There was I – happy as Larry on the farm. I got up Sunday morning raring to get on with the airconditioning on ROJ – I’m still rebuilding the condensor box with bits of old Walls icecream cartons, and trying to work out how the network of tiny airtubes go that control the air-flaps in the system.
An hour or so into the day I was not feeling well, stomach cramps and giddiness, by lunchtime I felt like death, so decided to come back to London.
On the train I thought I would pass out with the pain in my side, so once at St Pancras I headed straight to A&E at UCH. There they gave me something that looked like a thunderbird rocket and was told to shove it where the sun don’t shine…. The most effective pain killer I’ve had for years. I was floating above the consultant’s couch.
Railway stations, cross country buses, and hospital A&E departments. If you’re writing a book about weird and wonderful people – those are the places to frequent – and there is nothing private or discreet about a big city hospital A&E late on a weekend evening – especially one near Kings Cross!
I sat for three drug hazed hours watching an entire cross section of society go past, until the results of my tests came back. Kindney stones – not just one, but a whole gravel pit full.
They took me for a scan – one of those big doughnut shaped machines, which rather absurdly had a brand name – it was grandly called a ‘Monatom Sensation 64′. What overpaid marketing dick-head came up with that…?
Anyway, upshot is, I’ve got a stone the size of Mars blocking off the right kidney and two smaller ones inside each. They can zap the smaller ones with ultrasound but the Big One….
Now chaps, be brave. Reading this is not going to be comfotable – and when my chum Andrew breezily suggested I kept my pecker up… well, he’d got it almost in one.
The trusty surgeon will be taking an endoscopic laser and -
Let me just assure you, I WILL be unconcious at this stage, if not from the anaesthetic then from the mere sight of a fully grown man in a gown advancing on my nether regions with a long bendy ray gun…
They will then blast Mars to incy-wincy pieces with the laser and scrape out the debris.
This is all very jolly. In the space of a month I will have had both top and bottom end blasted by lasers – isn’t modern technology wonderful.
I think skiing next week will be a very gentle affair – no black runs for me.
