Why I have a soft spot for nurses.
I made an admission in recent comments (Post date: 17 August 2010) to Carole and Alli, the reason for which I will now explain. As a ten year old I had an operation to correct the squint in my left eye and along with two other lads of a similar age I was recouperating in a Nurses' Home in Lincoln. Don't ask me why; but I do mean the nurses' accomodation attached to the hospital. Naturally we were all blindfolded by post operative bandaging and very soon adapted to moving around our dormitory surroundings with great alacrity. Crucial to the point of this story is the fact that the only toilet was in the nurses' bathroom and furthermore on occasion, when caught short, it happened we needed to pee when the bath was occupied. Being the scallywag I was I soon discovered by lifting one edge of the bandage slightly it was possible to kop an eyeful of a naked nurse without being detected.......or so I thought!
Ironically the first 'love' of my life, a tall blonde Julie Christie look-a-like, went on, after leaving school, to train at St Mary's Hospital, Roehampton.
What a lot of crap!
A recent visit to my GP, the first since being diagnosed with cancer, to get something to help me sleep gave me the opportunity to thank him for his prompt action in referring me when I initially saw him about the difficulty I was experiencing when swallowing. I jested that having thought it was merely a hiatus hernia resulting from straining during a bout of chronic constipation, little did I realise just exactly how much s**t I was in. His response to learning that I was still having problems in that respect was to say that it shouldn't be a problem once the chemo- started. "Gee thanks doc, so there is an upside to my situation" says I. They say humour is the best medicine!
What's in the name Goliath?
There was more than a little amusement when I recounted to Mary Townsend the reason, documented in the relevant blog posting, for christening my tumour Goliath. She quickly explained by means of a diagram that in fact "35-44cm" was correct and that the measurements related to the relevant distances from the teeth at which the tumour started and finished; thus determing its position in the gullet as well as defining its size at a more realistic 10cm. Doh! As it turns out my Simpsonesque misinterpretation has given rise to a more than apt analogy to the appropriate bible story. It is hoped that David's chemotherapy tablets prove to be sufficiently weighty ammunition to use in a slingshot! (But on second thoughts that might be a hard pill to swallow)
