Tag: Doctor

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Liam is mended enough to return to work (at a doctor’s surgery, ironically). Broken ribs are a nasty business and it’ll be months before he’s fully repaired. In the meantime, he’s popping the pills to get him through the day (and particularly the night). It reminds me that, during our midriff years, we need to do what we can to keep ourselves match fit for the future. No one wants poor health to spoil their twilight years. At my annual MOT last year, the quack told me to watch my glucose levels or I’d be on the road to diabetes town. This stark warning spurred me on to move more and eat (and drink) less. Twelve months on, I’ve dropped over a stone and my glucose levels are almost back to within normal range. So it’s a little less sugar and spice and everything nice – except for Christmas, of course, when all bets are off.

On the Feast of Stephen

On Christmas Eve my thumb began to ache and throb. I drank through the pain. By the Feast of Stephen, it resembled a medieval pox. The image doesn’t really do justice to the horror of it all. Though angry and weepy, it hardly seemed serious enough for a mercy dash to A&E: the busy medics have quite enough to do over the festive period without me pitching up with a silly sore thumb. So what’s a boy with a pussy digit to do? Well, a call to our local surgery the next day provided the answer.

“The nurse can see you later today,”

said the helpful receptionist.

“Nasty infection. A few pills will soon sort that out,”

said the lovely nurse.

“Oh, and it might burst in the meantime,”

she added.

And so it did. I took the pills and drank through the pain.

Warts and Wisdom

I recently had a lumpy growth on my ankle. It looked exactly like the ‘wisdom’ wart I’d had on my head a few years ago. Clearly I’m getting wiser as I get wider. I had the wisdom to have that ugly bugger sliced off.

So off I went again to the doc. She said,

Looks like a wart to me but best get it checked out.

I got a call from the local hospital the next day and a few days on, I was flashing my warty ankle at the dermatology top dog. He said,

Looks like a wart to me but best get it sliced off.

A week later I was flashing my warty ankle at the dermatology underling for the slicing. She said,

‘Looks like a wart to me but best get it to the lab.’

I felt rather guilty as I hobbled aboard the bus taking me home. Not to put too finer point on it, the National Health Service is facing a number of difficult challenges right now. The care I received was fast and faultless but just a bit over the top for a simple wart. But what did I know?

Two weeks later, I received a letter.

The shave excision from your right foot showed a slow growing type of skin cancer known as basal cell carcinoma*.

So. I’m not so wise after all. And it turns out I need a bit more dug out. At this rate I’ll be hobbling all the way back to Bodrum.

cancer

*Basal cell carcinoma is a non-melanoma type of skin cancer that rarely spreads and is easily treatable. It’s probably the result of me prancing about barefoot and barely clothed in the Far East during the sixties. Serves me right, I suppose. Had a fabulous tan though.

In Rude Health

17 miles west of Norwich in Norfolk’s rural heartlands lies the sleepy market town of Hingham, home to just under 2,500 country cousins. Not much happens in Hingham. The sun rises, the sun sets and the seasons turn. That’s about it. The town’s main claim to fame is as the ancestral seat of two famous Yankee clans – the Lincolns (as in Abraham) and the Gilmans (as in Nicholas Gilman, signatory to the US Constitution). But that was a long, long time ago. Now, heavy-eyed Hingham has woken up to a newsflash. Nothing scandalous, you understand. If anything salacious is going on, it’s kept firmly behind the neat net curtains. It wouldn’t do to frighten the horses. No, I’m delighted to say the local doctors’ surgery has come eighth in a national poll of GP practices commissioned by NHS England. That’s 8th out of 7,709. It got the hacks from the county rag rushing in for a photo call. And, yes, that’s my Liam second from the right. He wore his best pale pink shirt for the occasion.

Hingham Surgery

A round of applause, please.

The image is courtesy of the Eastern Daily Press and you can read their article here.

Scarred for Life

Scarred for Life

It’s six months since Liam went under the knife to have Terry the Tumour extracted. Troublesome Terry was a lump beneath Liam’s ear and it just kept getting bigger. The doc reckoned it was benign but might turn nasty if left undisturbed. I was getting quite attached to Terry but, just like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, Liam screamed, “get it out of me!” So out it had to come. I was hoping Terry would come home in a jam jar for a decent burial but off he went for an autopsy, never to be seen again. Still, the nice Italian neck surgeon was ‘very reassured’ by the result (that’s quack-speak for ‘we got it all out, Grazie a Dio!’).

Rosemary's Baby

It’s eighteen months since the arterial bypass to re-acquaint my left leg with a pulse. That worked a treat too though I won’t be tripping the light fantastic on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ any time soon. For a cheeky parlour game on a damp night, we compare gashes. Remarkably, what once looked like Liam had been garrotted is now just a neat mark along his jaw line. And he’s rather pleased with the unexpected partial facelift. As for me, I was slashed open from moobs to pubes like John Hurt in ‘Alien’ so I naturally assumed my beach bum days were behind me. But no. These days, all the boys would see is a thin, slightly discoloured line mostly hidden by tummy fuzz. Now, where did I put those Speedos?

God Save the Queen

NNUHRegular readers might remember that, last year, I had keyhole surgery when a double stent was inserted into my abdomen to deal with a narrowing of the arteries supplying blood to my legs. It was affecting my mobility and a major pain in the arse (or to be precise, the calves). Although the operation itself was successful, one of the stents failed almost immediately. This happens in about 10% of cases (trust me to be in a minority yet again). After a period of reflection and torture on a treadmill three times a week, I chose to advance to Plan B – an aorta bi-femoral graft, a more traditional way of bypassing the logjam. I went under the surgeon’s knife at the end of July.

BypassAs I was wheeled to the anaesthetist, I hummed ‘God Save the Queen.’ It seemed appropriate and helped keep my pecker up and my blood pressure down. The bypass was a major op but relatively routine and given my age and general good health, everything went like clockwork. Please give a hand to Darren Morrow, a vascular surgeon with talented hands. He stitched me up good and proper (actually he super glued me up good and proper). I was discharged a few days ago and have been recovering at home ever since. I’m sore but otherwise in fine fettle, largely thanks to the liquid morphine (highly recommended). Those familiar with Blackadder will know that every queen has a nursie and I have mine. Liam is famed throughout Christendom for his bedside manner and grape peeling. I’m a lucky boy. But at times like this I wish I had a proper job – just so I could get three months off work with full pay. I was rarely ill during my time as a municipal bean-counter. Maybe I could apply for a back-dated payment?

Back on the Treadmill

Back on the Treadmill

treadmillRegular readers will know that I’ve been under the doctor because of something called PAD (Peripheral Arterial Disease). It’s caused by the thin veins I inherited from my father and a wayward lifestyle of sex, drugs and sausage rolls. The condition affects my mobility and is quite common in old farts of my age, apparently. Following the double stent to unblock my dodgy groin, my consultant (and Dr Green from ER lookelikee) decided that exercise was the best way of evading the surgeon’s knife. This was uncharted waters for me. Apart from a healthy amount of rumpy-bumpy, I’ve always taken the path of least resistance in the physical therapy stakes – buses, tubes, taxis, piggy-backs. I’m a hop on, hop off kind of guy. Ask Liam. He knows. I always figured that if God had wanted me to walk further than the pub, She would have given me more than a 27 inch inside leg. Still, to avoid going the way of my dear old Dad (who didn’t make it past 50), I took the quack’s advice and joined a city-centre gym (no sniggering at the back). It’s a low-cost 24/7 DIY affair, fit for the age of austerity. Stripped-down and ultra-modern without a fluffy robe or juice bar in sight, there are just rows and rows of hi-tech instruments of torture and wall-to-wall mirrors for watching the inquisition. Thankfully, I’m not too intimidated by half-my-age beefed up muscle marys on steroids. While they’re pumping iron on the top floor, I’m fast-walking with the girls downstairs. Life’s a catwalk and I’m back on the treadmill.

Warts and All

WitchI noticed a little growth on my head beneath my slowly receding hairline. An ugly little lumpy bump popped up without warning. I didn’t know what it was. Best get it checked out, I thought. A childhood spent splashing  around in the tropical sun fleeing leeches as an army brat and four years under Anatolian skies squashing mozzies as a lotus eater and I could well be asking for trouble. My fierce (her word) German GP didn’t know what it was either. “Best get it checked out,” she barked and sent me off to a dermatologist. He didn’t know what it was. “Best get it sliced off,” he said. Four blue stitches, a neat little scar and a lab report later, it was just a wart. Not the viral kind of my carefree childhood days but the worry warts of my impending dotage. Wisdom warts Frau Doktor calls them. Witch’s warts I call them. I’ve already got a thicket sprouting from my nose, silver short and curlies and unregulated wind. What next? Gout?

Carry On Nurse

Carry On Nurse

IMG_20130429_105333Continued from Carry On Doctor.

The day of my arterial re-bore arrived and I packed my nightie just in case I might have to stay in overnight. With all the terrible press the NHS receives these days, I was a little concerned. Added to which, I’ve never been in hospital before so it was a uncharted territory. I needn’t have worried. The process went like clockwork. I was robed, bar-coded  and wheeled around like a kiddie on a ride at Alton Towers. Matron made me pull on a nasty pair of paper panties which were ripped off by a male nurse as soon as I was horizontal without so much as an introduction. My nether regions were painted in Domestos and deadened with a large prick. The keyhole procedure took a little under two hours and, as it was done under local anaesthetic, I was awake the whole time. The doctors poked about like a couple of boys from Dyno Rod, tracking their route in the monitor that was plugged into the enormous (and presumably very expensive) scanner. I chatted away to the delightful nurse who was charged to keep me amused and mop my sweated brow. When she asked me what I did for a living, I gave her chapter and verse about our Turkey tales and the ensuing book. The lengths I go to make a sale. It must have worked as she went away with ‘Jack Scott’ written on her arm.

Liam stayed around the whole time, peeled me grapes and provided a copy of the Independent to keep my mind off the tiny silicone plugs in my tender loins. I avoided cracking a joke just in case I popped like a Pattaya cabaret artiste. He was most attentive and I milked it for all it’s worth. After a few hours in an observation ward I was discharged, a little sore but otherwise in fine fettle.

I’m not really into the whole Turkey versus Blighty thing. Never have been, never will be. Chalk and cheese in my view.  I’m rather fond of both but for different reasons. I know people who’ve received wonderful medical care in Turkey and I know people who haven’t in Britain. All I can say is that my personal experience of the NHS has so far been exemplary. Even the receptionists were helpful. And what of the pharmacy of drugs I was prescribed by my Turkish quack? I now take aspirin a day to keep the stroke away (so no danger of erectile dysfunction for a few years yet) and a statin to control my cholesterol. As for the arterial bypass; that involves harvesting a vein from my arm. Sounds like a ghoulish Frankenstein tale and is a story for another day (unless I expire on the slab, that is).

Carry On Doctor

Carry On Doctor

Longer-term pansyfans may recall that I started having a bit of bother walking distances while we were in Turkey. The cardiologist at the local private hospital in Bodrum diagnosed Periodic Limb Movement Disorder. Apparently, I was running a marathon every night in my sleep making my little lallies tired during the day. I was prescribed a cocktail of blood thinners guaranteed to bring on early onset impotence and an anti-twitching drug usually used to treat Parkinson’s. My condition didn’t improve and so, now we’re back in Blighty, I had the whole business checked out at the StentNorfolk and Norwich University Hospital. I’m afraid the original diagnosis was a bit off target. A CT angiogram revealed that I have arterial blockages in both my groin and right thigh which won’t get better without surgery. A double stent will unblock my dodgy groin but the problem in my thigh requires an arterial bypass. My consultant looks like Dr Green from ER. It’s a shame I’m not under George Clooney.

Continued in Carry on Nurse.