Discs gave me trouble in my mountain bike brakes, now one’s gone in my back, so I’m in hospital, to have it removed. I worked in the same hospital as a consultant till last year, so it’s interesting being a patient. An hour before I go to theatre, the anaesthetist turns up. I didn’t realise at first. He looks 16. ‘Hi, I’m Dave.’ Nice bloke–he whizzes through what he will be doing. I remember ‘there’s a 10% chance of you getting a bit knocked off your teeth,’ and ‘there’s a 1 in 200,000 chance of dying under the anaesthetic, or waking up disabled, or with brain damage.’ If you are supposed to feel positive when they tell you, you could win the lottery (1 in x million–more chance of being struck by lightning ) how are you supposed to react when they give you a 1in 200,000 chance of waking up (if at all) with the brain power of a Tesco trolley?
Half an hour to go and three nurses I worked with there, come in, grinning like idiots. Sensitively they tell me about some of my ex-patients who I handed on when I left the hospital and who are now dead. I then get taken away to theatre, where I meet Dave again. Nice bloke– he tries to be chatty while putting me under, but remember, anaesthetists are people who’ve made a career decision to work with a clientele who for most of the time, are unconscious.
‘Hi, I see you’ve not gone to Canada then, like Dr…’
‘Er, no.’ (How can I have gone to Canada? I’m lying on a trolley in front of him).
He tries ‘reassuring’.
‘Better grit your teeth, this will hurt.’ (It didn’t).
He tries ‘informative’.
‘This may sting a bit as it goes up your arm.’ (It hurt like blazes.)
‘Yeah, that hurt.’
He tries ‘apologetic.’
‘Yeah-sorry.’
He tries ‘chatty’ again.
‘Retiring soon?’ (Crumbs, do I look that old?)
‘End of the month actually, then back part time.’
‘Fed up with it all then?’
‘Er…’
‘At least you’ve only got back trouble. What about old Prof…?–Heart trouble. Retired, then died.’ Shortly after that, I lost consciousness. Nice bloke, Dave. What you see is what you get. I like him. Anyway I didn’t die. I woke up feeling rather more alert than a Tesco trolley. And no this wasn’t written days after the event, it’s being written now, 2 hours after the anaesthetic. With the CVM blog, at least you get the action live.
The nurse enters my dimly lit room with two bottles and some sinister information:
‘Some blokes can do it on their back. Some blokes have to lie on their side. Some blokes have to stand up out of bed, but stay close in case you start to pass out. Any probs, just give us a bell-then we come and stand beside you and say the word “catheter,” then they nearly all manage it.’ She disappears.
So, sometime later, halfway through penning this masterpiece and in-between chapters of Jeremy Clarkson, ‘Driven to Distraction’, Penguin Books (great read, present from Carl), I manage it-lying on my side, actually. I’m greatly relieved, in more ways than one. I carefully balance the bottle on the bedside table, on top of Michael Wilcox, ‘The Message of Psalms 1-72’, IVP, (another great read but it will have to wait until my brain has climbed further above Tesco trolley level).
My symptoms are much better but I don’t sleep all night. Instead I write my retirement speech, a talk (unasked for), for CVM, half this blog, read a large chunk of Jeremy Clarkson, pray through the rest of the night and by morning I’m still firing on all cylinders. Something’s wrong. I’m not depressed enough. I have a suspicion. I look on my drug chart–yes, straight after the op, while I was still out, they gave me a big dose of steroids–body and mind rocket fuel. I’ve been on a high all night. What goes up must come down and for the next two nights I sleep like a log. I often have to give my patients the same steroids. Now I know first hand why they seem so chirpy.
Part 2 out tomorrow …
