Notes from...Vegas (and the operating table)
When your stag weekend gets the better of you
It was a weekend of non-stop grinning, laughter, and silliness with a very special bunch of boys.
Penk, Bucky, Stu, Frase, Jim, Pete, Ry and Uncle Vlad (not pictured here because he was too busy still enjoying the Bellagio buffet)….thank you for being there, in all senses of the expression, chaps.
Vegas got me bad.
And we made memories that will hold forever.
Now, sleep. And lots of it.
Awake. The calm is deafening.
My hernia is fixed. And I’m lying here, my head and heart full of thoughts and love.
My Em was pretty extraordinary these past 48 hours. She’s got me. I’ve got her, of course. But she’s really got me. How great is that.
This morphine is bloody good.
The NHS is creaking. I saw that first hand yesterday.
Em and I spent 40 sleepless hours ricocheting through the system, tired nurses, helpers, cleaners, young doctors doing their best to give us answers, and to comfort, steer, reassure, pacify the far too many agitators around us.
There’s no easy answers to solving our health system. It’s just a giant jumble of beautiful humans doing what humans do: Loving, sharing, caring, giving a shit.
It’s pretty beautiful to watch it all unfold. Of course, when you’re stuck inside this system for so many hours, anxious for your own health and navigation, you have no choice but to watch and listen, learn and understand. Our health and well-being, or lack of, is the ultimate leveller. Race, gender, political persuasion, red, blue, thick, thin, stupid, smart - none of that comes into it. We are all just the same.
On the operating table last night, being cut open to have my stomach shoved into a better shape and stitched up, I too was simply a slab of meat, to be worked on, fixed, loved.
Just like the two emergency cases my surgeon knew he must tackle before me. Road traffic victims, perhaps. Somebody left for dead by a knife-wielding gang member, brimmed with anxiety, fuelled by anger. A nail-gun novice, up against it on a building site. Who knows? We are all just the same, skin and bones, blood and cells, heart and soul. Some of us better, kinder than others. Some simply luckier, and more loved.
It’s just turned six and I’m wide awake, feeling blessed.
Jeez, this morphine is good.
