h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just got back from Day Surgery

It's getting to the point where I not only know all the nursing staff's names I really *do* know their birthdays, as well.

ANYWAY...I had a small group of surgeons having a damned good rummage with what feels like it must have been a small armoured truck around my throat, taking in a guided tour of the Larynx, the Pharynx and the osegosaphus (sp?)

(one day I will learn to spell that word. But not today)

and nipping off to gather various bits of tissue samples for autospy or biopsy ... or maybe just because they felt like it.

Took about half an hour, apparently (I was out with the s and therefore not aware), a further 20 minutes in recovery and around a quarter of an hour in Ward before I managed to blag a wonderful cuppa - I was parched and desperate for tannin, despite being all nicely rehydrated intraveniously.

It's just not the same, somehow

About an hour later Son number one turned up to take me home. He's a good lad

He's cooked me a rather excellent ommlette I'm restricted to "soft foods" pro tem.

And there's no nicotine or alcohol for the next 24 hours either.

Just for once I think I'll obey the suggestion, too. No alcohol doesn't present a problem, I drink a lot less often than I used to; it just got boring and expensive and pointless; it was becoming a habit rather than a pleasure so I just stopped for a while until I stopped thinking of it as Something To Do When Bored.

But even a hardened smoker like me couldn't bear the thought of putting any more effort onto my throat than is absolutely needed right this moment. It really is jolly sore.

Compared to the absolute Pigs Ear of an Appointment I had with the Other Consultant at the Other Hospital, today was pretty smooth and efficent and drama free.



And the Nurses explained very carefully to Son No 1 that Mum is to work absolutely NO machinery whatsoever for the next 48 hours.

Pcs don't count, of course...... but kettles do, as do hoovers, washing machines, dishwashers and irons.....

H'mm.... I wonder if electric blankets count as machinery?

Catch you laters lads...'Moff for a long warm sleep until I feel less sore and can talk above a rather sultry whisper

Have a good - it's my favourite way of recovering from most things. When will you have answers

Take Care

Websailor

NO tea or coffee? Hope your feeling better soon and the throat is fully recovered nice and quick
(and I relaly didn't understand a word of the thing you said about alcohol.... nope couldn't make head nor tail of it )

Hope you slept well, Ev

Dear Freind Eva,
I am hoping all will be well. I think it is a good time for rest and for son one to take care for your needs, it sounds from the past that he will. When I was in hospital for test ing last week I also awoke with a foul taste and dryness in my mouth and throat. I felt like sand in my throat and the taste was terrible. I know how this is and am sorry you too have to know that badness of taste and discomfort. I hope you also do not need this to be done again.
Heal soon.
JR

Hallo everyone

John, I didn't realise you were in hospital for tests last week - I hope it all went well with you, too, and that horrible taste and sandy throat is a thing of the past for you now. Its not much fun having a General Anesthetic, is it?

I seem to be doing very little but sleeping for hours at a stretch, getting up,pottering around a ittle, drinking pints and pints of liquid, feeling either hot or shivery after a couple of hours and then going back to sleep for another long while.... I don't know what it *is they put into the G.A. nowadays, but as I become older, it takes me longer to bounce back from it.

The throat's not half as sore as it was, and the preliminary medicine the hospital gave me seems to be kicking in quite well. Remember I had that Heart Attack scare last year? Well.... it wasn't a heart attack atall, it was the beginning of something they called Silent Acid Refleux (or Heartburn for Men!)

It takes some people this way - instead of being aware they've got indigestion, they don't feel a thing, until the digestive acid in the stomach travels up to their throat during the night, when they lie prone. That, I think, is what's been happening to me. I did ask, and apparently it would account for the awful racket I make when I'm snoring, too. Its not Sleep Apnoea after all, just Hydrochloric Acid swimming up my tubes and choking me!

Deep Joy, eh?

As for the biopsy, I shall hear the results in about 2 weeks, when I go back for follow up. I'm not sure how much they took, but I appear to be missing quite a familiar lump from the right side of my throat, that I've had since Adam was a lad. Its never bothered me, but it must have bothered Mr Surgeon. Either way, it's not there now.

I think I must have put up quite a fight with the surgeons though - I noticed as I was going under the anesthetic they were putting supports under my elbows, which I've never had done before.

I rather suspect they use these supports as a means to restrain patients from trying to stop them from doing the op - tubes and whathaveyous down the throat must make the subconscious aware of a potential threat, after all. And I know I've made spirited attempts to clock the dentist one whilst under an anesthetic.

I say I rather suspect I tried to vigourously defend myself because the first thing I noticed when I woke up was the the left hand side of my lips were throbbing - felt like they were sticking out a mile, and I checked with the nurses had a salivary gland been taken or what?

I was slightly embarrassed with their reply.

A bit later on the surgeon came over to my trolley and said the operation had gone fine, etc etc, and I asked him outright

"Erm... did I try to bite you or your colleagues?"

"Oh... we're used to that" he said "Don't worry, you didn't get us"

"Well, not with your teeth, anyway" remarked his co worker, who was limping slightly, past us "I wasn't expecting you to use your feet, though"

I bit my mother as I was coming round from anaesthetic when I was wee This is normal behaviour, surely?

If more than one of us have done it, then I reckon it counts as normal behaviour!

I'm very restrained... I've only ever* punched one doctor before....

I lashed out when they tried to take my oxygen off me, I was as high as a kite but I didn't have your excuse

Websailor

H'mmm. "restrained" Oh dear.



I'm absolutely *certain if I asked under what circumstances then an enormous would be opened 2 Legs. So I won't ask.



But you're probably going to tell us anyway, arn't you

BTW, have you heard there may well be a Garden of England Meet in the offing? (That's Kent, btw) It'll involve in Rochester or Canterbury. I've already mentioned you're a sort of honoury Thaneteer so have a look in RF's message centre.

Why? : well he looked at me funny like innit
No he was a junior doc, and he was cleaning the skin with antisceptice stuff so he could stick a needle through my skin and into the little silicon baloon which lived there, between skinand my skull... he pushed a little hard, not realiseing just how well advanced the infection was, and a whole section of silicon tubing popped through my skin over my collar bone, and also just under my chest/rib cage... It was more a reflex action punching of him

Beer?
Did you mention beer?
When is this? shoudl I go look...