Bay Watch 7

Bulletin 7: Friday 12th March 2010

So, the big day dawns. I'm given some pills and water at 5.45am, but am not allowed breakfast of course. From my bedside telephone, using a swipe card costing £3.00, I contact Management and ask for my spectacles case to be brought in. I'll need my glasses to confirm my signature on the consent form as I'm being wheeled in, before they get thrown into a bag of personal possessions which will accompany me back to wherever I end up post-op. I swipe my card again to get a balance, and manage to work out that the 'from 10p' publicity doesn't include the small print which should say that calls out to mobiles appear to cost 50p a minute.The chap in the next bed, just back from surgery, has been desperate since yesterday for his bag of possessions to be returned to him: he wants to read and is going slowly mad, especially since Essex man asks for the TV to be put on at 7.50am.

More reading, then the lovely Indian nurse Suja takes me away and shaves my chest, arms, legs, and other more intimate areas so as to minimise pain when plasters eventually have to be torn off. I'm given a plastic bottle of pink disinfectant and told to shower and then dress in a gown which has ties at the back. It takes a certain amount of manual dexterity to do this in such a way as not to inflict visual pollution on anyone following behind me, but I manage eventually. I return to my bed and await a final visit by Management and Food Police. They arrive at 11.00am and we are sent to the Day Room by Suja, who says she will come to collect me when it's time for my pre-op jab in the backside.

The Day Room has a TV, but mercifully it's not on. Instead we have to endure a family looking at and discussing their holiday snaps on a digital camera. 'Lovely hotel room. We got an upgrade you know…' Noon comes and goes. So does 1.00pm. There must be complications with the previous patient. At 1.40pm Suja enters, accompanied by a doe-eyed lady doctor. This is it, we thought, but the doctor says 'You won't be glad to see me.' She's right. There's not enough post-op beds in Critical Care, so we have to go home and wait for the Booking Office to make contact again. It's no good shooting the messengers; they were clearly embarrassed at having to break the news to us. Some remote Bed Manager sitting in an office somewhere is the one to blame.

So it's back to the ward to pack my belongings and leave. Luckily Essex man had nothing to say, or he would have received a verbal barrage of choice Anglo-Saxon in reply. Back at the local accommodation, Management and Food Police have to re-pack their cars and we return to the Council Houses in record time. To keep spirits up Food Police agrees to relent for one evening, so we adjourn to Nando's. Management is more adventurous than usual and experiments with some spicy sauces. I go in for some chicken wraps, my first chips for months, and two bottles of Superbock Portuguese beer. Next morning, despite this unaccustomed intake, the scales say that I have lost a further two pounds, so every cloud…..