Yesterday was the day where they removed three moles from different places of my body. I am not a big fan of hospitals (who is – but I have a neurotic fear for them) and did my very best not to have a nervous breakdown about it.
With a tube strike threatening on the horizon I left in good time just to not be late. I was there about an hour too early and decided that in stead of waiting in the hospital itself, it would probably be better to have a tea the milky way in the Starbucks next door. So I sat there and tried to concentrate on reading The Times for a while.
I entered 15 minutes before scheduled time, and of course, as dire chance and fateful cockup would have it, I had too wait there for over an hour because everything was delayed. In that hour my stomach had turned into some strange chemical factory.
When it was finally my turn I had to wear a silly hospital coat and lay down on the table. I find operations where you are still conscious scary. I don’t want to see what they are doing, because even if you won’t feel anything (due to anesthetic) I have a lively imagination. Add to that the overdose of CSI drama I have seen on the telly, and you get an idea of what it looks like in my head.
So when I lay there staring at the lights, trying hard not to look at what they were doing, I got an idea.
“Would it be OK if I listened to my iPod while you are working on me?” I asked “It might calm me down and will give me something to concentrate on”.
They thought it was a great idea.
The nurse gave me my iPod.
There was only one thing I wanted to listen to – the voicilicious man.
I picked one of my favourite radioplays with him. It’s a one hour long one (called: All Fingers And Thumbs), it always makes me laugh and I knew that I would be off the table around the end of it.
It worked perfectly. And they were faster: 45 minutes to remove 3 bits of suspicious ehrm bits. There are stitches, and it’s hard to sit, because one of the spots was right on the sitting area – but that will heal. Now there is the one month waiting time to get the hopefully “all clear”. I think I need to listen to a lot of radio plays with Bill the coming period, as the waiting drives me nuts.
So you feel absolutely knackered with a headache and a soar throat but you don’t want to call in sick in your last week at your current job. You drag yourself to work, and after an hour the fire alarm goes. While enjoying the view from the 18th is great, walking down the stairs from the 18th with jelly legs really is not.