Operation!

For twenty-seven years I've managed to evade having doctors slice me up, mess around with my innards and stitch the damage. Friday 13th April has put a right end to that.

In 1985 I rode my very first BMX so close to my friend Richard's that our tyres met just prior to him slamming the brakes on. I flew straight over him & his bike, landing on my head in front of the melle, shortly followed by my own bike which landed on top of me. On analysis at Maidstone hospital no stitches were needed as my hair was deemed just long enough to tie together over the gash, holding the two sides of skin together with the aid of spray glue.

Jumping decades forward to 2005, in an attempt to keep up with Jon on the piste, a snowboarding accident in Chamonix described by Mike (following my line a few yards back) as a 'biblical stack!' brought me to my knees. After a week of denial that saw me fly down the slopes with no change of tactic other than not to fall on my right hand at all, attempt working with a mouse back at work complaining that something doesn't feel quite right, and a visit to the staff nurse & phisiotherapist I decided a quick xray at St. Barts would be a good idea, just for peace of mind. Three months later my fourth and final cast came off my broken wrist & I could finally look forward to a year of joint-loosening before normality reigned again.

Yesterday's operation was quite an eye opener. Firstly this was a private hospital. It was more like a stately home with real-life bedrooms than organised wards & structure found in an NHS hospital. I saw no other patients there but me. While waiting in St. Georges in Tooting for plaster casts to be replaced I sat between plenty of broken arms & legs, frail, elderly people on their last legs and car crash victims, still covered in blood and sporting a face stacked with remorse. Interesting sights which help put perspective on one's situation but regardless, not pleasant to see.

My first general anaesthetic was really quite good fun. Even the anaesthetists were fun people, three in all, one of whom dubbing himself 'Dangerous-Dan' for the day. The sensation of the cold drug-cocktail moving slowly up my forearm was exactly as they had described it would be. Somehow though, this cocktail skipped my upper arm & landed directly inside my brain, fizzing wildly akin to a soda-stream mid-carbonating, what a buzz! I remember no more. The other good thing about the anaesthetic is that the drug-dregs lasted into the night, allowing me some time off the pain for my first evening home after the op. Sadly, the bruising and swelling and aching has set in today & walking is not much fun. Mumbling about various problems & shuffling hunched around the house I feel like Montgomerie Burns on a good day.