Take one tablet at night – and duck

Posted on September 13, 2019 by Nigel Hurll

When we moved to Cheshire, I had to register with a new medical practice and I was asked to attend recently for a diabetic review (I have Type 2). The nurse was pleased with the way I was progressing to the extent that she reduced the dosage of one of my medications.

I remember when I was first prescribed diabetic medication to add to all the others I was taking; at that time, blood sugar – slightly up; cholesterol – slightly up; kidney function – very good indeed, actually; liver function – quite acceptable (ahem); blood pressure – slightly up; weight – one at a time on the scale, please.

My old medical centre (particularly the Sister who runs the Diabetes Clinic) is most assiduous in the care of patients with the condition and I have nothing but the highest praise for everyone there (I know nearly all of them by name and they of course know and love me). After all, one of the practice nurses used to handle my bare feet, sloshing blue gel all over them and pushing a pen-like instrument around that amplifies the sound of the pulses; sadly, it drowned out the classical music being piped into the treatment room but all was OK and, although not 100% kicking, I am apparently alive. And I was able to put my socks back on all by myself.

One of the new medications was called Simvastatin – another tablet – and the label stuck on the box contains the dosage instruction: “Take ONE at night, avoid grapefruit.” Having never been attacked by anyone wielding that particular fruit, I am now on constant alert after taking one of the tablets in case some conscientious objector to statins chucks one at me.

D’you reckon I’m being over-cautious?

Medical History

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Nigel Hurll

medical-bag This is a hitherto unreported reminiscence of my progress through the long and winding corridors of the unbelievably marvellous British NHS in 2011.

As part of my continued health care, I was invited to have a CAT scan at Salisbury District Hospital (my second home for various periods during 2010). The notification had been sent to me several weeks earlier and informed me that I needed to present myself one hour before the appointed time so I could be given a contrast drink to improve the pictures produced by the scan. I was familiar with this as I had had one in the previous year. It involves sitting around for up to an hour, sipping a milky substance, being bored out of your skull and trying to concentrate on your book, invariably with little success!

I duly turned up just after 10am, reported to reception and sat in the waiting room. I was so bored, I became enthralled by an episode of Property Ladder. Yes, that bored. At 10.45am, the receptionist smiled and said “You were a bit early, weren’t you?” I explained that my letter had instructed me to arrive an hour early for the drink. “Oh,” she replied and strode off purposefully, returning a few minutes later saying that my letter had been sent just before they stopped requiring patients to arrive an hour early and have the drink! Oh well, the up side of this was that I went to the treatment area fifteen minutes early!

The CT scan experts among you will know that the initial step is to insert a canular into a convenient vein in order that a dye can be injected during the scan. If you are at all familiar with my veins, you will be only too aware that ‘convenient’ is not a description readily applicable to them: they are either extremely shy or just plain bloody rude, because they simply don’t turn up to these events and no amount of violent skin-slapping encourages an appearance. The nurse gave up after one attempt and took me in to the scan room, saying she had called for a doctor to do the dirty work.

The six subsequent failures to effect an incursion (three in each arm) showed – statistically at least – that the nurse was significantly less crap at this than the doctor. Anyway, the end result was that the whole shebang had to be rescheduled and I left the hospital self-consciously sporting seven bits of transparent sticky plaster and more cotton wool balls than three teddy bears.

The new appointment was fixed for a week ahead but, in between times, I had a phone call to say that the scanner had broken down and could I turn up two days later than originally planned? So I did and, after three attempts, one was in vein. Ha! See what I did there? After all this hoohah, I saw the oncologist who told me that the scan had revealed a small (2cm) growth in my right lung which is almost certainly cancerous but also almost certainly removable.

I then had to have a PET scan at Southampton which will have given the medics pictures in glorious Technicolor and 3D to indicate whether the little bugger is the result of a spread or completely new, and help them decide the best way to deal with it. This time, I had to be injected with a radioactive liquid; I was wishing the medical staff luck in advance with the veins. I wondered if I’d glow in the dark, which would at least allow me to read in bed without a torch.

So, CAT scan, PET scan, presumably a LAB test would follow. See what I did there?

Through the keyhole

Posted on December 30, 2017 by Nigel Hurll

keyhole-surgery Back in 2011, according to the medical summary I always carry with me for the benefit of any health professionals I might encounter during my accident-strewn existence, I had undergone two VATS wedge resections (left lung July, right lung August) to excise lesions from each of those organs via the medium of keyhole surgery. Following the second procedure, I wrote the following:

“I have been returned by the NHS into the safe cocoon of my home and family. Sounds like a successful kidnap, doesn’t it? Except that no money changed hands. It would have been well spent, though, I can assure you. I don’t think there’s much left in me to cut out now, so I’m not expecting to be carted off again in the near future; there’s nothing scheduled, anyway!

I’ve said this before but, in my opinion, keyhole surgery is one of the marvels of the age and, afterwards, they have you up and about very quickly – subject, of course, to the IV tubes, drains and other devices to which you are connected; on the morning after the day of my operation, I would not have looked out of place behind my television at home.

On the ward, there was a friendly old chap in the bed opposite whom I correctly guessed was itching to chat and, during a lull in proceedings (when I was being poked, prodded and pierced by one of the nurses and she had gone to fetch some other instrument of torture), he leapt up and came over, seating himself in the recently vacated chair. With no introductory platitudes whatsoever, he simply said “My groin hurts.” I tutted sympathetically but with not a little apprehension, wondering where this might be leading. With the aid of an extraordinarily detailed diagram which he took out of his dressing-gown pocket (where did he get it from? The diagram, I mean, not the pocket), unfolded and spread out on the bed, he proceeded to explain exactly what surgery he had undergone and extolling the virtues of keyhole surgery with which, of course, I wholeheartedly agreed and which, he enthused, had certainly delayed his untimely demise by several years, probably. I have to say I couldn’t help but share his optimism.

As he was highlighting various salient points, for some strange reason, the song ‘Old MacDonald Had A Farm’ leapt into my head (“…here an aorta, there an aorta, everywhere an aorta…”); perhaps it’s just me. Anyway, thankfully, the nurse came back before he had a chance to deliver a full ‘in the flesh’ presentation but, just in case, I spent the rest of the time pretending to be asleep.”

Diary of an impatient patient

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Nigel Hurll

This is a medical blast from the past – April 2010, to be precise. To cut a long story short for the uninitiated (and avoiding mentioning some unsavoury details by the use of cryptic rhyming clues), they found a [rhymes with a word meaning unsubstantiated gossip] in my [rhymes with the name of any one of a,e,i,o,u] and surgery has been undertaken to remove it. It seems all is clear but, as a precaution against any recurrence, I will be having to undergo a home-based course of (colloquial shortened version) [rhymes with the name of the captain of Jules Verne’s submarine Nautilus] for a period of 24 weeks, starting about the middle of June. I understand that the only possible side effects of this treatment are soreness in the mouth, hands and feet. My hair won’t even fall out – result!

Read on for a diarised summary of my NHS experience. I should emphasise that the care I received from all the staff at both hospitals was impeccable, even the doctor at Southampton who failed to spot the painfully obvious shortcomings in my ability to enunciate English. You meet him on May 1^st.

Monday 26^th April – Having finally found a suitable vein in which to infuse anaesthetic (four attempts this time!), had operation which the surgeons say was successful. Spend the next few days and sleepless nights recovering, keeping my wife up to date with my ever-shifting location within the ward complex and trying to count the number of holes that have been made in my skin; gave up on the latter exercise.

Friday April 30th – I am to be discharged today and, having phoned home, I walk to the ward window to admire the view of the Wiltshire hills in the distance, which is a bit difficult as this is obscured by three massive air ducts and the hospital laundry. Suddenly experience a severe posterior epistaxis – sounds better than a “bad nosebleed” doesn’t it? Following a quite traumatic visit to ENT, I am told I will have to stay in. Epistaxis occurs on two further occasions, the second (at about 11pm) resulting in the on call Registrar having to drive from Southampton (I am in Salisbury) to take charge, and a blood tranfusion (two units).

Saturday May 1st – Am taken by ambulance to Southampton Hospital (“blue-lighted”, in the vernacular, I understand! Exciting, eh? Not). Spend a total of four days (and more sleepless nights) in Ward F5, not being allowed to eat or drink anything hot because of the epistaxis thing, and not being allowed out of bed for the same reason.

Wondered why, when I arrived, a doctor persistently asked me my name, date of birth, address, normal medication etc. etc. when both my nostrils were completely stuffed with some special material, and covered with a bolster (look it up) which is fixed by tying it behind the ears, all of which prevented coherent speech (and, come to think of it, breathing, coherent or otherwise); wasn’t all this information on my chart? He could have shown me and allowed me to nod confirmation, surely? Seriously. Even my walking stick had a sticky label containing all my personal information affixed to it (this actually proved very useful as one of the nurses at Salisbury kept borrowing it to draw the ward curtains). So I ended up shouting everything to him very slowly (and succinctly, I imagined) but he still entered some medication on the sheet that I had never heard of and asked how to spell Ringwood. It’s only about 15 miles from Southampton; I had had enough by then and I’d only just arrived.

During my stay, nobody seemed to know precisely what new medication I had been prescribed and I was repeatedly asked what certain items had been prescribed for; I explained – somewhat testily on occasion, I have to admit – that, as I hadn’t actually prescribed any medication to myself, I didn’t know, but had been perfectly happy to rely upon the relevant practitioners’ expertise.

Wednesday May 5th – I can go!! They tell me this at 1.30pm and I ring home with the good news. My wife arrives at 3.25pm, having queued for 45 minutes to get into the car park, I get dressed, and all we have to do is wait for my sack of medication to be wheelbarrowed up from Pharmacy. We manage to get away at 6.05pm. No, you needn’t say it, I already have.

So there it is. For the record, I was told (via a leaflet given to me) that, for about two weeks following discharge, I would have to:

Avoid blowing my nose (I don’t think I will ever want to again)
Avoid picking my nose (ditto)
Avoid strenuous exercise (drat!)
Avoid lifting heavy weights, such as a full kettle (it really does say that!)
Keep baths/showers cool (hmmmm, I don’t think so)
Avoid bending over (wilco)

I always do as I’m told.

Confused, Salisbury

Posted on December 13, 2014 by Nigel Hurll

So there I was on Thursday 11th December a few years ago, finally, in hospital, full of apprehension because it would be the first time I would ever be confined in one overnight; it wasn’t so much the fear of undergoing surgery, more the indignities I could potentially suffer. I mean, your private functions go out the window, don’t they? No, you know what I mean, I had my own side room with a shower and toilet – anyway, the window didn’t open wide enough.

I had received a letter instructing me to make my way to a certain ward at four o’clock but we were a little early, having arrived just after half-past three. We were shown into one of the ward bays (which are a pretty good size, more or less circular and contain four beds and a small seating area with a view of rolling countryside and Car Park 8). At a quarter to five, I was shown to my room by a very pleasant, rather portly Jamaican nurse (in case you were wondering, I mention her ethnicity because I would like you to imagine the way she moved, as if a hidden calypso was dictating her gait) who said “Could you walk this way?” I restrained myself; oh, all right, I didn’t. “I wish I could,” I said, “but I’m hoping to be able to soon.” She had the good grace to chuckle.

The last thing I expected was a room to myself with an en suite shower and toilet and a considerable amount of the aforementioned apprehension swiftly dissipated. We explored the room and I unpacked my nightie etc. Nobody had yet appeared to tell me what to expect but Sheila had to get home so she left at about a quarter past five and I was left twiddling my thumbs (as far as I was physically able to), wondering what I should or shouldn’t be doing. I fiddled with the overpriced telephone and TV (the radio service was free), read a bit of my book and pondered over the Telegraph crosswords; I finished those at about twenty past seven and, shortly after this – hurrah! – a nurse came in and took my blood pressure and temperature. I thought it would be nice to know the forthcoming routine so I interrupted her conveyor belt and asked if that was all that was going to happen for the rest of the night. “Yes,” she answered. Lie.

I got into bed quite early, read a bit more and fell asleep unusually early for me, at about ten, but was awoken at midnight by the aforementioned nurse – the mendacious little minx – who visited again to do my “obs” (you do slip into the jargon quite quickly – “obs”, “meds”, “bedpan” etc.

There was no further interruption until twenty to four when the nurse came in to take my jug of water away (you are allowed fluids only up to two hours before surgery but I had been told earlier that I would be able to have a couple of sips to take my normal blood pressure medication). She obviously didn’t trust me and said, “I have to do this because you’re going to theatre in the morning.” This was the first I’d heard of it; it made good sense, though, as I was already there but nobody had confirmed when I was going until then. “I can have a little with my medication, though, can’t I?” “Oh, no.” “Oh, right.”

A little later (about half-past six), while I was having a wash and the nurse was changing the bedding, another nurse shouted through the door that I could have a couple of small sips of water in order to take my medication. I began to feel like those passengers at Terminal 5 on opening day, except I don’t suppose any of them had numb legs.

Inflatable slippers keep you awake as well

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Nigel Hurll

So I had the operation (L4/L5 nerve root decompression and partial discectomy) – well, this was purely an assumption on my part because I had been asleep for quite some time, but someone must have done something because my lower back was exceptionally sore – and I was taken back to Side Room 3, where I had begun my surgical adventure the day before. I had a cannula connected to my right hand and one of those nose clip thingies which I never realised before was to supply oxygen; and we used to watch Casualty – tsk!

I was initially provided with a bottle to pee in but, worryingly, it was constructed of egg-box type cardboard and the nurse told me to press the call button as soon as it had been used, otherwise… well, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about. As if it wasn’t bad enough having to try and defy gravity by using the damn’ thing, while I was fumbling beneath the sheet with it, I accidentally pulled the cannula out; for an instant, I did wonder where all the blood was coming from. So, fresh sheets, gown etc. The experience of being sponged down by a nurse didn’t turn out to be nearly as exciting as it might have been.

She took the bottle (by this time, I had persuaded them to give me a decent plastic one – gravity still presented a problem, though) and, as she crossed the corridor, I heard her shout to her colleague “I’ve taken it – a thousand mil!” I wondered if this was a record for I could think of no reason for mentioning it other than the existence of some kind of competition.

Apart from the old feller further down the corridor shouting “Great Britain!” and “No, get back!” at the top of his voice, the buzzer at the nurse station going off every few minutes (this was immediately adjacent to Side Room 3), the nurse coming in to do “obs”, the raging storm and the inflatable slippers, it was very peaceful.

Inflatable slippers? Ah, yes, these are innovative devices which fit over your feet and are designed to prevent DVT by inflating and deflating constantly, very much like the armband on a blood pressure machine. It was like sleeping with an asthmatic walrus.

The best thing about my hospitalisation? Morphine.

Cutting it fine

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Nigel Hurll

There was a long questionnaire doing the internet rounds a while ago, Question 60 of which was “Have you ever posed nude in front of strangers?” I was going to respond in the affirmative, on the same basis as that of a friend who thought that she had, since having a baby possibly met the criteria, although she did recall wearing a T-shirt at the time.

I thought I may have achieved the required status upon the occasion of my vasectomy some years ago – I would argue that, as a man, you probably couldn’t get much nuder than that in front of strangers – and the following account would not have sat well merely as an adjunct to a piffling piece of internet silliness; I thought it more deserving of a separate blog, but make up your own mind about that.

Those of a nervous disposition may like to squint a bit whilst reading. I would like to mention that I had a pre-op examination a few days before and it is the first time in my life (and the last, I hasten to assure you) that I have shaken the hand of an Australian, two digits of which, within seconds, were thrust unceremoniously up my arse. But I digress.

Although I was told the operation would be carried out under a local anaesthetic (phew!), it was a day surgery job, so I was only at the hospital from about 9 a.m. until my sister-in-law picked me up late afternoon. I recall one or two incidents both during the day and the subsequent month I had to take off work. Eh? Well, because of the clot. Yes, the clumsy bugger with the knife and the, er, other one. Think of a tennis ball. On second thoughts, don’t remind me. For ten days, I had to sleep downstairs on the settee because I was unable to negotiate the stairs. And they made me take hot baths with salt and told me to squeeze clotted blood out. Excuse me while I wipe my eyes.

Anyway, I got a Good Boy Certificate from one of the nurses who said that I had burbled incessantly before I was fully anaesthetised and, afterwards, I was wheeled into a recovery room with about eight other men, most of whom had had the same operation. A buxom sister would come in frequently and check our, um, bits. By her third visit, we were, in true Folies Bergères style, lifting our gowns in perfect unison – even the bloke in the bed next to me despite the fact he had only had an ingrowing toenail removed.

All in all, a rather painful episode of my life which could possibly have been made less so had my sister-in-law not driven me home at about 60mph round bend-ridden country roads with me trying to take my weight on one or other buttock – and failing miserably. She meant well.

When I got back to work, a friend asked me where I had had the operation. When I told him “Salisbury,” he replied “what, Market?”

Oh, ha ha.

The old paperclip cure

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Nigel Hurll

When we first moved to the New Forest market town of Ringwood, our first house there had a ground-floor extension with a patio door. One day (it was Sheila’s birthday and we were going out for a meal at a local restaurant that evening), I came home from work to find that the older lad (a mere four-year old whippersnapper at that time – the younger would not appear on the scene for four years) had somehow wedged some small plastic balls inside the track behind the sliding door.

This created two problems: (1) they were stopping the door from closing, and (2) the door would have to be removed to get them out. Well, I am by no stretch of the imagination the King of DIY so you can understand how proud I was of myself when I managed to get the door off; you can perhaps also understand how proud I wasn’t when I dropped it on my big toe. It hurt. A lot. Didn’t you wonder what that noise was? You must remember it: September 14th 1982? A very loud screaming? Yes, that was me!

Well, the pain did subside a little and we went to the restaurant. It was not long, however, before the toe had swollen up to the extent that I could not keep my shoe on, so I took it off and spent most of the evening with it hidden under the table (the shoe, that is). This was considerably less embarrassing than having to limp out of the crowded restaurant carrying it.

Anyway, over the course of the next few days, I sought medical advice, discovering the bone at the top of the toe had been broken. It was only a minor fracture (so I didn’t wallop the little lad too hard) and there was little to do but wait for it to mend itself.

After another few days (those of you of a squeamish disposition should probably get ready to look away), the pressure under the toe-nail became unbearable, so I rushed (bah!) to the Health Centre where a nurse performed a minor miracle. She part-straightened a paperclip and, holding the curly end with a clothes peg, heated it until it was red hot. She then inserted (look away now, I did at the time) the red hot end slowly through the toe-nail. If you’ve ever been with a blacksmith while he was shoeing a horse, you’ll be very familiar with the smell. But oh, the blessed relief when all the blood that had built up underneath was released! Marvellous! It was a shame that the nurse got a bollocking from the doctor when he got back from lunch. Presumably, this was not a recognised clinical procedure in the Manual; what the hell, it worked.

So, the moral of this story is: don’t throw paperclips away, you never know when you’ll drop a patio door on your foot.