42. Predicted Surgery

Texting is not something that I do very much.  To the best of my knowledge I have never instigated a text discourse.  I wouldn’t know how to.  I have taken part in textual intercourse once or twice but only to respond to someone who has contacted me by text first.  “What’s Stella’s phone number?” I was asked recently and I replied, “020 XXXX XXXX” thinking while I did so that it was rude of the person who had asked for this information not to phone me and ask for it.  Couldn’t she face the prospect of talking to me, I wondered?

Predictive text is something that blows my mind.  Sometimes when I have nothing else to do, I start a note on my phone keypad by bashing away at the keyboard without really looking at it to find that I have come up with perhaps, “tydu fofnd cjdh chhxso” which predictably transforms into “G’DAY TRAY FOUND CHISEL”.

Then, I write a posting using those words, plus a bit of padding, in the order that they appear.  So, it might begin, “G’day Bruce, I was looking in the tray you lent me and I think that I’ve found the chisel that you told me you lost.”

Three of the 44 postings I have made since January are actually written by my iPhone and only the punctuation and padding is mine.  

Sometimes predictive text can cause problems.  I was pushing a trolley around Sainsbury’s on Tuesday and I had got everything on my list except one thing: STORAGE.  I had no idea what that meant.  I couldn’t remember writing it and assumed that Caroline, knowing that I was going shopping, had added it to the list on my phone.  I thought that it was a bit vague of her but nonetheless I bought three storage jars.

Four hours later as I began to prepare the dumplings to have with our stew, I realised what had happened.  My phone had not recognised ‘ATORA’, which is a brand of suet and had altered it to ‘STORAGE’.

********

I have had five surgical operations in my life - four under general anaesthetic and one with a local.

The first was thirty-five years ago when I had an abscess removed from my upper jaw.  It was causing me no pain at all and I would not have known that it was there if it hadn’t shown up on X-rays.  I agreed to the operation because in those days one never argued with doctors or dentists.  

In the 70s, Barnet Hospital was not the multi-million-pound showpiece that it is today.  It consisted of one, fifty-year-old central building and about twenty satellite prefabricated buildings that housed the various departments.  The ward that I was admitted to was one of these prefabs.

The procedure was to take place under general anaesthetic and within an hour of admission I was lying on a bed feeling a little drowsy, very apprehensive and nervous.  A nurse gave me an injection in my bum and soon afterwards I fell asleep.  I was woken by the spatter of freezing cold rain on my face.  

I was lying on a trolley being pushed through driving rain along a roadway towards the operating theatre.  I looked up to see who was pushing me and saw two hospital porters. They were both holding an umbrella to keep themselves dry (not me) and one was smoking a cigarette.  We got to the theatre where I remember being told to count down from a hundred and that was it.  

At six o’clock that evening I felt good and told the nurse that I was going home.  She said that I had to stay in overnight.  It was a Wednesday and my favourite TV programme was on at eight o’clock and I was not going to miss it and so I discharged myself.  Several nurses treated me as if I were a convict making an escape but I got out and away.

A few years after that I had an operation, again under general anaesthetic, to straighten the septum in my nose.  The septum is the cartilage wall separating the nostrils of the nose and is, I was told at the time, the last part of your body to stop growing.  This means that it has nowhere to go as it keeps growing and so it may bend and close off a nostril.  My left nostril was permanently blocked.  

Is the septum really the last part to stop growing?  Surely the ears are.  My ears are a lot longer now than they were when I was thirty and if I’d had ears like this when I was eighteen when the rest of me stopped growing, I’d have looked even more freakish than I did at the time.

Caroline made an interesting discovery the other day.  “Your left big toe is getting shorter,” she cried out with some delight.

She’s right.  My left big toe is half a centimetre shorter than the right one and it never used to be.  What’s going on here?  Is there anything else getting smaller?  What next?

Twenty-five years ago, I had a vasectomy under a local anaesthetic.  This was done at a clinic in Soho, central London and my appointment was for nine in the morning.  When I had arrived and registered, I found the part of the clinic where the procedure was to take place.  

I discovered that I was in a group of about twenty men all of whom had nine o’clock appointments too.  We sat on chairs along the wall of a corridor in alphabetical order. Guess who was last?

Every five minutes or so the next one went in and we all moved down a chair getting nearer and nearer to the door.  After the event, the patient appeared in the corridor through a door ten yards from the one he had gone in through.  Virtually every one of them thought that it was really funny to stand facing those of us still waiting and to writhe in agony with their hands grasping their crotch, before walking off grinning.

At last it was my turn.  I had heard stories about how long it took and I decided to time it.

“OK,” said the surgeon, giving me a friendly and encouraging smile.  Last one this morning.  You’ll feel a sharp prick and a little bit of pain and it will be all over before you know it.”

“That will make a nice change from feeling a total prick,” I said, looking at my watch and trying to inject a bit of levity and humour into the proceedings.

“OOOWW!”

“Do you follow football?” asked the nurse who was standing by my side.

“Yes,” I hissed through gritted teeth.

“Who do you support?” she said.

“Norwich.”

“How are they doing this season?”

“OK.”

“Do you see them play very often?”

Look,” I snapped.  “I know why you’re asking me these stupid questions and I suppose it’s nice of you but I’m in a bit of pain and I really don’t want to talk at the moment. So, will you please shut up?”

The surgeon raised his head from between my legs, holding a scalpel that looked as if it had been dipped in red paint.

“There’s no need to be rude to the nurse, Mr Wilson,” he said sternly, waving his scalpel at me.  He wasn’t smiling now.  

“She’s just doing her job and she doesn’t need people like you with that kind of attitude.  So, if you can’t be pleasant, be quiet.”

“OK I will,” I said sheepishly.  “And it’s Wilton.”

He got back to work.  Four minutes 23 seconds.

I was lying on the table before I had my liver transplant when I met the anaesthetist who came over and introduced himself to me.

“How long will this last?” I asked him.

“Why?”

“I’m just curious.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to you,” he said.  If you wake up, the time doesn’t matter and if you don’t wake up, you’re dead.”  

Ten hours!

On April 6^th 2009, six months to the day after my liver transplant, I had a total hip replacement operation at the same hospital – Broward General in Fort Lauderdale, Miami.  As I was coming around in the recovery suite after the operation, I was in a little bit of pain, only semi-conscious and feeling very sorry for myself.  In came Dr Selvaggi, my liver surgeon, who was in charge of my medical care. 

We chatted for a short time and then he asked if he could have a look at my hip.  He lifted the sheet, stared at the hip area for a time and then said, 

“Good job.  What a nice clean cut.  Great amputation.”  

Then he left.  Caroline arrived to see him coming out of the room, absolutely pissing himself. 

“Got him!” he laughed and walked off grinning from ear to ear.  She had no idea what he meant until she came in to find me a little tearful and very upset.

I’ve got at least two more operations to look forward to.  My left knee joint is going to need replacing in a year or two and the bones in my left ankle are deteriorating rapidly.  The ‘avascular necrosis’, affecting my knee and ankle (the symptoms are identical to arthritis but the original cause is different) is the result of the side effects of the massive steroid doses I was given after my transplant.  I am certainly not complaining, however, as it’s a very small price to pay for all these bonus years.