More Science

Dear all,

Doh! Thank you Homer, I think that’s the perfect word. I woke sometime last night for a toilet call and found that I/we had experienced a blackout. This was made obvious by my electric, non battery back up alarm clock’s constant flashing and confirmed by my mums old bedside clock radio preforming a similar dance in the living room. Piss break completed I wisely set to re-setting both time and alarm in line with my battery powered watch. Unwisely I attempted to do same whilst remaining unconscious. My suspicions should have been roused when I looked out after coffee shower and muesli at a still very dark sky, but instead put it down to seasonal change. It wasn’t till I strapped on my watch and noticed that it was twenty to, ‘WHAT? SIX!’ that I recognised the tragic nature this disaster.

Enough of that though for surely it is time once more to visit and deposit in the Evidential Bank of Scientific Knowledge. Whilst it was disappointing to not get a name for my condition it was comforting not to get some names such as cancer, leprosy, Friedreich’ saxtaxia or Cri du Chat syndrome though I’m instigating more tests for that one. My somewhat romanticised notion of having my own proctologist came and went very quickly. Tuesday’s appointment led swiftly to Friday’s exploratory procedure, itself preceded by Thursday’s nil but clear liquid diet, which civilly included moderate alcohol and black coffee. More than enough, even had Alice and I not gone raging at the Mac Tuesday night, to convince me that this Wednesday to Saturday work week was what I had saved all that sick leave for.

I’m not sure that speed of these proceedings was on account of: a genuine concern for my condition, my friendship with sister Cynthia who had insisted I mention it, or the fact that Dr. Byrne was somewhat emotional when he excused himself for the hour and a half delay on account of having had to pass three death sentences that morning. Fact is that I presented at six thirty am Friday morning and after verbally agreeing thirteen times that I was there for a colonoscopy, signing twenty two forms with stick on identification labels to the same effect, making seventeen blood oaths that a responsible adult daughter would pick me up and presenting my Medicare card a mere nine times, I was wheeled into surgery and introduced to the granddaughter of Eva Braum who said she was my anaesthetist, clutched a mask tight to my face asked me to breathe deeply, again, again, aga.

Back in recovery I was enjoying the wobbly robot like antics of others who had obviously had serious operations when Alice turned up an hour early or so it seemed till she showed me her watch. Dr Byrne turned up about then and proud to have recognised him amongst so many I experienced a sensation of bonhomie addressing him as Paul and introducing him to Alice. How much better it would have been had I called him Dr. Byrne or even Christopher, his real name. He quickly informed us (he speaks very fast) that the scope had gone well, the prep had worked perfectly, and there was no sign of any malignancies (my word) or Ulcerative Colitis his previous guess. He had taken samples for biopsy of three separate areas of small ulcers which he had shown to Dr Gok Paven who had conveniently been in the next room. There was no surgical option or diagnosis so he was referring me to Dr. Gok who was a Gastroenterologist that I should ring for an appointment.

Well that’s good, hallelujah, let’s go eat, um, what have we got to do, Ill ask at the desk. The desk sister did not need a blood sample or identification from Alice though she gave her a long quizzical look - searching for family resemblance no doubt, and had her sign a couple of dozen forms. She gave me a script for medication, a referral note, a request for pathology on the stool sample which I was to provide, signed my discharge - a delightfully ambiguous concept in this setting, and we were of and running. Mid afternoon she called to say that she had forgotten to give me my medication which I could pick up and that if I was driving that I could conveniently park at blah blah making a mockery of the post operative first twenty four hour advice on the back of the discharge paper ‘Don’t drive or ride a bike’.

The medication turned out to be another pressure pack of the same goo I had gotten already by script and I now have enough for about forty two days which is just as well as Dr Gok can’t see me till the twenty first of April. My next sobering thoughts were of how to transport a stool sample. Maybe I could empty the honey jar, it’s almost finished, an old yoghurt container perhaps? No residual yoghurt might affect the culture. Maybe I could get one of those proper ones from the chemist? And of course for only $1:46 I could. When I initially received the request for this sample I asked Desk Sister where I should take it and she replied strangely ‘well anywhere; or here’. Finding anywhere much too difficult I presented once more at RPAH on Monday morning, esky in hand, and asked information where I should take this sample which like an ugly child could only be loved by me its mother. Following his instructions I found the sample window with the notice that said press button once, and did. As the sampler sister opened the window another hospital sister yet unidentified arrived and asked me if I was there for some blood (I must have been looking anaemic) ‘no I explained I just have a sample’. She turned to the sample sister and said ‘he has a sample’ threw a test tube of blood into a basket of samples and departed. Before I could speak another hospital sister arrived and threw another tube of blood by which time the sample sister had picked up a tube and walked away. Encouraged by the fact that she had left the window open I waited for her to return. Some minutes passed as I stood there reflecting on how cold was the air that rushed through the window from this room till I again caught sight of sample sister though she did not notice me so I waited to catch her eye. Eventually she looked my way and returned. I put down my paper with the sample on top and said something like “my sample’. She looked at me saying nothing in an alien way and went again about her business. Now it was my turn to leave and as I did I wondered about the attraction between my paper and my sample jar and how easily they might be separated. I thought of all those identification stickers that had been attached to all those forms and my wrists, yes both of them and possibly my ankles or whatever and I wished I had one for my jar with the very ugly child.

I appreciate that by now you all think I’m mad and obsessive so continuing will only dig for me a deeper grave probably preceded by commitment to an asylum, if commitment is still possible and asylums still exist, but I simply must confide my conspiracy theory.

I did not mention before but in recovery at RPAH I felt the need to visit the bathroom and there felt the need to expectorate. Hack and spit I did a large blood clot. Hmmm that’s strange, and come to think my throat is so sore. I spat up blood from a very sore throat for the next few days and even when the blood subsided still had a sore throat which only yesterday, Wednesday, subsided. I wondered if Eva Braum whose method of anaesthesia was strange to me, though I’m no expert, had stuck something down my throat. This sounds preposterous though no less than my next hypothesis which was that the proctologist, who I know prefers to be referred to as a Colorectal Surgeon and at the risk of his somehow becomes party to these writings I shall henceforth refer to him as such, put a torch down my throat to provide a sort of back light for the movie he was making from below. Now another dark thought occurred in the mist between consciousness and dreaming that woke me back to clear sharp reality.

I had entered hospital for a colonoscopy; I can’t forget that I was asked too often. This is a procedure where a small camera is sent into the bowel from dispatch to receiving. In layman’s terms a camera is stuck up your bum till it reaches up as far as your chest and then does a 180 and returns almost as far. Coming out of such an operation I would not be surprised to feel some soreness. However I would expect to feel the soreness in the bum or at the least someone along the track of this organ. I would not expect a sore throat. I don’t have a very good grasp on modern surgical procedure and I haven’t seen RPA or any other modern movies and TV programs where such are preformed. I did though see that movie years ago when they shrank people and sent them in a nanno submarine through the blood circulatory system of the ailing President, “Journey to the Centre of the Brain’ or something like that. As I recall the surgeons conducted this task in a manner similar to the way Captain Kirk flew the Star ship Enterprise, not by looking out the window as he swerved around stars but by staring at screens featuring along with video images, gridlocks of data, graphs and all manner of kerwizells, all abstract from the patient/ universe. Does anyone else out there imagine, as I do, that the internal security vision of a bowel might look much like the same of a stomach? That a surgeon concentrating on his quest for ulcers and other abnormalities might miss the spleen’s or indeed the heart’s wrong sidedness? You see it would only need a discontent, hung-over, malcontent, practical joker factory/theatre floor tech to send the camera swimming down the throat whilst keeping his/her finger in the other end to obscure the view. Wad’d’ya think.

Congratulations to those of you who have read this far. Your reward is no more of the same, well at least for now.

R

Here for any of you who may be feeling somewhat insecure in these times of GFC is what looks like an excellent opportunity with a five star organisation.