Friday 27 June 2008

New hospital policy

So as I mentioned in the previous post, my consultant decided I needed surgery on my knee. The procedure is called arthroscopy.

So I got the bus down to the hospital for the surgery. It is minor day surgery, albeit with a general anaesthetic.

I had a private room, and was just relaxing waiting for the nurses to prep me. The nurse came in and gave me the surgical gown and a few other bits and bobs, then left to let me get ready. I put on my surgical gown fine (no - I didn't put it on back to front!) and put on a hairnet and a single TED stocking.

I then lay there watching TV for a while, waiting for the consultant. While I was waiting, the nurse popped in once or twice to see I was ok.

After a short while, my consultant came in with the senior physiotherapist. The consultant kind of gave me an odd look when he came in and said something about "new hospital policy". I wasn't sure what he meant, but then lay there listening as he and the physio described some of the aspects of the surgery and recovery.

Towards the end I asked him if I really needed to wear the hairnet for the operation.

"That's not a hairnet," he replied, "that's your pants!"

OH SH*T!

Yes - I was sitting there in front of my consultant and the senior physiotherapist... with my surgery pants on my head!

So I then burst out laughing, as did the consultant and physio. I was laughing so hard that I strained a muscle in my neck. They had quite impressively managed to be completely serious with me till that point. The consultant had thought someone was playing a joke on him ("new policy"), then when I didn't take them off, figured he would let the physio explain to me once he had left.

As I said to them - I had wondered why it had a hole in the top, but thought it maybe doubled as a beard net too. I didn't notice that it had two holes (for me legs!).

To say I was embarrassed would be a slight understatement.

Even once they left I kept bursting into spontaneous laughter every time I thought of it.

I have since told this story to anyone who will listen, and pretty much everyone is reduced near to tears!

So anyway, I've now had the surgery. The consultant thinks he found the problem and has sorted it. I am now off my feet for a couple of days, and hopefully in a few weeks my knee will be back to 100% normality!

Sailing and surgery

Ok, It's been a while since my last post.

To summarise the more significant events of the past few weeks:

1) I went to Chicago for a conference and visited Kev. Greg and Cara came down from Toronto and we had a very good time. Conference was pretty good too. I had a speaking slot which went quite well.

2) My consultant decided that I needed surgery on my knee for the problem I've been having.

3) I went to another conference in San Diego last week. That was a very cool conference with around 30,000 people there are around 6,000 exhibitors. What was even cooler was that my company chartered a yacht, which I got to go out sailing on a couple of times.

So that's the last couple of months summarised. See next post for something more... amusing!