The Assessment

Todays post could be quite a long one, and not just because of the assessment as you’ll see.

I had a bad night last night. Somehow I couldn’t sleep. I was worrying about going to Hull today and wondering what was going to be entailed in the assessment. I expected to feel a bit like a bug under a microscope but in the event the experience was not too bad at all. First though, we had to trauma of the bathroom…

Some little time ago, I had the misfortune to take a shower and have the bottom of the bath crack on me. This of course caused a few problems with water leaking and so on. I patched it up as best I could, but we needed a new bath – and quickly. My son works at a big DIY store, but we were warned off their baths as they are apparently very thin. Instead we opted for a (much) more expensive one. I just braced myself and paid. One of my wife’s friends is a plumber and he agreed to change the bath for us. He arrived smack on time at 7:30 am and set to work. Shortly afterwards he asked for the water to be turned off. I attempted to turn off the stop cock, but it had seized, and I couldn’t shift it. Jason had a look, he couldn’t shift it either, but my trying had started it leaking.

Happiness was not the word at that moment…

Jason went to turn off the water in the street, only to find the little hatch sealed closed by years of dust and rubbish, plus, when he did manage to open it the whole lot was full of clay covering all the tap. He’s a brilliant kid though and just set to work hauling out handfuls of freezing clay until he eventually found the tap three feet down the hole – and seized !

My stress levels were heading for the Stratosphere by now, as time was marching on and although we managed a shower that morning when we got up, I had visions of being without water for some time. Eventually Jason managed to turn off the water and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. We had to go shortly afterwards and set off for Hull, both wondering what we were going to find on our return. There is building work going on at Castle Hill Hospital, actually being done by my wife’s employer, and finding our way to the unit proved to be a little challenging, but we got there eventually, checked in and waited for a short time.

My name was called and I was taken off to a small ante room where I had an ECG taken. The lady who did it was a bit of a turn, and I left her company a few minutes later chuckling to myself. Another short wait, then I was called again, this time to see the specialist nurse, who turned out to be an absolute hoot!

Together with my wife, and another lady who came in to take blood samples, I was set upon by three female musketeers, all intent on making men feel insignificant – but in banter only. If I had a serious question then Jenny (the nurse) would answer it seriously, but she managed to keep the whole thing light. If anyone is reading this before they have the procedure, then I’d better get to the point and explain what is behind the assessment.

As far as I could see it was to allow me to ask questions, but also to check me out for allergies, infections and so on. One of the big fears is MRSA and I had nasal, groin and armpit swabs taken to check for that. It seems that about 40% of the population have it living in their noses (yuk) and never have any problems, but if they get weakened, for example, by surgery, then it can be fatal. It can also spread like wildfire among sick people, so it’s important to find out if you are carrier. If you do carry the bug, then it’s a very simple matter to rid you of it. Just nasal ointments and some anti biotic. Blood is taken presumably for typing and testing and you are weighed . In fact they give you a pretty full MOT including a chest x-ray.

Of course the nurse can’t really answer the one question everyone wants to ask “When will I have the op?”, but she gave me a pretty good idea. It’s likely to be between 1 to 4 weeks. As I have to stop taking one of my tablets for a week before the op, it looks like my guess about a fortnight may be about right.

Anyway, If you've waded through all this, the moral of this tale is - don't have a new bath fitted on the day of your assessment...

Oh, and there is one final bit of info, which I hadn't thought of, and really wish hadn't been mentioned - the catheter! Yes, they insert a catheter. Fortunately they insert after you're asleep, but it comes out two days later, while you're wide awake. Now isn't that something to look forward to!