I’ve transformed from dynamic to shambling…

What a difference a day made (well not perhaps in the way that Dinah Washington suggested in 1924)! In a mere 24 hours I have been transformed from a dynamic interventional radiologist, wielding my probe dextrously, extracting pus from places some of you have never heard of and giving all the HOs a hard time (typical evil radiologist), to an old guy shambling around in my carpet slippers, wondering how I am going to fill my days. (Actually I don’t own any slippers and my daughter insists I am not old, but you get the picture).

I will not bore you with my medical details (we get enough of that stuff all day from the punters) but let’s just say that it started during an interesting walk from the far car park to the department, and involved me stopping half way to pretend to read the bus timetable. A colleague, an acute medical physician, subsequently found me in my office and promptly frog-marched me off to the ED in a masterful way which gave me no opportunity to protest (even if I had wanted to).

The angiogram was performed within six hours, and I have now been signed off for at least four weeks by my GP whom I saw the following afternoon. I have been prescribed all sorts of pills I have never heard of which, according to the blurb, may cause both diarrhoea and constipation at the same time!

I was admitted for only 24 hours, but my main memory is pain. During that short time I had a total of eight, yes eight sets of ECG pads stuck on my chest then removed, the medical equivalent of the infamous “back, sac and crack” procedure. “Would you like them removed in one agonising shriek or a series of slow pitiful moans?” asked the nurse. Arrrggghhh was my reply! My once hairy chest is now covered in bald patches.

Everyone who came into my room was determined to stick something sharp in me, and Clexane in the belly sure does hurt! A kindly nurse asked me if I had any pain and I said, “Yes, where you have just stuck a needle in me!” I bet the compliance rate for Clexane self-injection falls off rapidly as soon as the patient gets home.

The other difficulty they had was what to call me. “Doctor Goodfellow, how would you like to be addressed?” asked a series of well-meaning nurses. “Well, err, Tom I suppose” I responded lamely. “That’s fine Dr Goodfellow” (box ticked) and I was never once addressed by my first name thereafter, other than by the cheery cardiologist.

However at least I managed to avoid, you know, that examination! But I doubt I will escape if I end up in the hands of the surgeons, and it will probably be performed punitively by some spotty HO who has not started to shave, and who is taking personal revenge on the entire consultant body. Or even worse by an attractive young female HO with overlong finger nails!

I still have a fair way to go in my medical journey, but I have been assured by my doctors that my prognosis is excellent. I almost believe them.