You can’t knock the NHS... and it seems they don’t knock themselves
DOUBLE TROUBLE FOR A FIRST-TIME DAD OF TWINS
THE mysterious case of the missing testicle was nearing a conclusion.
Little Thomas was booked in for an operation to fix his hernia. It was a double inguinal hernia, which affects 30% of premature babies, and of those cases roughly 15% are a double hernia.
There’s always something comforting about a common condition. Give me an illness half of the population has any day, rather than a doctor scratching their head, and saying ‘this is the first time I’ve ever seen this, I’ll get the professor’.
Technically, it’s hard to describe an inguinal hernia but imagine the testicle as a plum on a tree branch, which is actually a blood vessel, and the intestine as a large snake. The snake (intestine) will weigh the branch (blood vessel) down moving the plum (testicle).
The consultant said there was more to it than that and he wasn’t sure they even have snakes in countries with plum trees. However, he was very confident the operation would be a success, although decided to outline some terrifying things, which can go wrong, in a miniscule minority of cases.
He also explained Thomas would spend the night in hospital and asked which one of us would be staying with him.
We knew he’d be staying but assumed we’d leave hospital late at night and come back the next morning. And this might make me a bad person but I was quite looking forward to a night’s sleep with just one baby crying.
After a brief discussion in which Victoria decided I’d be the one sleeping on a sofa in a hospital room full of bleeping machines, it was time.
Strangely, I wasn’t anxious, concerned maybe but the
professionalism, level of care and reassurances from the hospital had cancelled out any worries. We put him in his little hospital gown and I pondered what level of skill and confidence it takes to operate on a tiny 7lb baby. Two hours later and he was fine, everything had gone to plan, the hernia was fixed and the doctors were very happy.
One night in our little room complete with TV and sofa bed then home. Obviously, given the fact my son had just had a serious operation, it’d be churlish to complain about the sofa bed being too short, the room too warm and the TV signal on ITV being intermittent, so I’ll just mention them.
I was rudely awoken after Thomas knocked his heart monitor cable off his foot, triggering the baby danger alarm.
Unfortunately, the nurse rushed straight in without knocking, glimpsing me clad only in briefs, hurriedly trying to reattach the cable.
Luckily, I was able to preserve my dignity with a sheet, but even in an emergency situation, it’s always safer to knock... for everybody.