Post 423. SOUTHAMPTON GENERAL HOSPITAL.

 PART OF A HUGE, FRIENDLY, MAZE.

.WHERE, REASSURINGLY ACCOMPANIED BY OUR SON, NEIL, I arrived last Wednesday to face my second CT scan since the discovery that I have a malignant growth on the bowel; this scan to pinpoint exactly where forthcoming radio therapy treatment should be directed.

So this is unapologetically personal, but may help the reader as yet unbothered by a serious health problem face what I am told could eventually beset every other one of us.
The first thing you have to come to terms with is that, friendly and Christian namey though it now is, your modern hospital is still the most invasive institution outside of suspicious Customs and Excise that you will ever encounter in your sheltered little life.

That thoroughgoing medico's maxim: "You've gotta strip 'em to see 'em" still pertains.
Clothed patients are partially disguised patients.
Which means you must be prepared to stand before young hospital professionals (and when you are my age all of them are young) in a state of undress that would get you arrested if you were to stand in front of them, similarly undressed, in the street.
Next you will have to deposit yourself, or be assisted, onto a paper covered couch for examination and/or treatment. If it is a CT scan you will be required to undertake this manoeuvre with your bladder filled to a required level - NB It does not help if you have to relieve yourself during the possibly lengthy wait before you meet your CT team.
But to start from the beginning:

Neil and I caught the 1030am Red Funnel ferry from the IoW.
Neil drove Pauline's new state-of-the-art Citroën C3 and, despite the 'help' of satnav, we arrived at Southampton General in good time for my 1230 initial appointment.

I was sensibly armed with a bottle of alleged Highland Spring water which I senselessly left in the car throughout an entire day in which every sensible voice advised me I should be quaffing copious amounts of water. Yeah, I know..
In the hospital we were issued with medically approved masks and directed from one reception desk to another until, many corridors. stairs, and a lift later, we arrived at our destination. 

The staff member who invited Neil to come in with me for my first appointment had a confident, humorous and painstaking approach: he clearly explained what was what and what was to come before asking whether we had any questions. At no stage was I made to feel rushed. It was a master class in the art of new patient reassurance. 
We were then passed on to the Channel Islands Liaison Team representative, a cheerful and charming lady who, quickly and without fuss, booked accommodation for my brief stay in Southampton when the radiotherapy treatment I shall undergo begins on the 6th of next month.
There was then only the CT scan left on my appointment list. Ah...yes...the CT scan...
After a further wait in reception  that would, I'm afraid. have tested my elderly bladder beyond breaking point had it been even partially full, I was handed a cup of liquid by a member of the CT team, asked to down it in no more than ten minutes, and told that a short while afterwards I would be called in for the scan.
Initially all went as planned: two young ladies of the team finally got me the right way round on the examination couch and the gentleman with the instruments, who had tried without success to elicit from my befuddled brain whether I did or did not have a full bladder, then checked for himself: I did not have a full enough bladder. It would have to be another drink and another wait.
Another drink and another full bladder question later I was back on the examination couch and, irksome though it obviously was, still not blessed with a full enough bladder.
The team debated and decided to adopt an alternative procedure.

For me the moment of acute embarrassment was nigh.

Anyone who may have seen the President of America's meeting with the Duchess of Cornwall recently, will have been made startlingly aware of an elderly man's propensity for flatulence.
I started out that day with a biscuit and a glass of water and the hope that I would get through it without discomforting myself. my companion, or anyone I met.

On a 'needs to know' (and if you don't need to know don't read this bit), a particularly unpleasant effect of bowel cancer can also be the tendency to break wind indiscriminately and wetly.
Well, I held out as long as I could on that examination couch: but I had been there a long time.
It made no pretence at subterfuge. It was a loud fart.
I remained supine, still, and silent.
And then, bless her, one of the team's young ladies said: "At least it was a dry one"

I have no idea whether I apologised or what I babbled when I was assisted down from that couch.
Neil had made a quick tour of the hospital and was back in the waiting room when I returned. I think I simply said; "All done."
With luck and a following breeze we just caught the 4.30pm ferry home.
I did not talk about the scan.

But I like to think that, as she was eyeing the rear of a departing President Joe Biden, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall may have murmured the words; "Well at least they were dry ones."
Oh, just in case you are facing a first time hospital experience, a final word of advice.
Forget your dignity, my friend, forget your dignity.

Final final word. I am twelve years older than Joe Biden, which could explain why, in the first published draft of this post, I somehow transformed the Duchess of Cornwall into H.M. Queen Elizabeth 2 (an elderly lady who has done me no harm).
I will apologise at the next garden party to which I am invited. 

      

Post 422. THERE Y'GO, RUSSIAN LEADERS

IT'S ALL UKRAINE NOW..

EVEN IF MILLIONS HAVE FLED.
It looks as though those who remain will resist you until the last man, woman and child has been butchered, the entire country flattened, and Russia has emerged as the same paranoid pariah it was in Stalin's day. I guess, as in Stalin's day, nobody dares question orders given by the top dog, but it beggar's belief that none of you are privately disquieted at his seeming determination to promote World War 3.
Think on: eventually many of you could join him in facing trial for war crimes.

In the meantime, most of the world is viewing the wiping out of Ukraine by its next door neighbour as a horrific, unjustified, act of war. Oh, the Chinese are sitting it out (there's a surprise) and the barbarism of the Russian army has been nullified in Russia by State propaganda (there's a surprise) so most Russians are without a clue where their leaders are leading them: welcome to the twenty first century.
The rest I leave to writers with a bigger, but never better, audience than mine.
TELEVISION.

Currently my box watching is taken up with BBC news (mercifully free of political propaganda) and reruns of old cop shows such as Wycliffe starring Jack Shepherd, and Rizzoli and Isles starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander. Blissful departures from real life. Have also been looking in at the latest series of Killing Eve and Grantchester and, in both cases, have found myself wondering why. Good acting, but they are not wearing well. So, to my last moan:
THIS IS NOT A HAITCH.

IT IS AN AITCH!
So headquarters isn't haitch queue, it's aitch queue. For chrissake get your pronunciation right.

I only mention it because we have just seen Trigger Point, an ITV series in which key members of the cast dismantle terrorist bombs along with their personal relationships and, irritatingly, this letter in their own language.
Incidentally, I am now avoiding any TV series featuring bomb makers. The nerves won't stand it. I even eye Amazon boxes with suspicion, and gawd alone knows how many of them arrive here every month.
Go carefully.
Beware of unattended parcels and unusual smears on door handles. 

Post 421. OUR ROZ WOULD HAVE BEEN 52

LAST SATURDAY

AND THE ENTIRE FAMILY CAME HERE.
First on board were Jac and Mike.

Mike immediately went to work with vengeance and a strimmer on Roz's overgrown wild flower plot and in a couple of hard working hours had the plot cut, raked, tidied of fallen tree, and ready for reseeeding. Our thanks again to him: he really is a good 'un.
The rest of the family then arrived and wildflower seed was liberally scattered.

Now the sun shines with cold determination and it looks as if even a rain dance will not bring the downpour needed to soak that seed in.
Ne'er mind. It was a grand day
Roz would have so enjoyed it.
Like the rest of us, she would have been horrified at developments elsewhere, too, and I believe would be in agreement with me when I conjecture:

SO YOU DEMOLISH AN ENTIRE COUNTRY.

WHAT THEN, MR. PUTIN?
Day trips for those of your brave, unquestioning, supporters prepared to risk nerve gas residue and the wrath of Ukrainian guerrillas?
Look what you are doing to the world, you silly born bastard!

 

Post 420. MY FATHER'S PREDICTION

AT NEWS OF THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB.

THAT WILL BE THE END OF THE WORLD.
He suffered neither fools nor pessimists gladly, my father, but his prediction when we heard the news that scientists had split the atom to make a bomb was stark:
"Now they'll try to outdo each other until they produce something that wipes out entire countries. That will be the end of the world."
He died in the late nineteen fifties before quite so many mad bastards in power had joined the nuclear rat race. I so hoped at the time he would be wrong, but am too often reminded how seldom he was. Now the maddest mad bastard in power, Putin, is at it again.
The destruction of Ukraine is his doing. The buck stops at the top. перестань ты маньяк!
Or in plain English, if the translation is right: Stop it, you maniac!
Enough said. I may be more flippant next time. But not about this war.