New to this

• by DGHH
• 2018-01-12 19:59:10
• Surgery & Recovery
• 1231 views
• 3 comments

This has happened very quickly for me despite an accident ten months ago. It took the doctors a long time to find out what caused my accident - I fainted at the sink and fell back onto a slate floor, sustaining a cracked skull and some brain damage. I believed it to have been caused by hiccups and my jumping up to get water, sending a ‘rush’ to the head but eventually it was traced to an asymtomatic  sinus node. Three weeks after the diagnosis, I’m in hospital for the installation of a pacemaker. 

You might say I wasn’t mentally prepared for this. I did speak to someone who had a pacemaker inserted six months ago but then I found my experience was totally different. Where she had been on a tranquilizer drip and seeing what was going on and chatting merrily to the medical staff, I simply had a local anaesthetic, a triple dose, with a lot of kneading of my shoulder to spread it as if I were pizza dough, and then I was covered in a sheet from head to toe. A few inches below my eyes I read ‘this way up’ which reassured me. 

But for an hour I lay there without the merry chat my friend had enjoyed while I was operated on. It was claustrophobic under the sheet; there was no interaction with me; and I was left only with incomprehensible instructions - ‘Count down’, ‘2.0, 1.9, 1.8... it’s not taking, it’s not catching!’; ‘Increase the voltage to 2’; ‘still not taking...’. 

I had to remove myself to another mindset so sotto voce I began singing a Bach aria. The surgeon asked, ‘Did you say something, Mr. Haslett?’ 

Singing quietly helped me! 

Then I heard her say, ‘Excellent’ and I spoke up and said, ‘Those are the kind of words I want to hear’. I think she did make an effort to accommodate my fears as words like ‘perfect’ and ‘going so well’ became more frequent.

i have to say that my treatment from every single person I met was exemplary, whether it was porters wheeling me to and from the theatre, or the many nurses and of course the surgeon herself. The UK NHS is beleaguered and underfunded but the staff were amazing. I believe that no matter what we do, we have a choice - to do it routinely or creatively. These people are creative in their attitudes.

And it did not cost me a penny. 

Im still getting my head round all this but all seems fine. A little pain but nothing that is unbearable. But I have massive respect for the UK’s NHS. I hadn’t seen a doctor in more than forty years until this happened.