Wednesday, 8 September 2021 6:04:12 AM

Woke today with thoughts of you and how prepared you are for today's journey, my thoughts are about you and the wonderful people you know and that you have someone special with you to hold your hand - that makes you and her and me and others special people who if they were there beside you with warm hands to hold yours as you need to

Thank you John. Been awake for a while now. Have to prepare more pre surgery liquids in an hour. Sui is sleeping gently next to me. Not wanting to sound melodramatic but I must admit that the idea of cancer annoys me. I am not afraid of death in particular but I am painfully aware that if that were the case, then it would end my quest for building better memories and experiences. To be deprived of the journey in good company would seriously piss me of.

Sui is coming with me today , she took leave . I did take the opportunity to prepare the hospital staff for my twisted sense of humour. I received a phone call last night from a senior nurse checking up on me . She had to make her way through a heap of questions including " Have you had this procedure before ? " To which I responded " Do you remember the song ' Like a virgin ' . She responded " Shit , I am not supposed to laugh here , people are watching " ??

I re read a short story that I wrote about long hospital stays some years ago . Comparing it to the poor man's adventures akin to climbing Mt. Everest and such in what has become a very tame world .

The Hospital - the funny side …. Part One

I love Hospitals. I cannot understand why some tremble at the mere thought of being admitted and being at the mercy of the Medical Profession.

To me, being comfortably eccentric, the Hospital is one of the last great challenges left in a world that has become uncomfortably secure and controlled. The moment I enter the hallowed halls of medical inventiveness and smell the antiseptic which pervades all these establishments I quiver with unusual excitement.

Some men climb Mount Everest to test themselves, others fly to the Moon. Ho hum, I merely have to suffer some injury to avail myself of what I believe to be one of the last truly great adventures left to man. Survival in a Hospital.

Yes, at this point no doubt you question my attitude though I have in my time become somewhat of a Hilary of the operating theatre. My injuries over the years provided me with the opportunity to experience life to the fullest. The adrenalin flows when I contemplate the opportunities offered in a comfortable bed surrounded by mere mortals who seem not to appreciate the opportunity for adventure of which they also could avail themselves.

I need not spend a fortune on expensive and sophisticated equipment and guides, much less the burden of organizing a rescue mission from some far distant place known to most simply on a map. No , all this is just as far away as a colourfully noisy trip in an ambulance making its way through traffic during peak hour ; an exercise which hardly compares with the calm adjusting of equipment before leaping from a beloved old military DC3 .

I take my initial leap lying down; once again ready to brave the unknown of the Hippocratic world. It seems singularly appropriate that a Greek name is used to describe such unfamiliar environs. One need not die here to explore that unknown, similar to Hades or whatever other Greek word describes the underworld.

Hospitals are all about us. We can find them private or public. The explorer’s purse will determine the destination if not the likely outcome.

To me, Private Hospitals are the most exciting. To the unwary they may provide the least care for the greatest expense, to me they present the greatest challenge. To survive a Private Hospital must surely rank the individual among the champions of human combat. I mean , just at the critical moment when some surgeon has lost a gauze pack down your airways and he discovers that he can neither find not has access to the right equipment to deal with little problem of the over inflating and un-responsive patient .. It’s moments like these when your life is in the balance. No Guides to lend you a kind hand when you face that abyss, oh no, you are very much alone.

In a Public Hospital they hunt around until some- where in some distant storage cupboard they find what they need and once again you find yourself sucking air, where as in the Private Hospital the Surgeon might call it a day at any moment and decide to play golf at the same time giving you the opportunity to meet your maker. I bet Livingstone never timed his escape from savages better. The only problem is of course the fact that current medical best practice does not allow you to savour the moment. More often than not they have you filled with a syringe full of the ‘nightie night ‘stuff and you are off with the fairies missing your greatest adventure.

Now I’ll deal with something that I can remember – the joy of the recovery room. Seriously , there you are having missed all the fun whilst the staff had a good gander at your goose or whatever it is they check and you find yourself wearing a badly cut multi sex gown that has obviously survived more washing than my feet . Or possibly the latest in throw away designs multi gender nightwear with tubes down your throat and a plastic mask on your face.

Now the first thing one does, one gets up to have a look at all the fun and out of the corner of your eye you see some white gowned person looking seriously annoyed over a much loved and fondled newspaper. Of course you feel that you have been hit by a truck and at this stage you understand that if all the present discomfort and pain is an indication, then the surgeon and his happy team have certainly earned their fee. You try to move a very normal instinct and find that this is not only nearly impossible but some kindly soul shoves the plastic mask right back in your face. Those with little recovery room experience should realize at this stage that it is not always a good idea to disturb recovery room staff from their reading.

You are only no.36 on today’s list and that which may have been a unique and disturbing experience for you is common place here. Eventually you are removed hence to another place often called ‘The Ward ‘… taken to a bed in a room full of other beds preferably full of other patients who are neither in your own age group , insist on speaking in tongues and apparently are having no fun at all .

The Hospital - the funny side Part Two

Having left the poor young nurse feeling inadequate to her task of cheering the patient I now resume my tale of ‘The Hospital ‘

You will of course , as I did , get to know the nursing staff quite well for she ( upon recovering her personal vigour ) resume the task of visiting you hourly in those first few crucial hours and persist in asking if you are asleep , an activity there seems little time for unless you enjoy being kept awake .

Though I never really fathomed the reason for the 0400 hrs visit with a cup of tea and a digestive , seriously – had I died during the previous hour it would be pointless to wake me and all others on the ward at 0400 hrs and the removal of a body could have waited for a more decent hour.

I discovered intimacies with thermometers previously unknown to me and if the operation was somewhat south of the navel, than even that becomes a shared discovery. The joys of having a special little companion through this journey into better health.

Once one feels a little better physically a certain familiar routine seems to establish itself, much of which of course remains hidden but apparently has some import to the Nursing Staff and the running of the Hospital. There is a sense of not really being in the right place at the right time as the patient is obviously the last thing any Hospital wants to see for their presence makes the facility untidy and keeps the staff from more important routines.

In civilian life the ordinary mortal probably has the last exotic dream for the night at 0500 hours and as far as erotic dreams go .. They have well and truly been and gone by 0400 hrs.

Depending on how sick you are perceived to be, the nightly routine of an hourly torch in the face continues and by about 0700 in the morning you are ready to sign about anything. Were you a ‘political ‘rather than a private patient, Amnesty International would have a few words to say about this.

Breakfast arrives somewhere about 0800. Armstrong going to the Moon had to live off tube food and other unpalatable fare. He had nothing on this. They say , in a kindly tone , that hardships build a strong mind and body and seeing your present fare makes you wish that you had signed up for that guaranteed ‘ Ethiopian Water ‘ Diet .

Bacon was never like this, and the eggs; God it makes you sorry for the Chickens that had to lay them. Hell indeed has no fury as the Hospital Cook.

Anyway, I was told that mine was very popular in the Congo Soup Kitchens, when our Cook was doing time with the Foreign Legion to avoid doing time for culinary homicide.

Now it’s a brave man that ventures into the unknown and I am ready , I go where no man has gone before and try the luke warm porridge and somewhere in the back of my mind I can hear little ‘Oliver ‘ crying “ More Please , More “ .

Well, if Gordon could face the maddened troops of the Madi climbing down some stairs waving a hanky and a smile on his face before being speared, I can eat this. Suddenly as I swallow this gruel I realize what it must have been like to have a spear pierce your best dress uniform and knowing that your days in the Mess have come to an end.

This part of my personal hobby of Hospitals adventures places not just breakfast before me but is only a small part of the overall adventure. This will later lead me to the adventure of the bedpan, but all in good time.

End of Part Two