After many phone calls from the hospital during last week it looked like the new battery operation was indeed going to take place. Noticeably absent from any communication was Surgeon Dipstick himself, as you will imagine my confidence was not high.
As requested I arrived at 6.30 am on Friday at the Urology building of the hospital.

Daniel drove me through empty motorways and streets and drew outside what must be the hospital suppliers shop. Interestingly.

I had asked my brother in Canada to email updates to my friends to save Daniel getting many messages. My brother and I have been learning the ukelele and last week started our Dire Straits phase! Sultans of Swing…so with that humming in my head I duly queued at reception. It turned out reception did not open til 7am. I, along with my fellow inmates found a socially distanced plastic chair to sit on.
It actually resembled an airport lounge. The patients or passengers stumbling bleary eyed towing wheelie overnight bags, making a base to sit it out.
7 o’clock arrived with the receptionist. The ‘passengers’ leapt up to queue in front of her. Alas, were all told to sit down again and she went round ticking off her manifold checking names individually. #jobsworth.

For some reason, and I recall ERIC the computer has done this before, my name seems to be Mary. So it took a while to find me and I tried hard to explain that my name is not Mary really. Every so often a name was called and amidst great excitement a ‘patient’ passenger would scramble up, gather his/her belongings and be ushered into an office. These false alarms were only to check, covid, blood pressure, weight, allergies and names!

Returning to the reception area of course a new passenger had taken a seat so findng somewhere new to perch was fun if not very covid safe . Another flurry of activity, surely this was the operations about to start…but alas no…’Mary’ along with all the others, got called one by one to see the anaesthetists and then the surgeons to sign consent and open mouths wide. Or maybe the other way round. Dip drew an arrow on my back and his sidekick man wrote a big scribble of illegible consent. Which I signed.

Back to the plastic seats then, to wait, and wait, and wait….most of us snoozed abit and then had a bit of a walk around. I made friends with a lady opposite me and we compared travel notes. She’d come from Corby. She too had been up since 4 am to travel down. We were offered a drink at 11.00. The ‘cabin crew’, allowed us a ‘shot’ of water. 25 mls. ‘Down in one’ or ‘Sip slow’ my new friend and I queried. Well. We laughed. No one else did.

Then it was back to our sitting on plastic and waiting waiting….like those delayed flights. The hospital coffee place was open and right next to us. Wow it smelt good! Lots of surgeons and nurses and other staff in scrubs wandered back and forth chatting, sipping coffees, clutching meals. They ignored us completely. Our Invisibility cloaks must have been on. Amongst them I saw Dip. I smiled encouragingly- but he did not see me. Or perhaps he did.

Jerome however came along to say hello. Well, to tell me jokes and make me laugh and not sure I can repeat here the name he explained for the new department. Let’s just call it ‘passing wind’! I explained I was planning to recharge my phone by unplugging some random piece of equipment on the wall. Ah. Better not, he said, that actually powers the whole ERIC starship enterprise. Unplug that and we are surely doomed. He did however pull out chairs and socially distanced sofas and finally found a spare electric socket for me. Hurrah. A new base for me. I should explain socially distanced sofas are sofas with all but one seat cushion removed. Effinguncomfortable That stops people sitting next to each other. Obvs!
After seeing Jerome it was more waiting. 14.00 came and ‘Mary’ was called once more. Wary of false alarms I wandered over. Quick, quick I was entreated to get into gown and leave phone and bag in safely sealed security plastic bag. Wow, so this was it…time to go to the operating theatre. The other passengers all nodded and said good luck

see you on the other side I said….waving and laughing. Poor fools we were led one by one, clutching our gaping gowns through reception, past outpatients waiting and deliveroo men delivering, and on into the lifts and deposited in yet another plastic seat waiting area. Now we only had gaping gowns and socks. More waiting. More attempts at humour. At some point, having no watch or phone, I have no idea what time. again ‘ Mary’ was called. This time, I really was off to the operation. A very chatty theatre nurse and I chatted about New Zealand as all around me bright lights, machines and bleeps sounded. The anaethetist I’d met earlier went through the consent scribble, yet again. We re-established that my name was not infact Mary and then he queried which side the old SNS was in. Worried that the wrong side would mean the spinal implant was removed. Dipstick was phoned. (Where the hell was he anyway?) All was sorted and consent scribbled on again. That then is all I remember.
Waking up in recovery, the nurses were brilliant. Even brought a cup of tea .
Through the night on the ward I was wide awake, chatting to Canada online and to the nurses as they came to twist and fiddle with drips and drugs.
By morning I was beginning to feel horribly short of breath and asthmatic. the nurses were brilliant and requested a doctor. Not having actually seen any doctor all day I was surprised when a young scruffy man did turn up in the afternoon . He hovered at the door. Suggested I needed peppermint oil. WTF?
Nurses raised their eyes heavenward and we agreed the peppermint was not quite what we think the doctor should have ordered. Cutting a long story short, I texted the Respiratory Surgeon who looks after me. He sent instructions. The nurses could do most of that. They got Chest x ray and ECG done. They couldn’t find a peak flow meter. Nor did a blood test happen. However, they brilliantly ,managed tohook up oxygen and nebulisers and things were considerably better by the time a new doctor team arrived at 10.00 pm.
Sunday dawned, so much better and the peppermint man/doctor arrived at the door to ask if I would like to go home. To which I readily agreed. He was not the slightest bit interested in the implant operation nor the after care. I presume urology team was not on duty over the weekend. I did not see any of them.

Hospital food is always dreadful. This was no different. I thought I would try a carrot and hummus wrap. Surely they could not get that wrong? The catering man came in, left the lunch tray on the side . On further inspection it held a 25ml juice carton and a packet of two cream crackers and 5 g of cheddar. and a teapot.. When he came back I said. Really sorry I think this is not my lunch. yes it is he replied. \we have run out of wraps. Thats all there is. !
The tea turned out to be coffee. Later the coffee was tea. Breakfast toast was actually ok. crispy not soggy. Margarine available butter scrubbed off the paper menu. A grey meal arrived at 5.00. I could not face even investigating that.

Remembering that this is a whole urology hospital I was not worried when I realised had not brought enough disposable catheters. The nurses looked a bit worried when I asked if I might possibly have a few from the stores. The reason for their dismay was later obvious. All they could find in the whole big UROLOGY building were a few male catheters. Now don’t get me wrong they work fine, if like me you’re tall flexible and can pee standing up. But really? No thoughts of dignity? sensitivity? Iknowthe suppliers give masses of catheters into hospitals at no cost. Where are they? If only that shop next door had been open. Bet they had some.


ps new battery seems Great. Bit too early to tell but so far. But where is Dipstick? I’m beginning to understand. He just wields the knife. His support team do the pre surgery and post surgery checks. He just does not do the patient thing.

I understand he had invited the other surgeons to watch. The supplier, Medtronic, rep also attended the operation . I had first met him when Dipstick did the first implant in 2013. Before the operation he saw me in reception. Chatty and enthusiastic about the advanced technology. He’s a nice man. What a peculiar job though!