Alien invasion...in my leg
A collection of climate stories mostly
It’s 2:24 in the morning, and over a week has slipped by since my hip operation. Now the heavy hitting Sackler sweeties, (Oxy Contin) in my case Oxynorm, is off the menu, it feels likes an alien invasion has taken place in my right thigh.
It’s not as dramatic as Alien, the science fiction movie, where Kane, played by John Hurt, human, has been hosting a particularly resourceful alien killing machine, before it escapes. A great film for sci-fi lovers and one of the few, where the sequel, Aliens, is even better.
In my case the clear signs of an intervention are reflected in a waterproof dressing running neatly in a north-south direction, towards the top of my right thigh. What’s inside feels altogether inorganic. It feels more robot than host to alien life form.
These wakeful periods have started not because of any spiteful pain but because I’m confined to sleeping on my back. That and the thing, which is making everything awkward, ungainly and android-like.
I really want to turn and get comfortable. I’m desperate to do what every sixties baby has done since birth and lie on my front again - cozy, sleep, yes please.
Aside from wondering how organic and inorganic matter is getting along down there, my mind has drifted onto this week’s newsletter and what to write?
Firstly, apologies if you’d much rather read about rooftop solar in Puerto Rico or ants that can smell cancer. I have many ideas spinning somewhere, but I’m feeling indulgent and prefer to fixate on the alien arrival because it’s hard to concentrate on much of anything else. I’m being selfish - sorry.
Plus, I’ve never forgotten the words of one kind reader who said my best work is always biographical. I’ve wanted to gently steer away from endless weeks of climate catastrophe for some time now. I guess this represents a first attempt to boldly go…. sorry, enough of the worn out cliches.
I was a very left sided footballer, definitely past tense now. Like most, I fell into the enthusiast category with a modicum of ability. I can only assume all that pivoting off the right foot to cross the ball with my left is what has done for me. It’s that or a more recent addiction to golf which sped up the decline, eroding what was left of any cartilage, to the point where I was reshaping the femoral head, the ball which has neatly fitted into the other half of my hip joint for the last 62 years.
Waiting is the worst. I’m to arrive by 11:30am at The Cromwell with planned surgery two hours later. I’ve not eaten anything as instructed.
Sitting in my room, its funny when the nice man from catering appears asking what I would like for lunch. I wish. We conclude that I can have a delayed one and maybe order something else later. The mundanity of the conversation is calming.
The wait reaches an excruciating crescendo in the anaesthetist’s anti-chamber. You walk then lie and try in vain not to be too interested in whats going on through those swing doors which never quite close properly.
I appear to be in an industrial unit, not an operating theatre. All that’s missing are the sparks and noise generated from an angle grinder as it fashions another piece of metal.
My anaesthetist is friendly enough, my options discussed, although we spent as much time on financial matters. His admin team presented me with a bill for his services before I left for my 11:30 appointment. It’s late and unwarranted and not his fault. I’ve paid for the services of another already, (my covid false start) assuming wrongly, that they would simply cross credit the new doctor tasked with keeping me alive this afternoon.
Unfortunately not, and I am now being bothered when I’d rather not be. Even though my surgeon typically works with one of two anaesthetists, they don’t know each other, not really. There’s no team here, it’s very un NHS. They’re freelancers working in a rapidly expanding gig-economy.
In fairness, the NHS made it pretty clear early on, that they’d prefer not to be bothered. Join the queue, don’t join the queue. They don’t care. No one has time to worry about you. You’re a routine hip with money, go and bother someone else.
I’d be happier, if I knew that going elsewhere was benefitting the NHS beyond one less stat. Does it?
After, I feel like I’m flying long haul to Australia. I’m eventually in surgery by 5:30pm, but only wake up around 10:00pm in recovery, encouraged by a nurse saying my darling wife is waiting upstairs to see me.
I’m starving. My long forgotten lunch choice appears around 11:00pm. It’s delicious and I chat, high as a kite, until Mrs H. leaves me at midnight. I watch TV until the very early hours only to be woken at 06:30am, cabin lights on, for my first meds of the day.
2 nights post surgery, I’ve passed my tests with crutches on stairs and am discharged to Lynden Hill, which can best be described as a cross between a care home and a 3 star hotel in Llandudno or Torquay.
The flaws are clear to see, but it does a job and was a great recommendation from a fellow golfer. I’m booked in for the week. They specialise in recuperation post knee and hip surgery. It’s also my first opportunity, not that I realised before arriving, to see up close what old really feels like, incapacitated not ill, I’m forced to try on the jacket.
Routine is everything here. My light is switched on at 07:00am for first meds, just before the night shift leave. Breakfast in bed, is over by 08:00am and I have two physio sessions, timings delivered on a hand written sheet of A4. There’s a menu for tomorrow, a tick box exercise to decide on lunch and dinner. By the time that arrives, most of us can’t remember what we’ve ordered. Whatever the waiter brings is a surprise and not necessarily a pleasant one. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
You don’t have to eat downstairs, but I did mostly. It’s another opportunity to prove I can walk with crutches, escape my room and socialise which includes the inevitable, why are you here, line of questioning.
There are many more ladies than men and I’m a decade lighter than most. That is except for Hitesh. We’re the same age and I’m put to shame by the amount of non exec positions for health related charitable trusts this man holds.
I missed out talking to the editor of The Independent, by a table, he left the next day, but I did meet my first ever Lady, whose husband had been knighted for charitable service, 10 years before he died last year.
By the end of the week, I’m very ready to leave. Sitting in my room, I find myself clock watching more and more as the week progresses, especially around meal times. 4:00pm is my favourite, tea and cake as I watch the wintery sun fade from dusk to dark.
I’m becoming institutionalised. Time to go while you can. Walk faster Andrew.