Time for a knees-up
By the time you read this I should be emerging from the Royal United Hospital sporting a brand-new left knee.
After a two-year wait, I suddenly got just five days’ notice, barely time to pack my toothbrush.
I was asleep when they phoned. “Do you want your operation on Monday?” “Er…yes.” “Fantastic!” I don’t know why the guy was so thrilled, he seemed more pleased than I was. Probably got a quota to fill.
I had my other knee replaced seven years ago. You go in at an unearthly hour and about 40 minutes later you hear the surgeon from behind a flimsy paper screen asking the nurse for the biggest saw. Then, despite the somewhat ineffective headphones playing your music of choice (I chose heavy metal thrash as I thought this appropriate) there comes a veritable battery of grinding, sawing and drilling.
Though the beta-blockers put one on a slightly different planet, I will always remember the sound of a cold chisel being lustily applied to my tibia! It was a bit like trying to take forty winks in the Harland and Wolfe shipbuilding yard.
Yes folks, you are awake all the way through, though there are two anaesthetists at your head in case the epidurals wear off down below.
Mine rather alarmingly discussed their visit to an abattoir throughout my operation. I had visions of one of them getting out a stun gun if I expressed any pain.
On that subject, despite experiencing agony in the days leading up to the operation, when I tentatively took myself off the medication a few days afterwards, despite all the carpentry I felt no discomfort whatsoever.
In fact, the most disagreeable post-op feature was having to wrap one’s knee in cling film when taking a shower.
Apparently, being pain free is highly unusual, so I hope my left knee follows suit.
Last time I recuperated in a chalet at Blue Anchor. It was right on the shingle beach, which proved to be a nightmare on crutches.
And the gales blowing along the concrete promenade made it very difficult to reach the fish and chip café, though coming back was a breeze.
I think I almost broke the world on-crutches speed record, though my jumbo cod and chips lunch slowed me down a little.
As well as being situated on the beach, my little 1950s chalet was built as close as legally allowed to the steam railway.
Every morning as I lay dozing, I remembered I had forgotten to close the curtains as eight carriages full of gawping holidaymakers slowly clanked by my bedroom window in the first train of the day.
Sometimes the hissing, steaming locomotive came to a complete halt. Waving from my bed garnered no reaction, so we just stared at each other until the train moved on.
No doubt my prostrate form and crumpled sheets was the topic of the day over ice cream cornets in Minehead, the train’s final destination.
Anyway, nurse, bring on the biggest saw, here we go again!