Friday 23rd July 2010

Good morning, and welcome back to the summer. The garden is still all a-colour, the fruit and vegetables are growing well, and I have been off work since Tuesday afternoon.
It all began a couple of years ago, at the end of a survey trip, and halfway through a shift, I wanted to go to the toilet, but couldn't get away. Now, growing up Mum said two things I remember, don't sit on damp concrete, you'll get piles and don't strain, you'll get piles. Well, I have sat on many pieces of damp concrete with no ill effects, but at the end of the shift I knew I should go, and strained.
well, you can guess the rest. And since then I have not been right, and so a trip to the doctor was called for, he sent me to the hospital, where the verdict was piles. He sent me to another hospital. They sent a camera to check; they found a polyp, and i had to go back for further checks and remove the polyp, and then all was clear for the main act; the removal.
and that has been this weeks events. Now, I don't like hospital at the best of times, lest when I have to be admitted. But, it's not like you just turn up and the doctor pounces on you and knocks you out with chloroform and get the op done. You have to go for a pre-op meeting with a nurse, discuss your medical history, and she took the patient, me, through what was going to happen.

Come back tomorrow at half eleven and we'll get started.

And so at eleven, Jools dropped me off in Ashford, and I tried to find the admissions ward. It was all colour-coded, and so should have been easy. Only they had got their colours mixed up and not pale blue and green is where I should have been heading, so that made things very difficult to say the least. But, someone took pity and asked where I was heading and pointed me in the right direction.

I went through the same questions as the day before, and then began the waiting. None of us were allowed food, and some had been in the waiting room since half seven in the morning. There was no news of where in the queue we were, some people were taken away and then sent back after being given pills or whatever.

And then, at half three, I was taken, taken to the anaesthetist's room, told to lay down, the put a drip in my arm, and covered my mouth with a mask. They turned on the drip and told me to breath deeply. The lights went out.

I woke up, feeling drunk, which is not a bad thing, and was wheeled into the recovery room, and so began recovery, and lots more waiting. Jools came at half seven to pick me up, and that's that really. and now here I am sitting on cushions and trying not to sneeze or cough. Not that it is that bad, very little pain, and from four this afternoon I will be able to drive again and operate dangerous machinery and sign important documents.

All back to normal, then. and the lessons to be learned, don't strain, eat roughage.