary so for the rest of the Sunday I was nil by mouth and I wouldn’t be going home as expected.

For the next 36 hours I was poked, prodded, stabbed and generally manhandled, mostly by a German fellow calling himself ‘Doctor Bob’ who I wasn’t convinced had any kind of medical training whatsoever, until they eventually released me back into the wild on the Monday evening. My stomach and right hip did indeed swell up to the point that the only clothes I had that fitted me were my pyjamas, which I lived in for about a week. The bruising was spectacular and featured more colours than the famous sands of Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight.

For the following few weeks I found that I could only sleep on my back, which is surprisingly uncomfortable for prolonged periods, and my mobility was much reduced. A kindly soul had lent me some DVDs to watch during my convalescence. They comprised mostly of the Alien films. Given the gore I had recently experienced I figured they would be an easy watch. The only problem I had was that our DVD player is on the bottom shelf of the TV unit and I couldn’t get to it. More to the point, if I’d had to get down on the floor to load the DVD I would have had to stay there for the rest of the day and that would not be a satisfactory way to view any classic movie.

I was however on hand to receive Christmas presents that the present Mrs Hayward had ordered, even if it took me 10 minutes to walk the short distance to the door. Throughout my recovery I frequently answered the door to our chatty Mancunian postman, although I did have to explain my appearance in pyjamas at all times of the day lest he thought I was some work shy fop who ordered parcels in a woman’s name. Following this explanation he enquired about my health on a daily basis, once to a puzzled Mrs Hayward who hadn’t realised that we’d struck up this level of camaraderie whilst she was at work.

My recovery is now complete and all is well. I am eating and drinking normally with no ill effects. My scars are minimal and if anyone asks (not that a lot of people have to witness my bare torso) I am ready with a story of how I battled a man eating shark and won.

“You think this is bad?” I tell them, “You should have seen the shark”.

 

One Lump or Two?

There I was, some months ago, in a foreign country, enjoying a nice cold Spanish beer after the rigours of lying on a sunbed and occasionally drifting to the pool, when a good friend asked me quite out of nowhere about the lump on my neck. Had I had it looked at? Well no I hadn’t. It had been there a few years but had, during the course of the year, grown a little and was making itself more obvious than I would have liked.

Lumps in places where lumps shouldn’t be are, on the whole, unattractive things. Once it’s a lump that’s grown to the extent that it scares small children or forces adults to stop in the street and point at the freaky lumpy necked man then it’s really time to do something about it.

It was a cyst. I knew it was, I’d had one before, right next to my nose. That had been spliced out of me by an officious, ball breaking female surgeon, and I have a discreet scar on my face to show for it. So I was unafraid of getting this one sorted out, I had just not been unduly concerned about it up to now.

All this resulted in myself and the present Mrs Hayward being stood outside a surgery in a surprisingly residential area of Spalding on Saturday lunchtime. I had been referred here by a GP although the whole thing was starting to become quite seedy and suspicious as I hovered by the back door ringing a bell. Eventually a nurse appeared and pointed me towards a seat in an unlit corridor and dashed off back down the corridor. 

I was left pondering whether there was some lump related emergency elsewhere within the surgery when, suddenly, like the Shopkeeper in Mr Benn, the surgeon appeared seemingly out of nowhere. 

Remaining professional as ever he called out “Mr Hayward” to a corridor containing just myself and Mrs Hayward, as if someone else may have been hiding under a chair. I stood up and was ushered into a small office, had a brief consultation whereupon I signed a form which I assume exempted him from any liability if he accidentally cut my head off.

I was then given some blue plastic shoe covers to wear, presumably on my feet, and was led through to the surgery. I asked if he wanted me to remove my jumper but he seemed satisfied that all was well and I jumped up on the operating table. 

The nurse was busying herself around the room and eventually approached me with what looked like a small shovel attached to a piece of electrical cord. 

“I just need to place this under your back” she said.

“OK” I replied, not knowing what this would be for, but then I’m not medically trained in such matters.

The surgeon casually pointed out to the nurse that she wouldn’t need this device, and she looked quite confused. I watched as she wandered off to the side to look at my notes and then it all became clear to her. 

“Oh,” she said, “you’re not having a vasectomy are you?”

I laughed, assuming this was some sort of joke to lighten the mood, but it became clear that this was genuine confusion and she had to hastily re-adjust the operating table and seek out the proper equipment. 

She even had to check the notes for the next patient but concluded the vasectomy wouldn’t be for that individual either as it was a woman. However this being Lincolnshire, who can say?

I would like to think that had she started to head downstairs, if you know what I mean, I would have pointed out the error of her ways but I have a rather dangerous habit of waiting to see how things play out.Thankfully the surgeon had more of a clue about what was going on and that, for me, was the important thing. 

The worst thing about the whole procedure was the anaesthetic being administered. I knew it would be, that was one thing I hadn’t forgotten about my last cyst based surgery some 20 years ago. 

Hopefully you’ve never been stabbed in the neck. It’s painful, even if the stabber is fully trained and only brandishing a needle.

Before long though, the anaesthetic worked its magic and I couldn’t feel anything so the surgeon got to work splicing and digging around and snipping with scissors. The sound of scissors cutting through flesh is not one you really want to hear so close to your ear, especially when it’s your flesh, but I was surprisingly relaxed, more by the thought that I’d had a lucky escape with the whole vasectomy thing.

The whole thing was over in a flash, and before long I was being sewn back up.

As I was guided out I saw my extracted lump sat on a metal tray, all red and gristly, about the size of a sugared almond. It was, very briefly, like saying goodbye to an old friend.

I drifted back out into the corridor and Mrs Hayward took me home. Within hours my day took a turn for the worse as some of the anaesthetic slowly wore off and a throbbing pain engulfed my head. I tackled the pain with painkillers and, when they didn’t work, with red wine which worked much better.

Sunday was a better day pain-wise, although I was now feeling nauseous and dizzy courtesy of the red wine/pain killer/anaesthetic mix.

Mrs Hayward was particularly surprised by the inch long row of stitches I have in my neck. She'd got it in her head that this surgical procedure would be no more invasive than poking around in your ear with a cotton bud so when I removed the dressing for the first time she began to understand why I was complaining about a pain in my neck. 

Mind you, for all Mrs Hayward's many positive points she can never be described as a modern day Florence Nightingale and for her the only pain in the neck she was concerned about was the one sat whinging on the sofa drowning out the EastEnders omnibus.

Thankfully the pain has now subsided for the most part and the stitches will be coming out in a week. 

A curious feature of all this is that not all of the local anaesthetic has worn off, some 60 hours after it was administered. A good part of the right hand side of my face and my right ear is completely numb still. It felt very strange to shave this morning when I couldn’t feel my skin. Very weird indeed.

I’ve posited to Mrs Hayward that I might have a personal injury claim as a result of this. Well, you never know, where there’s blame there’s a claim.