This is the sequel to this, about the horrors of ending up in hospital in London, or more specifically in Whipps Cross University Hospital. In Leytonstone; sort of London.
Short report: successful op, all vital parts retained, am now home again.
Longer report: Arrived Thursday morning at 9am to sit in ward 15E waiting for x number of hours. As I’d been so nervous, the waiting was at first quite nice, then it got unnerving. Kevin kept me company for as long as he could until he too found it unnerving and decided to release the tension by going to work. Coward. No really; I would have done the same thing, but they wouldn’t let me out once I was in. Another patient actually asked about that during ‘check-in’ and was given that exact answer. We could move freely within the hospital grounds as long as we carried our mobiles with us, but not leave the area. So L, the patient, stated that it was ‘ah, just like a prison’ to which I piped up ‘more like a boarding school’ which had them draw conclusions about me a few classes above my real station. It didn’t take them long to discover the error of their thoughts.
L turned out to be my roomie and from South Africa. And she was thrilled to be able to natter away in English again after about 20 years in Austria. And she did. And I did. And we did. And we continued over a glass of wine in the restaurant downstairs because they had told us to not eat, but drink lots and had only specified that drinks could not be gassy. So we stuck with a couple of glasses of rather good rosé. Until one of the nurses called to inform us with a telling sigh (‘these two clearly mean trouble’) that we needed to get back to the ward ASAP for our pre-op consultation with the doctor who was WAITING for us.
As we were both scheduled for the same operation we talked about that and our fears and hopes in that connection ad nauseam, then we told each other our life stories and realised that we had a worrying amount of stuff in common and may be obliged to be friends for life. In addition, L is a nurse (theatre nurse, heart surgery) and gave me lots of advice and hints. One was to inform the anaesthetist about my scoliosis and the childhood fracture of my neck so they could take special care when plonking me on the operating table as otherwise they might not pay too much attention and I would end up with a kinked neck or something. What she didn’t tell me about was their barbaric methods for waking people up after the op… they inflict pain! Seriously, I’m not joking here. I have absolutely no recollection of the pain infliction itself, but once I was fully awake and able to move again I noticed that my earlobes were really, really sore. THEY HAD PINCHED MY EARLOBES. They were so sore I had Kevin examine them for bruises. I was very upset about that, my pretty little earlobes being pinched, more than about not being able to turn over in bed or sit up unaided, and moving tenderly like a hundred year old woman.
Later the soreness from the operation made itself felt as L and I constantly brought each other to hysterical giggles with silly stories and found ourselves begging for mercy with the effort of trying not to laugh as the pain! the pain was just too much. At one point a couple of days after the op we found ourselves doubled over in laughter and pain on the floor in the downstairs foyer, people either stopping and staring at these bizarre creatures with their hospital wristbands or walking around in wide circles pretending hard not to notice. Yes, we were heading for the Clinicum restaurant again, mixing drugs and alcohol as only two careless women in their forties can.
For a brief night and morning the third bed in our room was occupied by a lady who’d suffered a miscarriage. Through her tears she dryly stated that having been graced with four children already she didn’t really have time to hang around and grieve the loss of no. 5.
After her we got a young Iraqi woman in ‘the English-speaking room’. H was newly married, pregnant, had been in Austria for no more than two months, spoke no German and was unable to keep any food down. Are any of us surprised at that? We did our best to cheer her up in between the rounds of her face turning grey and her running for the toilet. She was clearly not one for joining us in our mad dashes for alcohol.
I choose not to tell too much about L and H. In an intimate setting where one sees each other at one’s most unappealing it is easy to share intimate details, but they shall remain private and between the three of us.
The conclusion is simple: if you have to go to hospital and your only two choices are between Whipps Cross Uni hospital and the AKH — go to the AKH! The drugs and alcohol are great, the company even better, the diet suitably bland but will help you poop (sorry about dropping that bit if info in there, but it’s amazing how your life suddenly circles around being able to poop without having to use any muscles in THAT region), and you can make friends for life! L and I already talk regularly and I hope to see her again before long, and H will hopefully soon be able to eat again and we can follow her through her pregnancy and celebrate the birth of her baby. And you know what? When at my most ‘unmadeup’ nobody treated me like dirt. I was allowed to remain human throughout. I shall now go and have a sprtizer — as I’m now allowed drinks with gas — and make a toast to the Austrian system of socialised medicine. May Americans one day benefit from a similar system!
