Bollocks – very grumpy that I had to miss the once-a-year get together of the Added Value Alumni – aka all the old gits that have left the business over the years but who actually rather like each other and meet up pre-Xmas for a chinwag and catch up.
All was going so well 24 hours beforehand – I was going, ticket bought – until I got summoned to go and have a bloody angiogram at St Anthony's in Sutton. The 5th heart test (one more to go on 7th Dec). Thought I was going in at 11am and would be out by 5pm, and that it wouldn't be too bad as everyone kept telling me it was;t as hideous a procedure as I was imagining (and so party still distinctly possible).
What a crock.
Went in at 12.30 and only got out at 8pm, feeling like I'd been run over – again.
Bloody vile procedure – involving a cut in your femoral artery (right in the groin area, first time anyone else has ever shaved me with a razor down there). Firstly the odd feeling of wetness, which I realised was my blood running down my leg. Then the joyous insertion of a 13cm – yes, cm not mm – sheath into the artery. Yep, howled my way through that one, the local anaesthetic clearly wasn't doing its job. When you are meant to feel 'gentle pushing' I was feeling a bloody great sheath being shoved into my leg.
Got given a second dose of anaesthetic – and continued to bawl right through the insertion of a meter long tube from my groin into my heart. Afterward the surgeon said, hmm, the local anaesthetic didn't seem to work fully – well, NO SHIT SHERLOCK. That'll be why my ears are full of tears which then ran down my neck once I sat up, as I was lying flat on my back and they pooled in there.
And afterwards you are in bed, flat, for 4 hours with a FemStop attached to stop the artery from continuing to bleed. This is a whopping great pump thing that suctions onto the artery and is belted round you with a huge frame and at the side what looks like a rubber ball to increase or decrease the pressure. A bit like being wrapped in an angry python. And as the nurse didn't get off work till 9pm she seemed keen to keep me there until I insisted I was desperate for a pee – which I wasn't, but had worked out this meant removing the FemStop and letting me get up… where I could then leap into my clothes. Heard her say to Hawksey 'your wife is quite strong-minded isn't she?'
Well, sorry petal but after 8 hours of grim hospital shit and it being Friday night, the choice of another hour there or getting home for a spot of sofa time and a sorry-you-missed-the-party pizza, was definitely no contest!
Anyway – very sweet that the gang sent me a 'survivors photo' – the last Alumni standing of the missed party night. Next year guys, hopefully, next year
x