Low life
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Jeffrey Bernard
Last Friday I came in here to the Mid- dlesex Hospital for a routine dialysis ses- sion and they decided to keep me in because the entry point, where the two lines go into my chest, was infected. I start- ed to feel really awful and no better for hanging around in bed an age waiting for a surgeon to come and pull the old lines out. Eventually he did turn up in the evening and I was a bit more snappy with him than I suppose you would normally be with a surgeon about to play with you. Judging by his looks and accent he was Middle East- ern, probably Turkish, and rather merry. He apologised and explained to me that he had been operating non-stop since 7 a.m. that morning which made it 12 hours. I said, 'Good God, you can't even do any of it sitting down.' He just smiled and pushed a large needle into my chest with local anaesthetic.
Before I thought it had begun to work, I said to him, 'I'd like to see it when you pull it out since I was under general anaesthetic when it was put in,' and he said, 'Here it is,' holding it aloft having already done every- thing in seemingly a couple of seconds. I said, 'That's incredible.' He smiled again and said, 'Well, I didn't like to tell you, but I am very good.' The line or tube was amazingly long to my green eyes and it reaches the heart. High fever and the infec- tion peaked and then they had to put in another temporary line for essential dialy- sis to continue. A permanent one goes in tomorrow which makes two operations in three days.
My cup runneth over even on my liquid restrictions. The current line is pretty grot- ty being as it is in my groin, and it wasn't a load of laughs when it was put in yesterday morning under a local anaesthetic. The woman who put it in was plunging into me with knives and needles for nearly one hour, first attempting to put it in my left groin, giving up that, and then plumping for my right groin. Not her fault. My veins are as thin and weak as old cotton threads which is why I couldn't have the usual fistu- la put in my arm in the first place eight months ago.
I have thought of many things during the past five days between gigantic efforts not to scream from boredom, frustration, fury and despair. Next week marks the third anniversary of the memorable day my right leg was amputated. Waltzing through life has been slow ever since and I am now lying this one out. I sometimes think that if I could muster up some self pity it would be of some comfort, but all I can feel at, for example, not being able to walk briskly to The Ivy for a good lunch and a lot to drink is as though I have just been stuffed for a large sum by a short head. God Almighty, even the food here this week reached a new low. But it is a blessing that the older you get, the more pleasure you get out of the little things in life and I can tell you after this morning's breakfast that the Rice Krispie is a truly wonderful thing and thanks be to God.
If in the near future this body is bur- dened by any more failures, breakdowns, or the weight of tubular equipment, this col- umn will cease. It will pain me considerably to think that will give some pleasure to a handful of colleagues, but I shall take com- fort in making, as I say, a close study of the Rice Krispie and writing the definitive rac- ing book on short-head defeats.
Leanda de Lisle returns next week `Call me an old softie, but I think it's cruel to keep battery hens.'
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