… surgical intervention on my heart this afternoon
That’s not all either. As I suggested on Sunday, Monday was a busy day as far as examinations go. I can’t remember how many I went on. I know that for one of my visits I was waiting 45 minutes to be seen.
One examination stood out more than the others. The doctor on duty this week, another over-eager and dynamic young student, told me that I have fluid in the pericardium and it needed to drained off.
That was something that filled me full of trepidation. I’ve no intention of having pipes and tubes put into me, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and I made sure that the doctor was aware. Nevertheless at some point later on they came to collect me.
When I arrived I told them about how the talk of operations and how the idea of tubes and pipes made me have the shakes. so what we did was a compromise. They gave me a pill to relax me, and I kept my eyes closed
They were wrong about the relaxation. I felt every prick with the hypodermic needle.
All in all they took out 0.46 litres – almost a pint – from the pericardium around the heart.
It’s not clear yet whether this water is part of the pneumonia or whether it’s part of the preceding problem which has occupied my thoughts for the last 18 months or so but it looks as if things might be moving.
They have however left a catheter in my stomach connected to a small drainage bag to continue the drainage
Anyway, that’s for tomorrow. But before I go I’ll just mention my voyage last night. We were all in a Paul Temple adventure last night which is no surprise. This concerned the fastening up of something, doing up nuts and bolts etc. There was a group of 7 or 8 of us who were all suspects but we all ended up proving quite happily to our peers that we couldn’t possibly have done the crime that was alleged. When we discussed our movements there were all kinds of strange things that were happening that went to show that we can’t have imagined it because someone else experienced it at distance too. This went on for quite some time until they eventually found out who it was who had switched off this machine in this hospital but t was all determined to be an accident in the end.
And now I’m off to bed looking forward to a good night’s sleep. I deserve it after everything I’ve gone through today.
