Dear All,

I had foolishly thought that my last visit to the hospital would be the final, but it was not to be. I went on a previous occasion when I could not stop vomitting, and now it has happened again. It is one of worst things that can happen to you when your peristalsis goes into reverse. Everything comes up from very deep. Hello, I recognise this stuff in the bowl. Yes, the colour, texture and the smell are a match, but I never dreamed I would also have to taste it! I have had a third operation and hopefully, the last. Stef has bullied me into continuing this blog, so here goes, but not all in one go. But I begin with some pictures. I promised myself that should I get out of this in one piece, then I would test my recovery by the ability to do two simple things. Ride the horse and play a bit of golf. The golf may be a bit ambitious at the moment, I don't want to undergo an embarrassing and rather messy unzipping of the latest stitches on the first tee, but you cannot believe how exhilarating it is to get on the lovely Katinka again.

There is lots to tell, but  easy does it. Again my heartfelt grats to all of you for the visits, messages and support. Will get behind the computer tomorrow. By the way Stef, your blog is still stuck around 2004.  

Right, here we are again. Back from Buggered-Internet-Router-IP-Address-Conflict-Land. A quiet moment as my daughters are off to their things, which now for both includes pole-dancing classes. Apart from a few twinges I feel good. Thanks for your concern everyone. I shall endeavor to keep myself quite ill so that I can invoke sympathy and concern and not fade into anonymity and wither for lack of attention. I had my little voice recorder in the hospital to make copious notes, but when I got home I found it had been left on. I replaced the battery, but the thing said 'memory empty'. Bernadet says it is quite normal for chaps of my age to lose their memory, so not to worry. 

Sorry about your expensive scanner.

I went back to hospital because my guts were not working and worse still, went into reverse gear. A welcome back from the nurses who must think I have a season ticket. Into a six-bed room with 2 men and three women. The next two days were spent being pummeled and squeezed and being given noxious stuff to drink to try to get things moving. Eventually I was told I would have a CT scan. This would involve the drinking of lakes of contrast-fluid so that the scanner could see where the guts were. I did point out that since everything that I ate or drank came out again in a violent gush with a loud cry of ‘Rembrandt’, was this really a good idea. I am in good hands, we know what we are doing, trust us I was informed, and my bed and I went off to the scanner, I trying to hold back a potential Victoria Falls situation in my stomach. Fed into the tube and the revolving cameras spin up like an Airbus turbine. Everyone gets behind the safety wall and a ghostly voice says take a deep breath and I move through the narrow pipe. I did warn them. The problem with violent vomiting in a narrow pipe while lying on ones back is that what comes up comes down again, all over one's head. And because of the mighty heave, I banged my face severely against the roof of the pipe. Which was wet and getting stickier by the second. Nurses rushed from their bunker and pulled me out. I thought I was being born again, feet first. I apologized profusely, but the nurses just muttered and started the clean-up job. When the machine was sparkling once more, I was fed in again, feeling and looking like a wet ferret. The hope was that enough stuff had been absorbed before the deluge. Wheeled back to my room through lifts and corridors and sympathetic gawping of visitors with bunches of flowers, and a hot shower. The scan had worked and the doctor would be along shortly. By which they meant tomorrow afternoon.

There is a God.

Just before I went into hospital, I had a run-in with a dodgy car repair business. Merel had borrowed my car but when she wanted to go home, the back lights were not working. Thijs and Alex found an ingenious solution. Remove the switch under the brake pedal and the brake lights are permanently on. But of course, no brake lights. It had to be fixed and we heard of a cheap repair shop not 200 meters from our abode. The resident Neanderthal would fix it and also do the MOT. He came up with an estimate of 600 euro’s. He phoned and said I should come along to hear something to my disadvantage. Bernadets big brother (and when we say big, we mean hulk) came with me. The cave dweller explained that although I had committed myself to the outlay of 600 euros for work planned but not actually started, the car would never get through the MOT because of carbon credits or something caused by a dodgy exhaust valve. Such an unfortunate situation. But I could trade it in for this very nice 1983 Renault Clito with only 40,000,000 on the clock for an additional large pittance. A lively debate followed between Jan and the Garage man. At the end, Cro-Magnon agreed with Jan's conclusion that he himself was full of shit and a total arse, and further that he would fix the lights, this work having been started, and the bill would be small. 150 euro’s of which 90 was for parts (I verified this cost). No choice as my steering wheel was off and bits of wiring lay scattered all over. The problem lay in the steering column, and although the lights were eventually fixed, my direction indicators don't now automatically return to the central position after straightening up, and the steering wheel rasps a bit when turned.  I went to pick up the car and offered my bank pass, but he said cash only. Well then, my good fellow, give me back the key and I shall return in 10 minutes with your cash. Oh no, said he. Cash first, then the key. He drove me to the bank in his giant Mercedes. I love it when people trust me. I eventually took the car to a real garage where the MOT and all work needed for it was done for a quarter of this sum. And the carbon emission was well within limits. Where you may ask, is all this leading to I hear you cry out as one man. Well, the first night in the hospital, a drunk was brought in, having fallen down the concrete steps and damaged his hip. Telling nurses and doctors to fuck off and what a fucking shithouse of a hospital it was and bollocks to your sodding injections and piss off everyone and what the fuck are you looking at, yes you, the aresehole in the corner bed? Fortunately there was another patient between me and him, but it was a sleepless night for five of us as we suffered the belching, farting, swearing and snoring of the sixth. He was known here, having fallen down the stairs on two previous occasions while drunk. Next day I heard that he was a car mechanic from our part of town. I wondered why he knew my name and took a closer look. Yes, it was him. I offered my heartfelt  sympathy as I beamed at him merrily. God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform. One young woman opposite me asked, very loudly, how long the pig would be with us. 

Secret Operations.

I, fortunately, would not be staying as the doctor informed me that as a result of the scan, there would have to be an operation. How soon? Well, now, actually. But I have just had two and my belly already looks like a map of the Cotswolds, with railways in dotted lines, motorways in red stripes, rivers in wavy blue. Why? Well as a result of the first or second operation, some 'strings' of scar tissue have grown through and around your guts and strangled them. He said it looks on the photo as if someone has been making animals out of long thin balloons at a toddler's birthday party. Chance in a million he said, although the woman next to me had the same problem. Chance in half a million then. Throughout my stay here, I have hardly ever seen the same doctor twice at the daily rounds. Here he comes, keen little students in his wake. It is all just like Green Wing. He studies the folder. Stop the Denderol and reduce the Polyblob to 25 mg. A student whispers that I am not actually on either of those, despite what is in the folder. Quite, then that decision is out of our hands, but we can start him on Viscous Glubbin, twice daily. Er, whisper, Mr. Ricketts is on 10 mg Scrotomax, is that not a fatal combination with GR? Well done Jenkins, I can see that you passed my cunning little test. Let’s just leave him on the stuff he is on already. He is, after all, still alive so it must be OK for him. Off for a lumbar thingy in the back, a sleeping pill and I wake up in a quiet room for two. Upon awakening, I discover that I have been stitched up with the dreaded metal staples and the willy-pipe is back. What is worse, the nurse arrives with a packet with a long thin pipe and says she wants to put it up my nose and down into my stomach, because I am not allowed to have anything going down into my guts. Why not? Because it says so on The Document. Three attempts to get it down, but I vomit it out of my mouth each time. Eventually it goes in, but I think there is a kink in it that is most irritating in my throat. The drip in my arm turns septic and my arm begins to swell up and go red, so they put one in the other arm. And a pipe under my collar bone into which a thin plastic tube passes through an artery and stops just short of my heart. This is for food, apparently. I now have more pipes than ever before, but on two different sides of the bed, so that I am roped down like Gulliver in the land of Lilliput, connected to two different poles with machines that go ping and have pretty lights. If I turn my head one way, something stretches and the left hand machine begins to squawk. These wretched things do not allow for sleep as I have so many tubes connected to plastic bags and bottles that one or another always needs replacement. Eventually the morphine pipe in my back falls out, and I can now lie comfortably, but not on cloud nine. I don't mind losing the morphine; you can get to like it. And it means I can go back to a single pole and do not need the nurse to help me shower. 

The Quest for the Holy Gruel.

 Everything must go through tubes. Painkiller, saline, antibiotics. And food. The food is in large plastic bags, oatmeal coloured and looks like very thin porridge. My room-mate is Marco. He is 49 but is still just a big kid. He has long hair and loves fast cars. And his Nintendo. He reads Donald Duck comics, of which he has a huge stack. He is not allowed to eat either, but has no feeding tube. His goes in through a 'normal' drip At the first opportunity, he is off to the restaurant in his dressing gown, pole with ping machines and tubes dangling, and returns with a bunch of fricandels (skinless sausages allegedly made from chicken skin and other waste, with ground up beaks and feet to give them that gritty texture the Dutch love so much). Once, at visitor’s time, he had a large bag containing French fries and curious brown battered lumps into which he dipped his hand between bouts of armpit, groin and bottom scratching. He offered the bag to Bernadet as he had had his fill. Bernadet said she didn't mind if she didn't, thanks all the same. But Marco was great fun and a welcome change from some of the other depressed souls I have roomed with on various hospital bouts. He also knew how to stop the ping machines pinging. Either by pressing a lot of buttons or by a severe blow to the flow-sensor. Better nights but at the risk of embolism or worse as the machine could no longer call for help when bubbles got into the system (as indicated by a little pulsating bubble icon). One of the nicest times here was when Ruth, Tony, Elli and Anna came to visit. They did not seem to mind the tubes running in and out of me from various bladders and bottles on my wheely pole, nor the bag of urine I was forced to carry like shopping on our way to the main entrance. Nor even by the revolting tube up my nose, held in place by a now black and snotty sticking-plaster. We went outside, I in dressing gown and pajamas and had an ice-cream in the sun. Wonderful to be with these exuberant young people. Elli made me feel really good when she said that I was looking less skeletal in the face. Made my day! It was not usually allowed to go so far from the ward when connected to machines that go ping and bags and bottles that may need changing. Marco was now pole-free, and asked the nurse if we might just pop outside for some fresh air. Alright, but just for a moment. I had a massive array of stuff on my pole, including two ping things. We got to the car-park. It was a windy and not so warm day, but the sun was shining. My pole was a bit top heavy with a fresh 2 liter bag of thin porridge and all sorts of other bags and bottles, and I needed to have my other hand free to carry the rather large urine bag. Perhaps people would think I had popped out in my dressing gown for a bag of beer, but the willy pipe going up through the front of my pajama trousers probably spoiled the illusion. We crossed the car-park and came to the entrance to the hospital. Two old and middle-aged men in dressing gowns and pajamas, one pushing a hat stand on wheels festooned with stuff. We decided to go further. We ran out of pavement and the wheels dug into the sand. We carried the whole thing almost horizontally until we could set it up again on a flat surface. Both machines had by now had their complaining silenced by Marcos skilful button pushing. We came to the Children's Zoo, attracting almost as much attention as the animals and birds. The pheasants came to look at us, but scattered when a machine went ping. We had now walked almost a kilometer over rough ground, and although the machines were almost silent, they were lit up like a firework display. Also, they had slowly moved down the pole a few millimeters at every jolt, stretching the tube between bag or bottle and machine. The sun was also by now quite warm and the plastic fluid bags began to get flaccid and weary looking. Like a lot of see-thru scrotae. We came to the deer park where kids and mums were feeding the little animals. We came close to the fence next to them and Marco reached out and pressed a button on my machine. An angry squawk, a raising of heads and a mighty pounding of little hooves as the deer stampeded to the other side of the field. Glaring mums and pouting toddlers. We sidled away. My diluted porridge pack was not looking well and appeared to be lighter in colour. We came to a place in the road where sturdy men were banging cobblestones into the sand to make a new road. They stopped work and gazed dolefully at the two apparitions, dressing gowns waving behind them in the wind. Dressed for bed at lunch-time. What do you want, said the foreman. We are looking for work, said Marco. We have been ill but are now in recovery and seek honest employment to buy real clothes. They laughed and offered Marco knee pads and a huge hammer. All in good humour. Marco had difficulty lifting the hammer with one hand. Perhaps we are not yet as ready as we thought. We said goodbye and made our way back to the hospital in the distance. We were very tired. Back in the ward (Acute Intake Department – Merel says it isn’t all that cute) a severe public bollocking from the nurse for taking risks, and why were my machines showing symptoms of stress and mental breakdown, why were my machines at the bottom of the pole and the tubes all stretched, and why was my urine bag about to burst. But worst, I hope you haven’t been out in the sun with your porridge bag, Mr. Ricketts. That stuff curdles in the sun, and since it goes straight into your heart, we wouldn’t want clods of that running around our left ventricle, would we now. No Miss. Marco left a day later. A little boy about 2 years old came with the collecting family and Uncle Marco gave him a present. It was a plastic gun that fired plastic discs. Uncle Marco showed him how to use it, pointing it at the cork board where all the drawings and get-well cards are pinned up. A loud thwack and most of the cards fell of the wall together with a shower of drawing pins. There was a dent in the board where the disc had embedded itself and fallen out. Marco and the little boy agreed it was a ‘good-un’. Marco loaded it again and gave it to the little boy, who, with his thumb on the trigger, looked down the barrel to see if he could see the sharp edge of the plastic disc. I thought of Auntie Anne and bows-and-arrows and decided it was time for my walk. I shall miss Marco and his infectious laugh. He has been replaced with a stout old man who appeared to be able to take everything in his stride, especially the awful 4 liters of laxative and the runs to the toilet that we all had to take before a gut operation. Sadly, things did not work out well for him and he now has both physical and mental problems. I shall go back and visit and try to cheer him up. 

Free at last.

I walk up and down the corridors in a wide loop at least 25 times each morning and afternoon. Mostly to show that I am fit to go home, but my bowels are still not working properly. There was a suggestion of another operation, but the latest doctor said that he did not actually mean operation when he used the word operation. I think I would have asked for a seventh opinion. Eventually a scan photo was taken to see why nothing was moving. This on Thursday, but on Friday afternoon we heard that the results had not been interpreted, and the surgeons were off for the weekend. Eventually the ward-doctor pestered someone to look at the pictures and I was allowed out after almost two weeks here, with a 100 percent, cross-my-heart guarantee that things may well turn out to be not as bad as they might otherwise have been if it were not so. Or something. Good Lord, I have been at this drivel for two hours. I am home and doing things again but taking it easy. Lovely visit from Caro, Adam and Michelle. Gotta go. Stef wants me to keep this blog going, but I would not know what to put in it. I shall post pics of my art work so that I can remember what I did before I re-use the canvas.

Merel training

Missed me? Probably missed more the apples and carrots I used to bring.

Love to All.