Ouch.
Today can mostly be described as Ouch.
In order to avoid a 500 word essay entitled ‘Sucks to be Elliot. Discuss.’ I’ll present today’s entry as a chronological schedule. Also, I’m feeling lazy. You’ll see why.
29/12/09
00:45 Stopped watching iPlayer, having slightly overdosed on David Tennant.
03:00 Awake feeling awesome. See that it’s only 3 in the morning. Cuddle teddy and returned to nurse-related dream.
06:00 Wake again. Feel awesome again. After a few moments I realise that I have been woken by the beeping of the heart/lung/arse/whatever pump of the old dude next to me:
Da da da da. Da da da da. Da da da da.
5 minutes go by as I cover my ears with a bewildered and impressively flexible Teddy Bear.
10 minutes go by and I’m starting to wonder if he really needs that pump. I could reach the plug socket with my crutch….
15 minutes of go by. The drumming. The unstoppable drumming. The unrelenting, never-ending call to war.
Da da da da. Da da da da.
I must act, must conquer the known universe with a series of over-complicated and obviously flawed schemes. Must…..
06:15 Nurse turns off bleeping. I sleep. It is good.
08:00 Nurse wakes me firmly but gently. Dream slides into reality seamlessly ;).
08:15 Nurse hands me giant pot of pink gunk and informs me that I need to wash myself head to toe with the foul smelling stuff. Kind of like gunging, if Noel Edmunds had been germophobic and shopped at Claire’s Accessories.
08:45 I am clean from head to arse. This is a good thing as both are now on display thanks to my super-sexy NHS gown. I make the look work for me. The nurses agree.
09:20 They wheel me into the Vascular Access operating room, singing Achy Breaky Heart. Me singing, not them. That would be creepy.
10:00 I slide into a wonderful sedative- induced half-sleep as the surgeon whispers in my ear: “Actually, I find that the quickest way to a man’s heart is through a port-a-cath inserted below the skin and through the ribcage into the main line serving the left ventricle. Aha.”
10:30ish I become aware that I am no longer leading the Fremen against the Baron, but am instead undergoing surgery. Someone’s put some paper on my neck so that I can’t see what they’re doing. Drowsily, I try to move it with my hand and a voice tells me to stop moving. Just then, I realise that I don’t want to see what they’re doing to my chest because IT REALLY HURTS. I feel more sedative going in………the spice must flow……..
11:00 Things get pulled out of me. I get wheeled back up to the ward. This time I’m not bouncing up and down on the gurney and telling passers by that I fell asleep in Travelodge and woke in a bed on the way to surgery. I am still tripping a bit. My movable parts HURT.
12:00 Ouch!
13:00 OUCH!
14:00 Visit from Toni. Coincided with painkillers. Mmmmm…….
And then the rest of the day passed in a warm fuzzy haze of codeine, paracetemol, ibuprofen and some other pill that tastes of moonlight and orange trees…..woooooo………
I’m feeling too knackered to make any observations, so I’ll probably save them for Thursday or Friday. Tomorrow will have enough for two entries, including as it will a visit to the bank and my first taste of chemo. I’ll end by saying that I’ve got Skype up and running (chemorat) and have just had a trans-atlantic face pulling contest with my nephew.
El Chemrat
Blargl Blagel bibble fuch and we all go up and down but never into the computer cos that would be silly and i’m no sausage like these cockyails. Nib nob dob dib yay…..(written at 11:15 today)
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