11. I'll Need the Small Forceps
I was somewhat upset at having two perfectly serviceable teeth removed. I didn't have an over abundance in the first place and now they had removed 4 of the buggers. It was quite remarkably painful into the bargain.
The first few evenings I had constant blood leaking slowly into my mouth, coupled with the stitches in the lower socket that felt like something stuck in my teeth I was not a happy bunny. I was existing on a diet of paracetamol and ibuprofen.
Interestingly there was no more deafening silence from the NHS, every day bought a new letter advising me of yet another appointment for more strange medical obscurities.
In fact they didn't confine themselves to letters, every five minutes or so I'd get a phone call with the number withheld, this would either be the NHS, my daughter or someone trying to separate me from the contents of my bank account. This was slightly disturbing as now I couldn't ignore number withheld and spent some entertaining minutes talking to people from a panoply of different nations trying to get me to divulge the details of my bank accounts and the name of my favourite pet. One of the more interesting phone calls occurred a couple of days later.
Due to being a man of a particular age and background one of my favourite occupations is to take a bath. This involves a certain amount of ceremony, I like to make sure that I have a book to read, maybe my iPad to look at and possibly a cup of tea. I run the water into the sink to get the hot water coming through before I turn on the bath taps, this is a very precise operation. We have an oil fired combi boiler and it is very good but, and this is pertinent, so keep up, it needs to have exactly the right flow of water in order to maintain the correct temperature for a decent bath. If you cavalierly turn the taps full on and leave them then it will stop producing hot water and turn your previously hot bath into something that Wim Hof would be happy with and the bathroom will be invaded by hordes of penguins that have mistaken your bath for their birthing ground.
Therefore I am meticulous in my adjustment of the taps to exactly the right flow rate to keep producing the maximum heat water. Then bath salts need to be added and a modicum of essential oil. Once the bath is filling to my satisfaction then I can turn my attention to the hair both head and facial. Whilst waiting for the bath I shave my head using an electric shaver and trim the old eyebrows, beard and moustache.
So all I am saying is, having a bath is a well ordered routine that should not be interfered with. On this particular occasion the bath had been filled to my satisfaction, the hair trimmed within an inch of it's life and I had divested myself of all my clothes and removed the watch and glasses. I had only just lowered my testicles gingerly into the steaming hot water when my phone rang. I grabbed it and saw the number withheld, arse biscuits. I desperately turned the taps off and then tried the answer the phone which refused to cooperate due to the wetness of the fingers. I grabbed the nearest towel and dried a hand and managed to answer before they rang off.
Bloody hell, it's a very nice sounding nurse from the oncology centre, I now can't move as any movement will betray the fact that I am talking to her whilst stark bollock naked and in the bath.
"Hi, I'm one of the nurses from the oncology centre, are you free to talk?"
"Yes, of course, no problem"
"There are some appointments that I need to ask you about"
"OK go ahead", all the while I was maintaining as little movement as possible in order to keep splashing to a minimum
"Would you be free for a phone call on the 27th at 11am"
"Yes that will be fine"
"The next appointment will be on the 21st, this will be for your mask fitting, a planning CT scan and a blood test"
Oh fuck, I don't like the sound of that at all, all the last CT scans have involved cannulas and I'm not exactly a fan of blood tests, and the mask fitting sounds positively medieval.
With this the lovely nurse said goodbye and I was left to play with my rubber duck and drink my cup of tea while contemplating the next stage in this, frankly, mental merry go round.
Unfortunately for me the next stage in this carousel of shit was likely to be another visit to the bloody dentist. It had been made clear to me in no uncertain terms that I couldn't have the radiotherapy until the extractions had healed. The extractions had not healed, therefore no radiotherapy, therefore death misery and destruction would be rained down upon my not so innocent head, therefore another visit to the fucking dentist. Bloody hell fire, I am going to have to ring up and tell them everything is not going to plan, no doubt they will want to remove the rest of my teeth or something just as unpleasant.
I rang the dental hospital and explained the situation.
"How long ago were the extractions?"
"About a week ago, but the pain seems to be getting worse, not better"
"Right, you'll have to come in, will Friday at 2 o'clock be OK"
No it won't be OK, why would it be OK, every time I see one of you fuckers you remove yet another of my rapidly diminishing number of teeth.
"Yes of course", was my actual very British, though slightly resigned, response.
The next horror show however was going to be mask fitting, CT scans and blood tests, the day arrived all too quickly. My family's need to accompany me to every cancer appointment is wearing off slightly and since this was only to do some preliminaries I was allowed to go to the hospital on my motorcycle.
There was something of an issue, the last time I had gone to the hospital by bike the motorcycle parking was full and I had to pay for parking out on the road as I hadn't had time to search around for free parking, so before the trip I utilised Google maps and searched the roads around the oncology centre for motorcycle parking.
I found one motorcycle parking bay by the University which was 8 minutes walk from Oncology, I then found another on St Michael's Hill opposite the The Robin Hood pub, moreover there is a convenient alley by the pub that leads straight to the hospital, only three minutes walk. Perfectly doable, even for a duff like me.
On the appointed day I mounted my, frankly, unreasonably large motorcycle and set off for town. Unbeknownst to Helen, that weekend I had visited Fowlers the local motorcycle emporium and bought a new winter jacket.
"Didn't you have a winter jacket already?", I hear you ask.
The ride to town was therefore warm and cosy and apart from some slight frostbite in my fingertips all was good in the world. I checked the bike parking at Oncology which was full and congratulating myself on my foresight made my way to the bike parking on St Michaels Hill. It had one other bike and looked like it was fairly level. The bike next to me was parked with the side stand on the higher side and it looked fine so I parked my bike in the same position, but it was too upright and much too likely to fall over if it got very windy or if one of the ungodly messed about with it. Bum, I then, stupidly, tried putting it on the centre stand. This was, frankly, an idiots move, now the bike was trying to stay upright on two little legs and was catastrophically unstable, moreover it was now very high and I had quite a few anxious moments trying to get it back off the centre stand while also stopping it falling over.
In the end I resorted to the complex quadratic equations that I have mentioned previously to find a spot where the fucking thing was happy to be left. It's definitely too big, but I did enjoy the ride in, so the jury is out at the moment on whether it should go.
I strolled through the alley by The Robin Hood and into the Oncology centre. A very knowledgeable receptionist efficiently directed me to the correct floor and off I went on my latest adventure in cancer treatment.
The radiotherapy waiting room was packed with people, a few of whom looked very unwell but most of us looked pretty healthy. I was indulging in my favourite pastime of people watching when the receptionist leaned round the corner of her desk and yelled,
"15 minute delay on the H"
What the actual fuck, what is the H and why, pray, is it delayed. I have no clue and currently have no context by which to work out what is going on.
Some minutes later she yelled, "No longer a delay on the H"
This caused a ripple of reaction amongst my fellow detainees, still no idea why, but they all seemed pleased about it so I decided that I would be pleased for them.
I wasn't waiting for long when a young nurse called my name and I followed her to the unfortunately named 'Mould Room'. We entered and personally I would say that it looked perfectly clean but you never know.
I was introduced to an older nurse and in short order was asked to take off all my top clothes and lie on the table. I wasn't looking forward to this, I'd Googled the procedure and it looked pretty claustrophobic.
Behind the nurses was a large glass fronted oven and the older nurse explained that the mask would be taken out of there and applied to my head and chest. Apparently it would be hot but it wouldn't burn and would cool down quickly.
There was a ding, like a microwave and the nurses sprang into action. They minutely adjusted my position on the table and moved the neck support and then asked my to relax my shoulders.
"Close your eyes, we are going to put the mask on now, you will feel us moulding it to your face so don't move"
"You need to go in for a planning CT scan now, it will be a few minutes as we need the mask to set some more, do we have any recent bloods?"
"Er,", shit, shit they want to take yet more blood. "I'm not sure"
For the life of me I couldn't remember the last time they had taken blood. As far as I could tell they wanted more of the stuff every time they looked at me.
"Oh, here it is, not to worry all your blood work looks good"
Yippee, no need for blood to be taken.
"So you are OK for them to use contrast in the CT scan"
Fuck, that means a cannula, somewhat worse than a blood test. I was escorted out of the mould room by the younger nurse who asked me what I did for a job.
"I'm a software developer"
She asked me whether I liked my job and |I assented that,yes I enjoyed it.
"What will you be doing for the rest of the day"
"Working I expect", I smiled
"Is your work OK with you taking the time off"
"Oh yes" I said "I've got a very good boss, I work for myself"
The nurse left me in the waiting room and returned to the mould room to await another victim. I'd barely sat down again when my name was called by another nurse and I was off again to the CT scan.
Outside the CT room was a weighing scale and asked me to step on. I did so and the weight came back as around 77kg.
"That's a little bit high", I said with a certain amount of asperity, "It'll be the jeans and boots"
"What weight are you normally"
"I'm a bit lower than normal after the surgery, last time I weighed without clothes I was 73kg"
"How long ago was that?"
"Yesterday, after my bath", I smiled.
"OK we'll go with 73"
With this we entered the CT room and said hi to the resident radiographer. Rather ominously my mask was sitting on the CT table, bugger, looks like it hasn't finished with me. The radiographer asked all the usual questions including whether I had any problems with the contrast. I agreed that, no, I had no problems with the contrast but I had been known to faint when the cannula was inserted.
The clothes had to come off again which was confirmation that I would be pinned to the table by the mask once again. I lay down and firmly avoided looking at the cannula being inserted. Luckily this was definitely not the work experience radiographer as she slipped the needle in with barely a pause and I barely felt a thing. Things are looking up, slightly. However then came the mask, it had dried and set considerably and felt like it was compressing my nose and my chest which was...uncomfortable, to say the least.
"How is that?", asked the radiographer, "Can you put up with it for 10 minutes or so"
Now the normal reply to this from any normal person would be to tell them in no uncertain terms to take the fucking thing off and consign it to the bin.
"It's a bit tight", was my very muffled reply as it was stopping me from opening my mouth. The claustrophobia was ramping up like a bastard.
"We can loosen it slightly, however they can do much more when you come in for treatment"
They fiddled around and the mask loosened by about a micrometer.
"How's that?"
"It'll have to do I guess", I replied and tried to compose myself and make sure I didn't start screaming for them to remove it.
It was an incredibly long 10 minutes while they adjusted the machine and then flushed the contrast into my system. The entire time I was just, barely just, keeping a lid on the panic, the admittedly, entirely irrational panic. However I managed and eventually after what seemed like about an hour or so the machine cycled down and footsteps approached the table.
“All done, and as a bonus, when I did the cannula I took the liberty of taking some blood so you are good to go, no need to wait for the blood test”
Result, no more needles for me for a couple of weeks unless the evil dentist wants to take out even more teeth.
I jauntily strode into the hospital half an hour before my appointment, congratulating myself on being early and probably getting seen before my appointment time. However, the waiting room was completely empty, no receptionist and the shutter was down on the x-ray reception.
"Oh you absolute fucking idiot", I muttered to myself. The appointment was at 2pm and I had yet again arrived half an hour early in the middle of lunch. I blame it all on encroaching old age.
Sure enough, half an hour later the receptionist arrived and people began filling up the seats. I checked in and 5 minutes later I was called in.
Yet another dentist greeted me in the little cubicle and asked all the normal questions and then tipped me onto my back and stuck a mirror in my mouth.
"Hmm, I can see some bone in the upper socket"
Fuck me gently, that doesn't sound very good.
"Would you mind if I removed the stitches on the bottom socket, I think you might have a bit of an infection"
I agreed to this, if somewhat reluctantly.
"Can you pass me the scissors?", the dentist asked, not me you understand, the nurse who was standing by looking efficient.
I can't say I'm terribly happy about someone wielding sharp implements in my mouth while I'm fully conscious but there's not much I can do about it now.
"Ouch"
"Sorry, this one doesn't want to come out. I'll need the small forceps"
Yet another 'Ouch' and she was all done.
"I need to wash this out now, there is a bit of pus in this bottom socket"
She proceeded to wash the socket out with a curved syringe, a curved syringe filled with cold fucking water.
"Ow, fuck"
"Did I touch something?"
"No, it's the cold water, hurts like buggery"
"Oh dear, have I not put warm water in?", was her somewhat unfeeling reply and instead of filling the syringe with warm water she proceeded to swill out both sockets with ice water while I squeaked and writhed slightly.
"Right all done, I'm doing you a prescription for antibiotics and this should clear up within a week, you need to come back in a weeks time before you start your radiotherapy"
With this I was summarily ejected from the hospital and wandered up to the BRI to pick up my antibiotics.
The pain in my mouth started to recede as soon as I started the antibiotics, so that was good, I guess.
The only appointment in the intervening week was a video call with the speech and swallowing therapist. This was sort of interesting and confirmed the fact that once the treatment started it wouldn’t be long before I had mouth and throat issues. The therapist was very good and gave me a whole bunch of exercises that I would need to do once the radiotherapy began, the flip side was that if I didn’t do them then I was likely to stop being able to swallow. The only advantage to this would be the loss of a certain amount of weight, who am I kidding, a shed load of weight I suspect.
The very next day was the last appointment, with any luck, that I would need with the dentist. I rode in on the bike again and went in almost straight away. Awaiting me in the cubicle was yet another dentist.
“Hi, Mr Acheson-Crow isn’t it?”
I cautiously agreed that, yes I was Mr Acheson-Crow.
“You’ve had a lot going on in the last few weeks, haven’t you?”
Again I cautiously agreed that I had indeed had a lot going on, I’m a bit worried about where this is going.
“You’ve had a panendoscopy and two wisdom teeth removed, but then you had two more teeth removed under sedation”
I agreed that this was correct.
“Why didn’t they remove them while you were under the general anaesthetic for the panendoscopy?”
Now the correct reply to this would have been, “I haven’t a fucking clue, have you”
However what I actually said was, “I’m guessing that they needed to know about whether I would be having radiotherapy
“That’s what I thought as well."
Oh good we are all on the same page then, however I didn’t really think this, they knew I was having radiotherapy at the beginning that’s why they removed the wisdom teeth. I am presuming that they just decided to do the second extractions later for the hell of it or because they found it amusing.
Once more I’m tipped onto my back and a mirror is peremptorily stuck in my mouth.
He was in there for a maximum of thirty seconds and then he said something totally unexpected.
“Everything looks exactly as I would expect two weeks post extraction, you are good to go”
With that they kicked me out of the hospital to go and wait for the axe to fall in two days time, well more like for the cannula to be inserted but we won’t split hairs.
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