Life is a Stage... well, Theatre at Least

First off, can I thank you all for your wonderful well wishes. Deeply and humbly appreciated.

So, are you ready for this?

I was nervous, apprehensive but delighted my surgery was going ahead. For all of about five minutes.
Upon admission the nurse looks at my notes and says "Okay, surgery to the right arm ..."
"No, left-arm." I pointed out.
She giggles and says  "Oh, sorry," and crosses something out on the  paperwork.
I'm then told my anaesthetist will be here to interview me in a minute. Enter stage left ' Dave  the anaesthetist.'
"Hi, I'm Dave, your anaesthetist today."
After running through what I had eaten in the last 24 hours Dave seemed happy and confirmed that he was conversant with my medical history and within a couple of hours my surgery would be underway. He assured me he'd have me asleep in less than 30 seconds.  He then tells me a surgeon will speak to me in a minute. Enter stage left a 7 foot tall surgeon (I kid you not - he was a giant).
"Hi there Mr Grant. So, we are operating on your right arm today." Says he looking at my notes.
"No, left arm."
"Ah okay." he says, crossing something out on the paperwork. "I just need to draw on your arm now to highlight where the incisions will take place." He then takes my left arm and using a marker pen draws a line from my elbow to my wrist where he draws an arrowhead and some letters. "There we are, we'll have that sorted for you in a few hours. We do a lot of carpal tunnel syndrome surgery here. We'll soon have you fixed up."
"I don't have carpal tunnel syndrome. I have cubital tunnel syndrome."
Surprised, he stares at me, the paperwork, then at his artwork on my arm. Reaching for a medicated swab he then erases it all and starts again, only this time the line goes from my wrist to my elbow with the Arrowhead and lettering being completed at my elbow. My wife looks at me and I look at her and clearly we are both thinking the same thing.
' Does anyone here know what they are doing? '
And so I'm sent off to get into the garb I'll be wearing in theatre before being called to go lie on a bed ready to be wheeled in. As I'm lying there a woman in theatre dress hovers over me, "Hello there Mr Grant, I'm Monica your anaesthetist for today."
"I already have one. Dave. I spoke to him earlier."
"No, you must be mistaken. I'm your anaesthetist for today. Just been reading your notes. Won't be long now."
With that said, theatre porters start pushing me along the corridor towards theatre.
"Why you stopping here?" Asks porter one.
"He's theatre five." says porter two.
"Nah, he's theatre seven." insists porter one.
"Well lets just put him in five, if it's wrong they can move him around."
But what if theatre five is a sex change operation or a limb removal? I think to myself, but I'm beyond protesting.

Nurses gather around, stick needles in me, hitch up drips and offer reassurance before wheeling me properly into theatre five. It's all systems go. A face appears above mine, she's holding in her hand a green face mask, "Hello, I'm Jasmine, your anaesthetist for today."
Before I could tell her about Dave and Monica, the mask was on and I was asleep.

My one and a half hour surgery became a four-hour surgery. Not sure why, but it panicked the life out of my poor wife who was given no information (maybe they were sticking my balls back on after realising their mistake?).

I woke up in recovery before being sent to a ward.
"Three days you'll be here Mr Grant." The nurse said , "Or at least until you can hold water down, food down, pee more than 20 mm and move your fingers."
I did all four in less than five hours and begged to go home.

I was aching, drugged up to the eyeballs and tired, but once home I had to telephone my dad who I knew would be worried. What on earth possessed me to do that?
"Hi dad, it's me."
"Who?"
"Rory, your son"
"Can't be, he's in the hospital."
"I'm out. I'm home."
"It sounds like you, did they cancel your operation again?"
"No, they did it."
"And they've kicked you out already? What kind of health service is that?"
"No, I asked to get out. Everything seems to have gone okay."
"So exactly what they did they do son?"
"They took the damaged nerves in my arm and relocated them elsewhere in the arm and now I can move my fingers, even if only slightly."
"Oh my God, that's incredible. They take the nerves out of one arm, put them in the other arm and yet they still work the fingers on the original arm. It's amazing what they can do these days son."
"Well no, they relocated them in the same arm dad."
"That's what I mean, don't you see how incredible that is? They bundle them all up in the one arm and yet they work both arms! Amazing!"
(Big sigh) "Yes dad, yes. All my nerves are now in my right arm but they operate the left. Next year, they're going to put my brain in my buttock to cure my sciatica."
"Ah now you're talking nonsense son, it must be the anaesthetic. I'd better let you get some sleep. Great to hear you're okay! I'll tell your sisters you're well and about that amazing surgery. Fantastic what they can do these days. Bye son!"

Thank you once again everyone :)

Rory

I'm alive...

I made it...

Will update when I can...

Thank you everyone xxx

If I had my life all over again...

I'd be a photographer. Yes I would. I love taking photographs. Today's blog is a happy one but nothing happy seems to happen these days without a dose of misery to kick it off - so let's get that bit out of the way first.
For a year now I've been writing various short stories and one work of non fiction, all of which disappeared when my lap top died (My wife has repeatedly told me - 'Once you're finished writing for the day, e-mail yourself what you have done and it means it will never be lost'.)

Of course stupid old 'My lap top will never break' me - has never e-mailed anything. Lap top died and all my work went with it. So the New Year was miserable - a year's work gone in a second.

My arm has become so bad that a solid plastic truss rod has been inserted down the length of my padded splint to stop me from bending the arm - my arm has to be outstretched at all times. You can't drink beer and eat a pepper steak pie at the same time like that - more misery.

Anyway - my three wonderful step daughters all happened to be in our house at the same time - (the eldest lives in her own place, the middle one is never here (always with friends) so to have all three here at the same time is really pretty rare). But I thought 'damn it to hell! Get yourself dressed up lassies and we'll go spend an hour taking pictures of you all together'
The wisest (the youngest), asked how I intended to hold a camera when I can't hold a beer and a steak pie?
"Coz I'm taking this damned truss rod out!"

And off we went to the bushland.

To be honest - I was delighted with the results...

And then Brenna decided to turn the camera on me lol - I had no idea how much this illness had aged me until I saw this - I was horrified, but what the hell - just wait and see the difference in two weeks time (oh and I hadn't shaved coz I can't use my other hand to pull my skin tight lol - not because I was just lazy)...

This is titled 'old tramp living in the woods...'

Thanks to my wife's genius with 'techy' things - I now have a working lap top again, my work has been rescued, I've e-mailed it all to myself, my surgery is 5 days away - things are getting better :)

Rory

This is Major Tom to Ground Control...

Don't ask - It's been terrible. Ok, ask. No, no need, I'll tell you.
Life has been ****.
I spend every day in a drug induced stupor, by night time I want to cry with the pain - and to cap it all my keyboard stopped working so I couldn't access my desktop because I can't enter anything in the password section to get into my lap top.
"Not to worry" thinks I. Once my surgery is over I can fix it all. Yeah right, what a stupid naive idiot I can be sometimes.

Thanks to my brainy wee wife she worked out that Windows 7 has an on screen keyboard which means I can sit here and 'click' - (the click button still works) - each and every letter I need to get on line and then try to access speech to text to get things moving again (Please note that on the blue password screen there's a white icon down bottom left which leads to an on-screen keyboard should you ever have a dead keyboard). So here I am, angry, frustrated, annoyed, stupefied and absolutely raging at our run of bad luck.

Last week I fasted before my surgery. I did everything I was supposed to do - had an iodine soaked shower the night before, looked out clean underwear, brushed my teeth and packed my wee bag ready to leave for my 6:45 am surgery. At midnight the hospital called me to cancel the surgery - the surgeon had taken ill.

It's now rescheduled for the 13th.

I still haven't got speech to text up and running properly (It keeps giving me my daughter's speech files and not my own as the files have been corrupted while I've been trying to fix the keyboard problem ) so this is a 'point and click' post which has taken me forever to make appear.

"Ground control to Major Tom your circuit's dead, there's something wrong..."
"So here...am I floating in my tin can, Far above the Moon,
Planet Earth is Blue and there's nothing I can do...."

Not in a good mood - and have been missing you all. No one to grump at but the kids. I sincerely hope everything is well with you all down there on the Blue planet.

Rory

The Milgram Experiment Revisited...

I like Doctors with a sense of humour. And so it was that I was introduced to Dr Perigrene Arbuthnot yesterday - and his opening shot left me in no doubt I would like this man;
He shook my good hand - "Ah Mr Grant - You're relieved that after all this time someone is finally going to diagnose what's wrong with your arm and hand aren't you?"
"Yes I am."
"You're delighted that after all the waiting you're finally here and you're pleased to see me, pleased to be here"
"Oh you bet."
"Mr Grant, that's now. Thirty minutes from now you'll be wanting to punch my face in. There's no other way to describe what I'm going to do, other than to say I'll be torturing you"

I was ready though. He'd be sticking metal conductors to my hand and fingers before firing increasing amounts of electricity through them, until I reached a point where I could take no more. First up was my little finger. He placed the contacts on and flicked a switch on his desk,
"Oh My God! Oww! Enough!" I yelled.
"I haven't actually started yet Mr Grant - I was switching my computer on."
"Oh. Okay."

In the end I was zapped a frightening number of times - my head and feet didn't quite spontaneously combust, it was still pretty damned hard to take - it was all worth it in the end though. A complete diagnosis was made though the causes remain mysterious. I have crushed my Ulnar nerve and strangely also crushed my Radial nerve - surgery is now the only option before the hand withers away. He insisted this could only be the result of an injury as both nerves are no longer where they should be and are even visible to him just beneath my skin. But I haven't had any such bump, thump or injury that I can recall.

Heading out of his office I was still a little stunned from all the high voltage goings on and the diagnosis - But then I remembered Electro Man and how he developed super powers from a surfeit of electricity. I raised my arm and pointed to a prim little bush in the gardens of the clinic and said to myself 'Fire!' A bolt of silver shot out - nah nothing happened  really. But still - at last, I got some answers!

Me - after the Clinic Yesterday

Rory