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2002-10-29 - 20:30

Monday
The coal face of NHS caring actually isn't that bad. Sure, you're surrounded by glassy-eyed crones staring out into the middle-distance whilst they await sweet, sweet death, and you're disturbed every 45 seconds by a syringe-wielding orderly and they take blood, or ask you to urinate into a plastic jug, or sweat pure bone marrow into a barely-sterile sponge, but it could be worse. The bed station, in your discomfort-free pre-op state, is vaguely reminiscent of a business-class airline seat that turns into a bed.

Electronically-controlled bed-goes-up, bed-goes-down arrangement, personal TV set (�1 per hour, but these hosptials have to make their money somehow) and on-call attendants, though I suppose you should really call them 'nurses.' And the food was no worse than any of the fodder spooned up by many a so-called airlines. I've snagged a seat by the window, which is making the old boys seethe with envy - at least, that's what I'm taking the irregularity of their noisy breathing to mean. I'm not one to boast, but the views of the hopsital service entrance are pretty breathaking. We're tagged with wristbands of different colours - my basic white only seems to get me access to the 'patients only' bathroom, whilst the others and probably a bit more "all areas," though since this probably just means somewhere with cell-threatening levels of radiation or the catheter-fitting emporia, I'm not too bothered. I'm being taken down first thing, so I only get woken up to be put back to sleep.

Tuesday
We're woken at 6:30 am after a refreshing night's sleep of around 45 seconds, punctuated by only the odd half hour of demonic whooping, and nurses having incredibly loud phone conversations. Still, it's a gentle easing into the day, waking abruptly to find an electronic thermometer being rammed into my ear.

Wake up! Time to be put to sleep! Stripped of my brand new pyjamas, which my mum would be shocked to find I hadn't vomited all over, I'm dolled up in one of those gowns that shows off your arse to all and sundry and an undeniably fruity paper hat. A whistling porter wheels me down to theatre, and, more importantly, the drugs. James Spader is evidently moonlighting as an anesthesiologist and we chat for a while since the surgeon is running late. I tell him I do travel writing and he suggests, as he inserts the drip into the back of my hand, that I write about this place because the painkiller he's about to administer (a minute or two early as a special treat) will send me on a 'real fucking holiday' - suddenly I'm being dosed up by William Burroughs. True to his word, it really hits the spot and I have a sudden urge to listen to melodic house music. Then comes the knock-out juice. The last words I hear are, "put yourself in a nice place" (thankfully, not "So what are we doing again exactly?") and 3.7 seconds later, I'm out, though not before my prankster of a surgeon 'had come' in to 'mark me up' and, much to his own personal amusement, wrote "Cut Here" in big letters on my neck. The stream of jokes seemingly endless, I hear him quip, "Time for my pre-surgery shot of whiskey!" as he leaves to scrub up.

That guy kills me.

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