Hospital 3 ... some regrets

Let this be a warning to anyone who needs to heed it.

 

I don’t know the other men in the ward I was in in the hospital this week so forgive me if you think I am being judgemental; but there is a lesson to be learned.

 

One gentleman got cancer of the larynx and had to have it removed: a major operation and now he cannot speak, he breathes though a hole in the bottom of his throat ... and all because he was a smoker. He regrets being a smoker now that the quality of his life has collapsed so drastically.

 

The gentleman in the next bed is suffering from severe nose bleeds as a result, they think, of very high blood pressure. He is 40 years old and already his BP is 166/118. He said yesterday that he knows that his high BP has been caused by his excessive drinking. He regrets that now and wishes he didn’t have to have massive cotton wool plugs up his nose, bad sleepless nights and nose bleeds lasting days on end.

 

I will also mention that some of the nurses were quite young but obese: now, I am middle aged and a bit overweight ... when I was in my 30s I was nowhere near obese and couldn’t contemplate such a situation either. For a nurse to be obese is not a good thing and one day they will regret it if they don’t already.

 

I got talking to an old chap with very red eyes. He had had two cataract operations. The first one went well and he can see again out of that eye with no problems. On Thursday he had his other cataract removed but for some reason a blood vessel at the back of his eye burst and they sent him to Halifax the same day to be sorted out. They hadn’t put a new lens in the second eye so he needs more surgery. Overnight, from Thursday to Friday, his news improved and as I left him today, Friday, he was quite optimistic. He did tell me for some reason that when he was a lad he learned nothing at school and was always being caned for being the class clown. He said he regretted behaving in such away and given his time over again ...

 

DW

Hospital 2

Here’s one for all you Mystic Megs.

 

When I was 16 years old I went into hospital in Halifax, the Royal Infirmary it was then, to have a right myringoplasty. Sad to say I never had the thing done because when they got me to the operating theatre they found that the ear was infected and they couldn’t do it. So they would send for me again.

 

They never sent for me again.

 

Anyway, about a year ago I started seeing a consultant ENT chappie because the ear was flaring up again and that is why I ended up in The Halifax Royal Hospital this week ... the Halifax General as was.

 

Now this time, I was supposed to have a major rake out and clear up because of the bad infection I’d got in there: a cholesteatoma and possible mastoid infection ... well, would you believe it, they got me down to the theatre, wired me up, put me to sleep only to find that my infection was just about gone and I only spent around 10 minutes in theatre.

 

What do you call that!?

 

DW

Hospital Stay

I won’t carp on at the negative but I have to tell you this with the promise of better to come.

 

So in the Royal Halifax Hospital, you have to pay to watch the television and listen to the radio: each bed has its own special set. The chap in the next bed didn’t know where to buy the card needed as someone had got his for him. So I set off. I got to a desk where there were three people: a nurse on the phone and two chaps, not on the phone. I stopped and asked the two men where I could find the Pay TV Card Machine and the seated man said,

 

“I’m a doctor, I don’t know.”

 

Those were his exact words. He got back to his work and when I looked at the other man, he turned his head away as if I’d asked to borrow his wife or something.

 

I found the machine with the help of some helpful and much friendlier oxwomen thank you.

 

DW

Shouting on the Archers

I am listening to the omnibus edition of the Archers on BBC Radio 4 and have just heard Ruth shouting “Phil ... Jill ...” as she met them at the airport following their round the world trip.

 

Let me say that I am well into my third decade of globe trotting now and I have NEVER heard anyone shouting like that in the arrivals hall at any airport anywhere in the world!!!

 

DW