Saturday 31 January 2009

On becoming A semi colon

...........which fully expected to become a full stop

Wearing a stoma bag, I find, is like having a ferret in your trousers. A very talkative ferret which mutters to itself in a cross sort of way, although I am told it will settle in due time into gloomy silence.

 In view of what he has done for me, I would not wish to seem critical of God as Designer but I have to say that the artificial arrangement with the gubbins on the outside, rather like the Pompidou building in Paris, has many advantages over the original model. So much so that in the considerable literature devoted to colon surgery there is an article on Stoma Envy among wives who are no stranger to hurried exits to the bathroom.

I was a bit worried the surgeon might miss the target organ when he mistook my wife for my daughter, not the first person to do so, I regret to say. In the event, he proved a triumph, although he admitted that I had been hard work. It took him six and a half hours hard digging, which was complicated when I had chronic kidney failure. I doubt he did much digging in the garden last weekend. It turned out he was TA and had been MO to the Black Watch (RHR) in Iraq.

I was only in hospital a week, though I cannot think why I was in a rush to come home. I was treated like Haroun el Raschid, with pretty ladies by the score tending to my every need.

 And what fascinating studies they were. One, a Filipino, when I asked if all her country folk were small, put her hand to her head and said “four foot”. Then she put her hand to her waist and extended it outward saying “eleven foot”.

 She said she got angry when people criticised the NHS service. “In my country we do not have it,” she told me. “Few of us can afford doctors so we have to rely on homeopathic cures.”

 “What? For cancer ? What happens?”

“We die,“ she said.

 One of my doctors, an ex Australian SAS man, admitted to me that when he thought of the NHS he found it difficult not to cry, so noble were its aims.

 Many of the nurses have three jobs and run homes as well. We had such a pair last weekend who overheard my wife calling me “Whisker”, her rather embarrassing pet name for me. They used it loudly at every opportunity. So in revenge I called them Burke and Hare.

 Their excitement at the wonders of medicine was a delight to behold. Even simple operations sent them into transports of joy.

 “Look at that dressing.” they would say. “I have never seen anything like that.”

 I said, “You don’t fill me with confidence.” But they were too excited to hear.

I was pinioned by more catheters than St Sebastian had arrows. Taking one out the size of a Prussian bayonet, “Burke” shrieked with joy. “I have never seen one that long,” she said. “Neither have I,“ said “Hare, “Leave it in for a minute while I go and get Susan. She would love to see it.”

 By the time they took the catheter out I was rather miffed not to get a  round of applause.

 In many ways cancer was a doddle. Breaking out of the hospital was another matter. I had permission from the Escape Committee (doctor, surgeon, and bagpuss-fitter - who only agreed after I demonstrated before her and two rather startled medical students that I could fit a stoma bag unaided.

 I pointed out that I had written 26 books, night news edited three national newspapers, was a fellow of the Royal Cambrian Academy, a Member of the Welsh Academy and an award-winning broadcaster so I might just manage to stick a bag on my belly. But they had obviously set their little hearts on a cabaret so I put the bag on like fishnet tights in a strip club, singing "Stoma Weather" the while.)

 The Staff Nurse still wouldn't let me out until the prescription department had issued me with my tablets. I pointed out, with some heat, that the only tablets I had to take out were the ones I had brought in with me. Still had to wait three hours.

 None of the foregoing should be taken as criticism of the NHS. I think Aneurin Bevan is a candidate for sainthood. The country may be broke but there is still one priceless jewel in our kitty.

 I, for one, am very grateful.

A

On Becoming a Semi Colon

..........which fully expected to become a full stop

Wearing a stoma bag, I find, is like having a ferret in your trousers. A very talkative ferret which mutters to itself in a cross sort of way, although I am told it will settle in due time into gloomy silence.

 In view of what he has done for me, I would not wish to seem critical of God as Designer but I have to say that the artificial arrangement with the gubbins on the outside, rather like the Pompidou building in Paris, has many advantages over the original model. So much so that in the considerable literature devoted to colon surgery there is an article on Stoma Envy among wives who are no stranger to hurried exits to the bathroom.

I was a bit worried the surgeon might miss the target organ when he mistook my wife for my daughter, not the first person to do so, I regret to say. In the event, he proved a triumph, although he admitted that I had been hard work. It took him six and a half hours hard digging, which was complicated when I had chronic kidney failure. I doubt he did much digging in the garden last weekend. It turned out he was TA and had been MO to the Black Watch (RHR) inIraq.

I was only in hospital a week, though I cannot think why I was in a rush to come home. I was treated like Haroun el Raschid, with pretty ladies by the score tending to my every need.

 And what fascinating studies they were. One, a Filipino, when I asked if all her country folk were small, put her hand to her head and said “four foot”. Then she put her hand to her waist and extended it outward saying “eleven foot”.

 She said she got angry when people criticised the NHS service. “In my country we do not have it,” she told me. “Few of us can afford doctors so we have to rely on homeopathic cures.”

 “What? For cancer ? What happens?”

“We die,“ she said.

 One of my doctors, an ex Australian SAS man, admitted to me that when he thought of the NHS he found it difficult not to cry, so noble were its aims.

 Many of the nurses have three jobs and run homes as well. We had such a pair last weekend who overheard my wife calling me “Whisker”, her rather embarrassing pet name for me. They used it loudly at every opportunity. So in revenge I called them Burke and Hare.

 Their excitement at the wonders of medicine was a delight to behold. Even simple operations sent them into transports of joy.

 “Look at that dressing.” they would say. “I have never seen anything like that.”

 I said, “You don’t fill me with confidence.” But they were too excited to hear.

I was pinioned by more catheters than St Sebastian had arrows. Taking one out the size of a Prussian bayonet, “Burke” shrieked with joy. “I have never seen one that long,” she said. “Neither have I,“ said “Hare, “Leave it in for a minute while I go and get Susan. She would love to see it.”

 By the time they took the catheter out I was rather miffed not to get a  round of applause.

 In many ways cancer was a doddle. Breaking out of the hospital was another matter. I had permission from the Escape Committee (doctor, surgeon, and bagpuss-fitter - who only agreed after I demonstrated before her and two rather startled medical students that I could fit a stoma bag unaided.

 I pointed out that I had written 26 books, night news edited three national newspapers, was a fellow of the Royal Cambrian Academy, a Member of the Welsh Academy and an award-winning broadcaster so I might just manage to stick a bag on my belly. But they had obviously set their little hearts on a cabaret so I put the bag on like fishnet tights in a strip club, singing "Stoma Weather" the while.)

 The Staff Nurse still wouldn't let me out until the prescription department had issued me with my tablets. I pointed out, with some heat, that the only tablets I had to take out were the ones I had brought in with me. Still had to wait three hours.

 None of the foregoing should be taken as criticism of the NHS. I think Aneurin Bevan is a candidate for sainthood. The country may be broke but there is still one priceless jewel in our kitty.

 I, for one, am very grateful.

A

Sunday 25 January 2009

I intend to spend the next fortnight of convalescence trying to find something of interest in newspapers.  And almost certainly failing.  I may be jaundiced but they seem only to be interested in elections and erections, neither of which is of more than passing interest to me.  I wonder, too, about the talent which is able to fill the supplements and so called magazines with so many items which are of no interest to anyone over the age of ten.What happened to news?  There was a time when it was more important than one’s life’s blood.

 Older readers may remember an author called Derek Humphreys and how he made wife euthanasia profitable by writing a book about his own efforts in that direction. 

 He did a trial run on me.

In 1965 we were sent by our newspapers to the opening of the electricity grid on Anglesey.  A girl called Veronica offered to drive us to the Mermaid Inn in Brynsiencyn and, since she was very pretty, I broke my rule never to be driven by anyone who had been drinking with me.  Unwise, since she unaccountably drove through the closed iron gates of the Indefatigable Sea School.

The Captain Headmaster, who had been photographed by TV with the Duke of Edinburgh, had invited friends round to watch the film.  Our car brought down the power line just as he was switching on the set which exploded in his hand.

I passed through the windscreen, slid off the bonnet and landed in a bloodstained bundle.  Humphreys climbed out of the wreckage and, stepping over me, said to Veronica, "I am going to the phone."

When he returned, she asked, "Will the ambulance be long?"

He said, "I wasn't ringing an ambulance.  I was putting my story over."

 I had to stagger to the nearest house to phone over my account of the opening.  The copytaker said he couldn't hear me.  The reason was the phone kept filling with blood, which I emptied on the carpet and passed out.

It took my newspaper two days to find me in the hospital to which I had been rushed.  I had several stitches in my nose which were not expertly done.  When my own GP asked in disbelief “Who did that?” I told him it was an Indian surgeon.  “With a bow and arrow?” he asked.

Probably enough to get him struck off in our enlightened times.  Doesn't surprise me, though, that Humphreys became a world authority on wife disposal.

 

 

Many thanks for all the cards and good wishes kindly sent. . I was especially grateful to get this poem from an old friend Brian Hitchen, a former editor of the Sunday Express when it was the world’s greatest Sunday newspaper.  Patriot and a reporter’s reporter.

Goodbye to my England, so long my old friend,

Your days are numbered, being brought to an end.
To be Scottish, Irish or Welsh, that's fine,
But don't say you're English, that's way out of line.

The French and the Germans may call themselves such,
So may Norwegians, the Swedes and the Dutch.
You can say you are Russian or maybe a Dane
But don't say you're English ever again.


At Broadcasting House the word is taboo;
In Brussels it's scrapped, in Parliament too.
Even schools are affected, staff do as they're told,
They must not teach children about England of old.


Writers like Shakespeare, Milton and Shaw,
The pupils don't learn about them anymore.
How about Agincourt, Hastings, Arnhem or Mons
When England lost hosts of her very brave sons?

We are not Europeans, how can we be?
Europe is miles away over the sea.
We're the English from England, let's all be proud,
Stand up and be counted - Shout it out loud!

Let's tell our Government and Brussels too,
We're proud of our heritage and the Red, White and Blue.
Fly the flag of Saint George or the Union Jack,
Let the world know - WE WANT OUR ENGLAND BACK

 

     No wonder the Queen gave Hitchen a CBE