Escape from John Hunter

I do hate to lower the tone of this blog, but that was the most horrific fucking shit-sucking eight days of my life.

It didn't start well. My first post-surgery memory was hearing the night nurse whinging about having to perform the night shift at all. Not surprisingly, she proceeded to treat me as if I were there purely to ruin her evening.

It was hard to disabuse her of this notion while I was trying not to choke to death on the vomit clogging my tracheostomy. The fact I couldn't speak a word and was refused a pen for the first 24 hours also complicated matters somewhat.

At staff changeover time I overheard this dead-eyed hag tell her morning replacement that I was "trouble" who'd kept her up all night and made her miss her regular nap (bastard!!), which was dutifully passed on to the next nurse. It took two days for me to shake the reputation of arsehole-who-got-cancer-to-spite-the-nursing-staff.

I should say at this point that, once moved to a regular ward, I was treated by genuinely lovely professionals.
Thank you Leah, Candice, Olivia et al. You made it bearable. Greatly appreciated.

Of course, a hospital stay isn't all about patient/staff relations. Here are few mental notes I made during my stay.

VISITATION

So, you and your friends have decided to visit someone in hospital. Good for you!
Just try to keep your numbers to a few at most. A room full of people attempting to fill in the silence of the bedridden tends to get on other patients' nerves, especially when you're all clearly a bunch of fucking idiots.
Remember, seersucker curtains are not soundproof.

Below is some sample dialogue I transcribed on the weekend. Mind you, these are not random snippets but a fairly accurate verbatim slice of the most brain-meltingly dumb blather I've ever been forced to sit through – a good four hours of it (click to enlarge):

FOOD

If a patient has been restricted to soft food, take a moment to ponder the meaning of "soft" when preparing a menu.
When what is supposed to be lamb casserole resembles beef jerky in texture, cutting it into little squares doesn't really fool anyone or help in any way.
Seriously, I could have individually lettered my dinner and played Scrabble.

To Birch & Waite Creations, purveyors of the most repugnant, chemical-infused orange-impostor jelly dessert I've ever encountered, you might want to reconsider new business avenues for your product.
Veterinary lubricant, perhaps.

ENTERTAINMENT

Sure, hospital isn't meant to be fun, but if you have the gall to charge patients $7 a day to view a tiny television with lousy reception, perhaps lash out and offer them something beyond basic network crap, Fox Sports, two how-to-breastfeed-your-baby channels, and two stations showing a still shot of the hospital chapel where nothing happens apart from the periodic appearance of someone whose loved one has just passed away. Oh, and static.
Just a thought. It might avert accusations of extortion.

I could go on (I still think my surgeon's a pompous prick), but I'm just thrilled to be home with Mick.

As for my appearance, you ask? It's not good.
Really not good.
From most angles I bring to mind an evil, deformed ventriloquist's dummy. In daylight, however, because my bulbous new "chin" is a different colour to the rest of my face, the overall effect is more akin to the handiwork of Ed Gein, the psycho who inspired Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.
I look like one of his early test-runs.
It will take months to improve, and even then it'll never look remotely normal.

If there is any upside at all to this nightmare, the swelling around the cut they made from ear to ear means I have a thick neck for the first time in my life.
Hopefully, with a wardrobe tweak and change of gait, I can parlay this into a menacing ugly-thug effect.

You can only work with what you've got.

PS - thanks for the flowers and messages I received. To be honest I was in too foul a mood to really appreciate them, but it was very sweet nonetheless.

PPS - I forgot to add that the doctors said they removed all the cancer. Then again, they said that the last two times...