Fistula for sure.

Phase two of the Kidney Kapers.
I had dialysis on Wednesday. Back to four hours but I’m coping by self medicating with acupuncture needles and two known points.
One in the hand one in the foot, so I’m able to tolerate the jumpy legs and dry mouth,
Having said that Wednesday was a big day. I was having to go to GUYS hospital in London Bridge to have a fistula put in.
I drove home from Tunbridge Wells, from the dry cleaners our euphamism for dialysis, and the phone rung twice. I ignored it, it was the old git telling me the taxi had arrived,
By the time I got home the taxi had turned round and left. I called the dry cleaners who reorganised the lift.
We left for London bridge. Arrived at 15.00 hours.
I walked to the reception desk. The receptionist did not have any record of my existence. We called various departments nobody had heard of JENNIFER BYWATER. A hospital the size of Angola and one little receptionist who was leaving at 4.00
I called TWells who provided us with some information.
It was 3.45
I cwas desolate.
Finally, via the Kent jungle drums, I was told to go to the Patient Ward.
Down the corridor, turn right and up the lift to the fifth floor.
Empty corridors and jabbering nurses.
They sent me to the day room, there was no bed.
It had been decided that I should stay in overnight so my blood pressure could be regulated.
I waited.
I made a decision that if the bed manager had not found me a bed by 5.00 I was walking. Get the train home and bugger the lot of them.
At 17.03 a nurse came and took me to bay 18.
I wouldn’t take my clothes off, defiantly believing that if I stayed in my day clothes the nightmare wasn’t happening.
Bloods taken, then the pressure then the glucose.
I was brought dinner a rare concoction of Greek Pasta. Thats what it said on the label although it could have been Albanian Fërgesë for all I knew.
Lights dimmed and the chaos started.
In bed 17 was a woman having regular enemas. Her screams and aromas were disturbing. Opposite her was a very noisy African woman who decided to eat hot Jollof Rice at 12.40.
Her yelps and aromas were nauseating.
Opposite me was a woman in a wheel chair. Her lap top replaying soap operas. Coronation Streets theme tube at 2.00 a.m. was unnerving. She fell asleep with an oxygen mask on her face. Her regular breathing sounded like an old manual lawn mower.
I could not sleep, and then I started itching. Turns out I was allergic to the rubber mattress and plastic pillows.
Sitting one a blue upright chair huddled in a blue blanket, I was visited by a nurse.
The day had begun. Bloods and breakfast. Two slices of toast and two digestive biscuits.
I was taken to the operating theatre at 8.30.
Two handsome young surgeons stood over me. My left arm akimbo. Three theatre lights beaming down. My blood pressure was fine. My blood sugar was fine. Even my potassium was fine.
They hung a sheet of sterile blue paper between me and the procedure.A local anaesthetic meant I could go home. Although a novice nurse told me I was staying for two days
‘Over my dead body’ I quipped.
They painted my arm yellow and administered three injections to numb the arm. For one and half hours Demetri and Benedict worked fastidiously. Ivy, the theatre sister, held my right and and stood over me.
They stitched and joked. By 10.30 it was over.
I was taken to the recovery ward where Lola, with false eyelashes and plumped up lips, stroked me and told me tales of Peckham.
I was released and sent to my bed.
At 11.00. a dance of doctors were doing their ward round.
‘I understand we are doing a bowel flush with you today.’
said a little smiling medic.
‘I don;t think so.’ I said curtly.
‘I think we are’ he said pqtronisingly bending his head to one side.
A young doctor in orange scrubs rushed to our bed side.
Whispering into the ear of his colleague and pulling at his shirt said emphatically
‘You’ve got the wrong patient.’
At 12.00 lunch arrived. Something solid followed by lemon sponge with custard. They didn’t supply a spoon so I forked the yellow into my mouth.
I was discharged.
Down to the transport waiting room where several patients patienly waited for a car or an ambulance.
Mine came an hour later.
Me, and a woman for Sidcup then a geezer for Hastings.
I got home t 4.00.
Trauma over.
I had mithered and whinged about the fistula for months. Now it was over.
It has to mature – 6-8 weeks – and then if it works I will have dialysis in the crook of my left arm.
Every day I have to feel for the ‘thrill’ a pulsating under the stitches.
I have bought a yellow rubber ball to squeeze every day to keep the blood flowing. The vein and artery in my arm have been joined up. The nurse will have to find a good spot to insert a needle and then off we go with fours hours of fun.
The line in my chest will be removed and then I can start swimming.
The second phase of my recovery has begin.
I’m cautiously optimist that it will work.
At any point of moaning I think of how privileged I am. At 76 I’me over the hill but they are still bothering to work on me.
I went back into dialysis on Friday. Bong listened to the ‘thrill’ through his stethascope, and was delighted with what he heard.
On Saturday we had a party for the old gits birthday.
15 of us eating drinking and being merry.
I sat in a garden chair looking like my mother, whose been dead 13 years. Two hot water bottles and Merangue crumbs on my chest completed the picture.
Today we went out for breakfast, bought the papers and watched telly.
I am bleak and broken, but sooner or later I will come out of my funk.
I’m allowed to be negative for a bit its my party and I’ll cry if I want to.
Tomorrow is Bank Holiday Monday and it’s going to be 30 degrees. There’s left over party food in the fridge and the runner beans are still running. No more procedures for a bit so I can relax, lie back and think of Mauritius, well why not?