Quack Quack

And so we move into a new phase of kidney kare.

Three days ago I was booked into Guys hospital to have a fistula inserted in my arm. For those of you who don’t know what a fistula is it’s the joining together of a vein and an artery so that dialysis can be achieved more efficiently. It takes weeks to ‘mature’ and when it does the line in my chest can be removed.
I had never heard of a fistula before December, but now I have a head full of drug names that roll off the tongue. I have a head full of figures and procedures, a head full of readings and terminology that’s only good if you are a junior doctor with a mind to frighten your patients.

Last Monday a wonderful ambulance driver, who shall be known as Richard, called me to say he would collect me at 6.00 a.m. to get me to London.
‘Six a.m.’ I shrieked.
‘I have to get to Hastings and if you come with me….’
‘Let me stop you there’ I interrupted. ‘I am not leaving my house at 6.00 when my procedure done is at 11.00’
‘Ok. I’ll go to Hastings first then collect you at 8.00.’
Better than nothing I thought.
At 8.00 a.m. – on the dot – the ambulance driver – known as Richard – turned up at the end of my drive in an NHS ambulance estate car.
In the back of the car was Andrea and her husband Nicolai. Richard had collected them from Hastings.
‘It might seem a long way round but we’ll do the back route.’
‘To where?’ I asked timidly.
‘Hertfordshire.’
‘Hertfordfuckingshire?’
‘Yes’, said Richard calmly
Hertfordshire where hurricanes hardly happen….
‘We are taking Andrea to Harefields Heart hospital, she’s had a transplant.’
Through lanes along Ladies Mile to Withyham, into Hartfield, down to Edenbridge, Westerham, Godstone and then onto the M25.
Richard wasn’t joking we were heading to Hertfordshire in the middle of rush hour. Richard had to take Andrea, then me, to our appointments.
Two hours later we arrived t Harefields Heart hospital in Hertfordshire, where hurricanes hardly happen, and dropped Andrea off.
It was now my turn only I didn’t know where I was going in Guys, what floor, what ward, what time. So Richard called Hanna, the ambulance controller. He had three telephones all of which said the same. Our ETA would be at 11.45, my appointment was for 11.00
Richard drove sensibly until we got to Mayfair when he lost his temper with and American tourist wearing dark glasses and a hat whose daughter crossed the road haphazardly.
‘FUCK YOU’ he shouted as he climbed out of the car. Richard the mild mannered ambulance driver remonstrated with the American tourist because she had called him brainless. Richard got back into the ambulance and we continued our track through central London streets full of lorries and taxis and coaches and stress.
A proper taxi had been arranged for me but there was a cock up with communication. I had been double booked, a beautiful electric car was waiting outside my cottage, to drive me straight to London Bridge. Grrrr.

Now during this excursion I asked Richard about himself. It turns out I was sitting with an expert on the Pinkheaded duck, Rhodonessa R Caryophyllacae, a paddling duck not to be confused with a pochard diving duck.
Years ago Richard had seen a picture of a Pinkheaded duck and fallen in love, so enamoured was he of the little duckling that he wrote a children’s book which he self published, so he could make enough money to fund his travels.
‘Where to?’ I enquired
‘Burma.
‘Isn’t that Myanmar?’ trying to show off my geographical knowledge.
‘Yes that’s what the countries national government calls it.’
Some geezer had spotted something in the Burmese undergrowth which led him to believe there was still a chance that the Pinkheaded duck was still around. The Pinkheaded duck is extinct, but Richard doesn’t believe it.
Richard drives an ambulance, saves his money to buy plane tickets, hire a sherpa and takes himself off to Burma to look for a duck that the colonialists shot for pleasure.
So far he hasn’t found one, but he is not giving up hope.
Radio four made a little programme about it and Richard played me the recording whilst driving on the M25 towards Heathrow. It would have been quicker for me to get to Guys had we boarded a Beoing 787 from terminal three.
But I digress.
Richard showed me pictures of the lovely little Pinkheaded duck with its pink head and brown body, which kept me entertained whilst we navigated articulated lorries around Uxbridge.
Four hours later we finally arrived at Guys Hospital. Richard dropped me off and I was directed to the Southwark Wing and SALS, the Surgical Admissions Lounge.
I was greeted by an Ethiopian nurse who told me to stop crying. She brought me two hospital gowns which I had to put on simultaneously. One with a front opening and one with a back opening, a pair of red socks and paper knickers that looked like a hairnet from a biscuit factory. A pack of hot disinfectant cloths was supplied for me to clean myself up.
It was now four o’clock.
I was taken down to the operating theatre, 8 medical professionals stood over me. Three huge round lights above me were rearranged. My left arm was pulled out of the two gowns and laid on a pillow. Medics shouting information at each other which included my date of birth and my my name. Stevie Wonder was about to be played, my choice of music, and cold jelly was rubbed on my arm when a doctor wearing a surgical cap and blue scrubs folded her arms, looked down at me and declared my blood pressure was now at 220.
‘It’ll go down’ I assured her.
‘Sorry it is for your own safety. We will have to abandon the procedure.’
After my feeble attempt to remain they slid me off the operating table. The surgeons apologising profusely.
‘I’m fucked’ I said, utterly inappropriately, and slipped off the table onto a wheel chair, a nurse pushing me back to room eleven where the Ethiopian nose was waiting.
I cried again. I cried so much my eyes had swollen like goldfish bags full of water.
The dawter arrived, she’d had a feeling things weren’t going well, she bought me a cheese wrap and a can of lemonade and told me to calm down. We went down into the transport station and waited for the taxi which had been booked go take me home. Our Ethiopian nurse appeared and said it was not safe for me to leave in case I had a stroke or a heart attack. So up we went to the assessment lounge where they took my blood pressure once, twice, three times a lady. When they finally released me the taxi had buggered off. More tears as the receptionist ordered me another car. A two hour wait.
I arrived home at 7.45, with purple ink on my wrists indicating where the fistula should have been.
I cried again.
I was traumatised. Twelve hours that I’ll never get back.
I have another appointment on July 17th. I have to get my blood pressure down otherwise I will be refused again. So it’s meditation twice day, an uppage of blood pressure tablets and a ridiculous belief that all will be well.
The upside of this expedition is that I now know the difference between a paddling and diving duck, and that despite what Keir Starmer has in store for the NHS – there are still wonderful people like Richard who selflessly drive people around, and who, with the grace of God, will find his extinct Pinkheaded duck somewhere on the road to Mandalay.