What I did on my weekend
October 24, 2012 at 9:25 pm
(This post was last modified: October 24, 2012 at 10:40 pm by Cyberman.)
Well, as threatened, here's a summary of how I spent the last few days. I'll try to make it less painful than the actual experience. Be warned, though, it's probably not for the easily queased (is that even a word?) - anyway, it does contain descriptions of unpleasant medical things. For that reason, as well as its sheer length, I'll tuck it under the fold.
As many or fewer of you may be aware, I have been on antidepressants for quite a while now. The important thing about this type of medication is to find a suitable formulation and dosage to actually do the job, so my meds have been changed a few times. The most recent one I've been prescribed is called Quetiapine, the dosage of which my doctor has doubled a couple of times to the point where I'm now on 100mg. Now, there was also an antipsychotic in combination with this, the name of which escapes me but which remained at 25mg. I'm meant to take one of each every night. They're not without side-effects, of course, the main one being to knock me out. However, another one they both share, though listed as "uncommon", is an extremely painful condition known as priapism - "in which the erect penis or clitoris does not return to its flaccid state, despite the absence of both physical and psychological stimulation, within four hours". Check out Min's avatar for details. Since in practise this means that I wake up doubled in agony, it's put me off taking the meds; bad of me I know, but it's like putting your hand on a hot stove; once is bad enough, but the thought of doing it again tends to make a person a little more wary. However, the condition has, in the past, subsided by itself after an hour or two, perhaps by walking it off or going to the loo (interestingly, 'priapism' anagrams to 'impairs p', which is a fairly accurate description). Anyway, my doctor told me that if it persists for more than a few hours, I'm to take myself off to Accident and Emergency at my local hospital - Walsall Manor, for the record.
Well, last Friday morning I went to see my doctor as appointed and told him about the affliction. He decided to take me off the antipsychotics but keep me on the Quetiapine. Unfortunately I'd already taken a dose that morning; I know I'm meant to take it at bedtime but I was feeling a little low and wasn't planning anything that day, so sleeping through it made little difference to me. Or so I thought. Later on, around 5pm, I woke in extreme agony and painfully engorged, as expected. This time, however, it didn't want to go away no matter what I did. Peeing, walking, nothing made any difference. And forget about the obvious option; it's the least sexual thing I can imagine. Anyway I went round to my parents' house where the internet lives, hoping it would go down by itself. It didn't. Later I went home and hoped that sleeping it off would do the trick.
Next day after a fitful sleep I woke late again, about 6pm I think, and I was still in agony. Probably worse than before in fact. Again I tried to remedy things, even soaking in a cold bath, hoping against hope that the situation would deflate. By about 8 or 9pm, I realised I had no choice but to go to A&E. I didn't say anything to anyone for two main reasons. First I didn't want to worry them, especially as they couldn't do anything. Second, I was hoping it would be a case of going in, letting them do their thing, then coming home. Was I ever wrong.
Got there about 10ish and had to wait for the triage period, about four hours. When I finally got in, a doctor assessed me and I explained the situation. He prescribed an ice pack, rather endearingly made from a rubber surgical glove, which I applied to the area while I lay on a trolley. Later, long after the second law of thermodynamics had condemned the ice to its watery fate, I was plonked into a wheelchair and whizzed off to a ward. This gave my my first clue that I was going to be kept in. I was supposed to go to the surgical ward but they had no spare beds, so I was taken to the Acute Medical Unit (AMU), ward 4, and made 'comfortable' with another icepack. By now it was getting on for 3-4am.
Next day, after lunch, a specialist surgeon came to see my affliction. To say he was heavy handed is an understatement; he did everything short of wringing it out like a dishcloth and probably would have done that if it wasn't so obviously sore. He was very pleasant and professional though and explained everything that was going on. I'd already researched into this next bit on the web so I wasn't surprised when he said that he'd have to insert needles through the glans and down into the spongy bits inside, to drain off the blood that was trapped in there. Bang went my New Year's resolution, kept so faithfully all these years, of keeping sharp objects away from that whole area. So, with a pretty young nurse attending, he got the equipment and set everything up, right there in the ward, though with the curtains around of course. He announced that it was going to be painful, then jabbed. I know just by reading that your collective sphincters did exactly what mine did at the time. There are simply no words in any human language to describe the level of pain; I'd smashed straight through the pain wall and into the universe of pure agony beyond. It made me sweat, anyway. I even saw, once I could tear my eyes open, the nurse had clenched her legs together in sympathy.
What made it worse, I think, is that it hurt like all the hells on the way in, then subsided as the worst part was over, before hurting just as much again as it bottomed out in there. And he did this not just once or twice, but several times, squeezing and almost milking as he proceeded. Not that I was counting. There was a point (!) when the nurse was sent to look for a certain sized needle, but there was none big enough. So she suggested using one of those cannulae that they stick in your arm. This was great, because the whole point of them is that once they're attached, there's no reason to keep sticking needles in. He just used the syringes minus the tips to draw the blood out, using me as my own pump. There was blood literally everwhere; all round my groin, pouring down my legs and into the bed linen, soaking into the dressing pads which had to be changed often. I know that even a little blood looks like a lake of the stuff, so there may not actually have been as much as it appeared. Once, he pulled the syringe plunger too hard and it popped out, the blood just sprayed out like a fountain, all over the curtains, my shirt, the nurse... if it hadn't been blood, I'd have been damn proud of that squirt.
He sent the nurse off for a drug called Metaraminol which apparently helps in these cases; she'd never heard of it, which wasn't a comforting sign, and after scouring the wards she found the only box. He used a couple of strips of latex as a tourniquet, incidentally taking a few of my more inquisitive pubic hairs on a crash course in practical knot tying, then injected it, making me bounce again. He told me the drug takes about ten minutes to work so he was going to go off and do something else and return at the right time. Then he said "don't touch it". Don't touch it? I didn't even want to look at it! I did actually catch a glimpse though; it looked like a tall Yul Brynner in a Tarantino version of Frankenstein. You've heard the expression "the last turkey in the shop"? Well, this was that last turkey while it was still at the abattoir.
Throughout the whole ordeal, I tried to make light conversation to make the whole thing easier to bear. I suggested that this made something of a change from the usual twisted ankles and broken legs they have to deal with, and that I wasn't sure which I'd prefer. The nurse said it would probably be the broken ankle; she made a good case. As an aside, I asked if they saw many cases like this. The doctor told me they get about one or two per year, though there was a dramatic increase in the early days of Viagra and similar drugs. Also it apparently tends to afflict sickle cell sufferers, due to the sickle-shaped nature of the blood cells. As the procedure continued, I tried to avoid the more obvious jokes, though allowing myself a reference to feeling like a dartboard. However, he forestalled my reaction to his inadvertent joke of "just a small prick" by injecting more searing agony.
Anyway and unfortunately the procedure clearly wasn't working, although it had helped a little. After clearing away and making good he left, and as he did so I heard the two most disheartening things possible in that situation. First the doctor said "oh, dear". Then the nurse asked "Is there anything we can salvage?" I decided to tune out about now.
The nurse was joined by a colleague and they tried to clean me up as much as they could with moist wipes. There was blood all down my legs, round my backside and had even reached my feet! The nurse who had been assisting remarked that she'd been wearing it herself for the last hour! They were all ever so friendly and chatty, and both agreed that I was "very brave".
A little later: back came the doctor to check on me, after I'd already been seen by loads of different people from the Urology department and elsewhere, in fact just about half the hospital. He asked me how long it had been since my last meal - he didn't actually use the phrase "last meal", that probably wouldn't have inspired much confidence. As I'd eaten my Sunday lunch around noon, he said he was going to wait for six hours after that and then take me to the theatre. I thought, great, a dinner and a show! Turns out what he'd really meant to say was he was going to get me into an isolated room, ply me with knockout gas, then slice me open; he probably thought I might not want to go along with it if he'd put it that way. Shortly afterwards, an anaesthetist came down and explained the whole procedure.
So 6pm-ish saw me placed onto a surgical trolley and whisked off to the operating theatre, pausing only to stick a mesh cap on my head. I was allowed to take all my belongings with me, since I was to be transferred to another ward, but for some reason they wrapped tape around the rings on my fingers. Anyway, I had the mask on and the anaesthetist injected something into the cannula to stop me getting sick, and something else to get the whole process going. Then he said to breathe deeply and keep my eyes open as long as possible. After that I don't remember a thing, except that I know I dreamed (but what, I don't know), until I woke up and realised where I was. As my brain went through the process of putting dreams and reality back into their correct boxes, I could see the staff discussing something off to one side. In my semi-stupefied state - as distinct from my usual totally stupefied one - I remember thinking "hey, don't start the operation yet! I'm still awake over here!"
Back onto the recovery ward, ward 11, is where the real drama begins.
The doctor had put a compression bandage around the area, to squeeze as much blood out as possible. Unfortunately, that meant I was now losing blood hand over fist. The nurses were instructed to monitor me every ten minutes, but just a few minutes after the lights were turned off and everyone had gone, I could feel myself going into shock and blacking out. It's not the first time I've done that so I know the signs for what they are: I felt sick, then really light-headed, rapid breathing and spots before my eyes. It's at this point I usually crash to the floor, but since I was in bed I decided to stay there. However I thought I'd better buzz for the nurse. By the time she came, apologising for being so long as she'd gone to the loo, I was coming out of it but still not completely better. I explained what had happened and she checked my blood pressure, which was indeed low. Ten minutes later, when she came to monitor me again, I was blacking out again, but this time it was even worse than before. I recovered, but by the time the doctor and whoever else had been called and turned up, I'd gone into a third one so bad that all I could see was blackness and vague shadows. I had trouble breathing. I genuinely thought this was it.
I could dimly hear the doctor saying something, and someone set up an IV drip machine to replace my fluids. Soon I was starting to stabilise. A normal BP is 130 over 70; once I could see properly and was more lucid, I caught a glimpse at the latest display - it said 103/66. And apparently that was an improvement; I'd gone really, really low.
After that I had rather an uneventful night, though disturbed by one of the other patients snoring, not to mention belching and hiccuping. Now I'm no slouch in the snoring game; some years ago darling Sam got our video camera and actually filmed me sleeping, then woke me up to prove that I snore. However I've got nothing on this bloke. As for belching, well it can't have been nice for him with whatever problems he had, and he has all my sympathy, but not for him the polite pig-grunt and "excuse me". No, he had the full Henry-VIII-after-a-particularly-satisfying-roast-swan thing going on. If it has a spelling, it probably goes like this: BRR-UUUUUUURRRRRRPP-OOOAAAAAGGGHHHHH! Anyway, it woke me up so bollocks to him.
Monday was pretty dull after all that. I'd had a catheter inserted into my bladder, literally taking the piss out of me, and a couple of nurses came to take it out. Now take that word 'catheter'. To the uninitiated, it probably brings to mind, as it did mine, the sort of narrow vein-like transparent tubing of the kind commonly associated with delicate surgery. Not this bastard; it was easily a quarter of an inch outside diameter, and it was going right down through my hog's eye! How the hell they managed to get the damn thing in there I shall never know, and desire to find out even less. There's a little valve thing on it which one nurse fitted another syringe to and squirted some sort of fluid down, at the same time as she pulled the tube out. It was more uncomfortable than painful, like I was about to disgrace myself all over the bed, but that was just the feeling of the thing coming out. Sadly, it didn't make a "pop!" sound at the end, which would have been great. I realised I would probably miss it now.
After that, it was just more waiting and monitoring, trying to get my temp and BP back to normal.
Then the doctor came and had another look at the damage. Someone should have told him you look with your eyes, not your fingers. In fact, one of the nurses later said, while changing the dressing, that doctors seem to like squeezing things a little too much. He explained what had been done and that another consultant at Birmingham's Heartlands Hospital had verified it as the proper procedure. Now I can't remember which of the words 'possible', 'likely' or 'certain' entered the conversation here but one of them was followed by that most ominous of phrases, 'erectile dysfunction'. I'm to see that consultant at Heartlands tomorrow afternoon. There was a possibility mentioned fitting some prosthesis thing inside, what was referred to as non-erectile tissue, so as to prevent any future problems
Most of the rest of the day was spent spark out on the bed, after I'd had a shower which thoroughly drained me. I was feeling bad about the erectile thing as well, really, if I'm honest. I'd also had my first look at poor Bonnie since the op; Yul Brynner was now re-enacting a scene from Rocky. Bruised, battered, knitted and purled, it did look sorry for itself. And so swollen as well, though not at all painful. In fact the only pain I got was where the catheter had been, when I tried to use one of those pressed-cardboard urine bottles for the first time post op. Those bottles, in case you didn't know, have a neck diameter of about 3-4 inches, and I could only just barely fit in; that's how swollen I was. Again I'd have been really proud of that in the normal course of things.
Tuesday began a little differently. Woken up at around 6am by a ninety-eight-year-old woman in the adjoining female ward persistently banging on the wall. I know she was ninety-eight, because she kept shouting it out amid yelling for help, as well as for her brother John. Then she'd obviously got out of bed and was banging on the window of the connecting door, all the while shouting out phrases such as "I know who you are! I've seen your face, I know who you are now!" I didn't know this, being in the middle bed of the three along the left hand wall, but apparently she'd crept in at one point, grabbed the walking frame of my neighbour, and then buggered off with it. The nurses kept trying to get her to part with it, saying it was far too big for her and pointing out where her own frame was. As she kept wanting to come into our ward, they were saying she couldn't as it was full of men; she said she didn't care. The staff nurse on our ward suggested that might have been why she wanted to come in.
Anyway, the staff started doing their rounds, lots of monitoring and checking, the tea trolley, breakfast at 8:30, and so on. The doctor came to examine me again and said that I was well enough to go home. To be honest, I didn't really want to leave. Okay, the situation wasn't ideal, the actual physiological side to the experience had been a living nightmare, but I felt like I'd made a lot of friends there. All the staff, most especially the nurses, were so incredibly polite and friendly, with a genuinely warm smile and a kind word even at the end of a gruelling twelve hour shift. Everyone made a point of including the patient at every stage, explaining step by step what was to happen and what was expected from that. I don't know how much they are paid but it ought to be doubled, with several noughts on the end.
Despite frequent mention of my having a blood transfusion, and I'd been cross-matched for that purpose, nothing came of it. In the end I got my discharge letter just before noon, thus cunningly saving them a lunch. A moderate walk home, much more pleasant than the one the other way had been, and I went straight to bed.
So that was my weekend. I can only hope yours was much less dramatic.
As many or fewer of you may be aware, I have been on antidepressants for quite a while now. The important thing about this type of medication is to find a suitable formulation and dosage to actually do the job, so my meds have been changed a few times. The most recent one I've been prescribed is called Quetiapine, the dosage of which my doctor has doubled a couple of times to the point where I'm now on 100mg. Now, there was also an antipsychotic in combination with this, the name of which escapes me but which remained at 25mg. I'm meant to take one of each every night. They're not without side-effects, of course, the main one being to knock me out. However, another one they both share, though listed as "uncommon", is an extremely painful condition known as priapism - "in which the erect penis or clitoris does not return to its flaccid state, despite the absence of both physical and psychological stimulation, within four hours". Check out Min's avatar for details. Since in practise this means that I wake up doubled in agony, it's put me off taking the meds; bad of me I know, but it's like putting your hand on a hot stove; once is bad enough, but the thought of doing it again tends to make a person a little more wary. However, the condition has, in the past, subsided by itself after an hour or two, perhaps by walking it off or going to the loo (interestingly, 'priapism' anagrams to 'impairs p', which is a fairly accurate description). Anyway, my doctor told me that if it persists for more than a few hours, I'm to take myself off to Accident and Emergency at my local hospital - Walsall Manor, for the record.
Well, last Friday morning I went to see my doctor as appointed and told him about the affliction. He decided to take me off the antipsychotics but keep me on the Quetiapine. Unfortunately I'd already taken a dose that morning; I know I'm meant to take it at bedtime but I was feeling a little low and wasn't planning anything that day, so sleeping through it made little difference to me. Or so I thought. Later on, around 5pm, I woke in extreme agony and painfully engorged, as expected. This time, however, it didn't want to go away no matter what I did. Peeing, walking, nothing made any difference. And forget about the obvious option; it's the least sexual thing I can imagine. Anyway I went round to my parents' house where the internet lives, hoping it would go down by itself. It didn't. Later I went home and hoped that sleeping it off would do the trick.
Next day after a fitful sleep I woke late again, about 6pm I think, and I was still in agony. Probably worse than before in fact. Again I tried to remedy things, even soaking in a cold bath, hoping against hope that the situation would deflate. By about 8 or 9pm, I realised I had no choice but to go to A&E. I didn't say anything to anyone for two main reasons. First I didn't want to worry them, especially as they couldn't do anything. Second, I was hoping it would be a case of going in, letting them do their thing, then coming home. Was I ever wrong.
Got there about 10ish and had to wait for the triage period, about four hours. When I finally got in, a doctor assessed me and I explained the situation. He prescribed an ice pack, rather endearingly made from a rubber surgical glove, which I applied to the area while I lay on a trolley. Later, long after the second law of thermodynamics had condemned the ice to its watery fate, I was plonked into a wheelchair and whizzed off to a ward. This gave my my first clue that I was going to be kept in. I was supposed to go to the surgical ward but they had no spare beds, so I was taken to the Acute Medical Unit (AMU), ward 4, and made 'comfortable' with another icepack. By now it was getting on for 3-4am.
Next day, after lunch, a specialist surgeon came to see my affliction. To say he was heavy handed is an understatement; he did everything short of wringing it out like a dishcloth and probably would have done that if it wasn't so obviously sore. He was very pleasant and professional though and explained everything that was going on. I'd already researched into this next bit on the web so I wasn't surprised when he said that he'd have to insert needles through the glans and down into the spongy bits inside, to drain off the blood that was trapped in there. Bang went my New Year's resolution, kept so faithfully all these years, of keeping sharp objects away from that whole area. So, with a pretty young nurse attending, he got the equipment and set everything up, right there in the ward, though with the curtains around of course. He announced that it was going to be painful, then jabbed. I know just by reading that your collective sphincters did exactly what mine did at the time. There are simply no words in any human language to describe the level of pain; I'd smashed straight through the pain wall and into the universe of pure agony beyond. It made me sweat, anyway. I even saw, once I could tear my eyes open, the nurse had clenched her legs together in sympathy.
What made it worse, I think, is that it hurt like all the hells on the way in, then subsided as the worst part was over, before hurting just as much again as it bottomed out in there. And he did this not just once or twice, but several times, squeezing and almost milking as he proceeded. Not that I was counting. There was a point (!) when the nurse was sent to look for a certain sized needle, but there was none big enough. So she suggested using one of those cannulae that they stick in your arm. This was great, because the whole point of them is that once they're attached, there's no reason to keep sticking needles in. He just used the syringes minus the tips to draw the blood out, using me as my own pump. There was blood literally everwhere; all round my groin, pouring down my legs and into the bed linen, soaking into the dressing pads which had to be changed often. I know that even a little blood looks like a lake of the stuff, so there may not actually have been as much as it appeared. Once, he pulled the syringe plunger too hard and it popped out, the blood just sprayed out like a fountain, all over the curtains, my shirt, the nurse... if it hadn't been blood, I'd have been damn proud of that squirt.
He sent the nurse off for a drug called Metaraminol which apparently helps in these cases; she'd never heard of it, which wasn't a comforting sign, and after scouring the wards she found the only box. He used a couple of strips of latex as a tourniquet, incidentally taking a few of my more inquisitive pubic hairs on a crash course in practical knot tying, then injected it, making me bounce again. He told me the drug takes about ten minutes to work so he was going to go off and do something else and return at the right time. Then he said "don't touch it". Don't touch it? I didn't even want to look at it! I did actually catch a glimpse though; it looked like a tall Yul Brynner in a Tarantino version of Frankenstein. You've heard the expression "the last turkey in the shop"? Well, this was that last turkey while it was still at the abattoir.
Throughout the whole ordeal, I tried to make light conversation to make the whole thing easier to bear. I suggested that this made something of a change from the usual twisted ankles and broken legs they have to deal with, and that I wasn't sure which I'd prefer. The nurse said it would probably be the broken ankle; she made a good case. As an aside, I asked if they saw many cases like this. The doctor told me they get about one or two per year, though there was a dramatic increase in the early days of Viagra and similar drugs. Also it apparently tends to afflict sickle cell sufferers, due to the sickle-shaped nature of the blood cells. As the procedure continued, I tried to avoid the more obvious jokes, though allowing myself a reference to feeling like a dartboard. However, he forestalled my reaction to his inadvertent joke of "just a small prick" by injecting more searing agony.
Anyway and unfortunately the procedure clearly wasn't working, although it had helped a little. After clearing away and making good he left, and as he did so I heard the two most disheartening things possible in that situation. First the doctor said "oh, dear". Then the nurse asked "Is there anything we can salvage?" I decided to tune out about now.
The nurse was joined by a colleague and they tried to clean me up as much as they could with moist wipes. There was blood all down my legs, round my backside and had even reached my feet! The nurse who had been assisting remarked that she'd been wearing it herself for the last hour! They were all ever so friendly and chatty, and both agreed that I was "very brave".
A little later: back came the doctor to check on me, after I'd already been seen by loads of different people from the Urology department and elsewhere, in fact just about half the hospital. He asked me how long it had been since my last meal - he didn't actually use the phrase "last meal", that probably wouldn't have inspired much confidence. As I'd eaten my Sunday lunch around noon, he said he was going to wait for six hours after that and then take me to the theatre. I thought, great, a dinner and a show! Turns out what he'd really meant to say was he was going to get me into an isolated room, ply me with knockout gas, then slice me open; he probably thought I might not want to go along with it if he'd put it that way. Shortly afterwards, an anaesthetist came down and explained the whole procedure.
So 6pm-ish saw me placed onto a surgical trolley and whisked off to the operating theatre, pausing only to stick a mesh cap on my head. I was allowed to take all my belongings with me, since I was to be transferred to another ward, but for some reason they wrapped tape around the rings on my fingers. Anyway, I had the mask on and the anaesthetist injected something into the cannula to stop me getting sick, and something else to get the whole process going. Then he said to breathe deeply and keep my eyes open as long as possible. After that I don't remember a thing, except that I know I dreamed (but what, I don't know), until I woke up and realised where I was. As my brain went through the process of putting dreams and reality back into their correct boxes, I could see the staff discussing something off to one side. In my semi-stupefied state - as distinct from my usual totally stupefied one - I remember thinking "hey, don't start the operation yet! I'm still awake over here!"
Back onto the recovery ward, ward 11, is where the real drama begins.
The doctor had put a compression bandage around the area, to squeeze as much blood out as possible. Unfortunately, that meant I was now losing blood hand over fist. The nurses were instructed to monitor me every ten minutes, but just a few minutes after the lights were turned off and everyone had gone, I could feel myself going into shock and blacking out. It's not the first time I've done that so I know the signs for what they are: I felt sick, then really light-headed, rapid breathing and spots before my eyes. It's at this point I usually crash to the floor, but since I was in bed I decided to stay there. However I thought I'd better buzz for the nurse. By the time she came, apologising for being so long as she'd gone to the loo, I was coming out of it but still not completely better. I explained what had happened and she checked my blood pressure, which was indeed low. Ten minutes later, when she came to monitor me again, I was blacking out again, but this time it was even worse than before. I recovered, but by the time the doctor and whoever else had been called and turned up, I'd gone into a third one so bad that all I could see was blackness and vague shadows. I had trouble breathing. I genuinely thought this was it.
I could dimly hear the doctor saying something, and someone set up an IV drip machine to replace my fluids. Soon I was starting to stabilise. A normal BP is 130 over 70; once I could see properly and was more lucid, I caught a glimpse at the latest display - it said 103/66. And apparently that was an improvement; I'd gone really, really low.
After that I had rather an uneventful night, though disturbed by one of the other patients snoring, not to mention belching and hiccuping. Now I'm no slouch in the snoring game; some years ago darling Sam got our video camera and actually filmed me sleeping, then woke me up to prove that I snore. However I've got nothing on this bloke. As for belching, well it can't have been nice for him with whatever problems he had, and he has all my sympathy, but not for him the polite pig-grunt and "excuse me". No, he had the full Henry-VIII-after-a-particularly-satisfying-roast-swan thing going on. If it has a spelling, it probably goes like this: BRR-UUUUUUURRRRRRPP-OOOAAAAAGGGHHHHH! Anyway, it woke me up so bollocks to him.
Monday was pretty dull after all that. I'd had a catheter inserted into my bladder, literally taking the piss out of me, and a couple of nurses came to take it out. Now take that word 'catheter'. To the uninitiated, it probably brings to mind, as it did mine, the sort of narrow vein-like transparent tubing of the kind commonly associated with delicate surgery. Not this bastard; it was easily a quarter of an inch outside diameter, and it was going right down through my hog's eye! How the hell they managed to get the damn thing in there I shall never know, and desire to find out even less. There's a little valve thing on it which one nurse fitted another syringe to and squirted some sort of fluid down, at the same time as she pulled the tube out. It was more uncomfortable than painful, like I was about to disgrace myself all over the bed, but that was just the feeling of the thing coming out. Sadly, it didn't make a "pop!" sound at the end, which would have been great. I realised I would probably miss it now.
After that, it was just more waiting and monitoring, trying to get my temp and BP back to normal.
Then the doctor came and had another look at the damage. Someone should have told him you look with your eyes, not your fingers. In fact, one of the nurses later said, while changing the dressing, that doctors seem to like squeezing things a little too much. He explained what had been done and that another consultant at Birmingham's Heartlands Hospital had verified it as the proper procedure. Now I can't remember which of the words 'possible', 'likely' or 'certain' entered the conversation here but one of them was followed by that most ominous of phrases, 'erectile dysfunction'. I'm to see that consultant at Heartlands tomorrow afternoon. There was a possibility mentioned fitting some prosthesis thing inside, what was referred to as non-erectile tissue, so as to prevent any future problems
Most of the rest of the day was spent spark out on the bed, after I'd had a shower which thoroughly drained me. I was feeling bad about the erectile thing as well, really, if I'm honest. I'd also had my first look at poor Bonnie since the op; Yul Brynner was now re-enacting a scene from Rocky. Bruised, battered, knitted and purled, it did look sorry for itself. And so swollen as well, though not at all painful. In fact the only pain I got was where the catheter had been, when I tried to use one of those pressed-cardboard urine bottles for the first time post op. Those bottles, in case you didn't know, have a neck diameter of about 3-4 inches, and I could only just barely fit in; that's how swollen I was. Again I'd have been really proud of that in the normal course of things.
Tuesday began a little differently. Woken up at around 6am by a ninety-eight-year-old woman in the adjoining female ward persistently banging on the wall. I know she was ninety-eight, because she kept shouting it out amid yelling for help, as well as for her brother John. Then she'd obviously got out of bed and was banging on the window of the connecting door, all the while shouting out phrases such as "I know who you are! I've seen your face, I know who you are now!" I didn't know this, being in the middle bed of the three along the left hand wall, but apparently she'd crept in at one point, grabbed the walking frame of my neighbour, and then buggered off with it. The nurses kept trying to get her to part with it, saying it was far too big for her and pointing out where her own frame was. As she kept wanting to come into our ward, they were saying she couldn't as it was full of men; she said she didn't care. The staff nurse on our ward suggested that might have been why she wanted to come in.
Anyway, the staff started doing their rounds, lots of monitoring and checking, the tea trolley, breakfast at 8:30, and so on. The doctor came to examine me again and said that I was well enough to go home. To be honest, I didn't really want to leave. Okay, the situation wasn't ideal, the actual physiological side to the experience had been a living nightmare, but I felt like I'd made a lot of friends there. All the staff, most especially the nurses, were so incredibly polite and friendly, with a genuinely warm smile and a kind word even at the end of a gruelling twelve hour shift. Everyone made a point of including the patient at every stage, explaining step by step what was to happen and what was expected from that. I don't know how much they are paid but it ought to be doubled, with several noughts on the end.
Despite frequent mention of my having a blood transfusion, and I'd been cross-matched for that purpose, nothing came of it. In the end I got my discharge letter just before noon, thus cunningly saving them a lunch. A moderate walk home, much more pleasant than the one the other way had been, and I went straight to bed.
So that was my weekend. I can only hope yours was much less dramatic.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
