Resurfacing

He who was lost is found again. I remember looking up at the electric clock in the ante-room. Next thing I knew, I was in the recovery room. "Errr...Is it over?" It was. They wheeled me back to my "private" room with my new best friend - a white "Bristol Maid" stand holding a bag of urine that was connected to me via a couple of metres of clear plastic piping.

I lay there all afternoon in a sort of stupor, occasionally glancing out of the window at a banking of lush foliage which no birds ever seemed to visit. Intermittently, nurses popped in to take my blood pressure and a kitchen assistant brought me a very cold egg sandwich and a cup of tea. I tried to read "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" but the style was too idiosyncratic for my woozy mind.

It was strange being in that hospital - in a private room with your own television and en suite facilities. I didn't get to meet any other patients and hours could go by without seeing a single member of staff. A couple of times I was forced to press the nurses' call button to prevent my new best friend from bursting and to order extra jugs of water. Leaning on the window sill, scanning the banking for avian life, all that was missing was iron bars. I already had the striped pyjamas.

Seven thirty on Friday morning, the night nurse finished her shift by gently tugging the catheter out and disconnecting me from my "Bristol Maid". Good Lord! What nastiness. I grimaced like a drama queen. But this was nothing when compared with my first post-operative piss. Shards of glass and broken razor blades spring to mind.

I'm home now. Urination is becoming easier but there's still more healing to happen. I wouldn't wish such trauma on my worst enemy. Thanks to fellow bloggers for their good wishes. The Yorkshire Pudding is back!