Sunday 24 September 2017

And back for more!

Part One - last year...
Well, I survived the Hernia repair, and looking back on it now, and re-reading what I wrote in anticipation I have to say I worried totally unnecessarily: everything was fine.  The only hitch was that the surgeon couldn't do the laproscopy which he'd planned - he told me afterwards that when he put the little camera in, everything was so tightly compacted he couldn't see what he was doing and so had to go for for an open mesh job instead.

I had a slight panic a couple of days after the operation when an accumulation of fluid made my poor little boy equipment swell up to elephantine proportions, completely burying my PA and foreskin rings under a massive balloon.  I'd never seen anything like it and sat there wondering what was going to happen if it sealed up the urethra underneath this coccoon-like thing, blocking my ability to pee.  Fortunately I discovered it didn't, and in a couple of days it had subsided as suddenly as it had come: if only someone had forewarned me, as I found out afterwards it's not that uncommon as a side-effect.

The waterproof dressings came off after about twelve days, exposing two rows of stitches which were actually rows of metal staples called 'clips', looking a bit like teeth braces.  I wish now I'd taken a photo: thinking back to my body piercing days, my mates would surely have been insanely jealous of this pair of awesome metal contraptions adorning my pubic area!  But they had to come out, and a year on, I just have two faint scars as little souvenirs of it all.

Part two - this year...
But while that problem had been solved, another had developed in its place.  I was experiencing very troublesome arthritis in my hip joints culminating in my not being able to sit down to lace my boots up or pick anything up of the floor, and more significantly forcing me to give up my fortnightly trips to my Italian classes.  I was by this time walking painfully (or more accurately, hobbling) with the aid of a stick, and people who knew me were commenting on how much difficulty I was having: I was petrified of losing my balance and having a fall.  I really couldn't face the prospect of having to spend the rest of my life indoors, and so went on the waiting list for a hip replacement.  Despite hearing that something almost akin to rationing was in force in the NHS, I in fact got an appointment surprisingly quickly.  I was gobsmacked when the surgeon asked me, unusually, if I'd like to have both hips done at the same time, which I hadn't thought was actually technically possible, but I replied straightaway: "Yeah, I'd be up for that".

And so that's what I had done.  All pretty hardcore: everyone I've told about it has been amazed!  But it's gone like a dream and five weeks later I've almost dispensed with the crutches and with just a few residual aches (and plenty of rest), I'm otherwise recovering fast and will soon be up and running.

A very nice touch, incidentally, was the chance to pay for a private room for the duration of my hospital stay.  With a price tag of several grand, there's no way I could've afforded to have the whole operation done privately - and fortunately I didn't need to.  But it was a nice 'extra' touch of individual care and the staff couldn't have been more attentive - just like staying in a hotel, in fact.  So all in all,,props to Warwick Hospital for a grand job!