Up with the alarm at six o'clock, half a glass of water and my blood pressure pills, then waiting for the taxi to arrive at quarter to seven, on time. My driver was a Sikh. It wasn't long into the trip to UHW before he was quizzing me about why westerners traditionally prefer to bury their dead rather than cremate as Sikh scriptures recommend. I explained that burial was seen as a way to cherish the memory of the dead, and it gave rise to graveside customs and visits with flowers, more about the need of the living than the dead. In Sikhdom and Hinduism bodily remains are of disposable value after the soul has departed. As much as I could manage at seven in the morning!
The concourse at UHW was almost empty, nobody to ask, though the route to the Short Stay Surgical Unit had proper signage. The entrance was locked and unlit, however. There was a pink sheet in a plastic wallet stuck to wall with SSSU and arrows on it. I walked, and came across a porter with a trolley full of half litre bottles of milk. "Hello, aren't you a priest?" Surprised, I confessed. "You did my mum's funeral at St John's four years ago", he told me. He told me to keep following the scant diversion signs and gave me a vague sense of location. I had to ask another staff member when I ran into fencing blocking the way across on open yard to an external door. No notices, no clarity about the destination. But the only way to find out if this was the correct entrance was circumnavigate the security fence, as all the doors leading out into this back alley were locked. SSSU may employ really hi-tech surgery but is evidently of such low status is the hospital pecking order. A five minute walk took fifteen. Just as well I was early.
Then an hour of repeated bureaucracy and identity checks and the inane question "Do you know why you are here?" The anaesthetist noticed that I'd not had a blood test for eight months. Pre-op assessments are, I believe, valid for six months. Clearly I had been fitted into the schedule at ten days rather then two to three weeks notice, for which I'm grateful of course but the admin hadn't caught up. Blood was drawn and taken for testing. This I imagine was a factor leading to my op slipping down the list until last. I waited six hours to go to the operating theatre. The tedium was relieved by conversing with a tall bearded student nurse. We talked about whether there was sense to be made of any religious quest. I steered him towards considering the way of the mystics. Don't start with ritual or belief but with your own curiosity about what's unknown, above and beyond existence. Did he understand me? I'll never know.
It was two thirty when I was taken to theatre. The clock read a quarter to three when I was about to slip into the Unknown, and five fifteen when I emerged. The six year long wait for surgery ended with another long wait for surgery!
The op was longer than expected as my blood pressure was through the roof. Getting a 430mm stone out through my navel must have been a wrestle, like extracting a tooth. Now the surrounding area is bruised. The four incisions aren't that painful. I thought the recovery room nurse wasn't quite allowing me enough time to come to, then realised it was a quarter past home time. The assistant surgeon already in his outdoor clothes ready to go, gave me a letter for my GP, recommending a hypertension medication review, as the monitoring team had difficulty controlling my blood pressure. Not surprising removing such a big stone.
The nightmare began when I was back on the ward. I warned that my stomach would be inflated with air during the op and that I should expect to pass lots of wind. Nothing but pure agony. Impossible to move at any angle without pain. It was hard to take anything but a shallow breath despite a nurse exhorting me take deep breaths - like in yoga. Really?
The nursing shift was coming to an end. I was still groggy from anaesthetic, and at the end of 22 hours of fasting, feeling faint. No food was offered, or notification that you should bring your own. A nurse gave me a banana which revived me. No nausea, just pain. Due to the shift change my discharge was delayed an an hour. A young nurse wheeled me down to the concourse. The east wind blowing up the corridor was at minus three. Ruth kindly collected me and took me home by car by 8.30pm.
I was in bed by 9.15pm, dozed for six hours immobilised by stomach muscle pain, then struggling to get out of bed for a pee. Getting in and out of bed was agonising every which way, and had to be careful to avoid stressing the four wounds. My pulse rate was frighteningly high, but calmed down when I took a blood pressure tablet six hours early. I got up and walked around, and slept the rest of the night in the lounge chair.
I haven't felt this bad since I went down with anal infection four years ago, especially when I was in Ibiza, alone with an infection and struggling to get in and out of bed for a pee. I didn't expect the trauma of that experience to visit me again here. But, I am still alive, the pain reminds me. And I daresay it will subside fairly soon.
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