My father taught me a great many things as a child. Which was weird because I wasn't born when he was a child. Those lessons spanned the distance between useful
"The only thing certain in life is change, Boy."
Dubious
"The quickest route to a brama is to check out another man's giggle pin in the bogs." *
And, of course, the frankly offensive
"If shit was a music you'd be a fucking orchestra, Boy."
That last one wasn't really a lesson, admittedly.
One of the things I got from Dad that I still use now was a stress relief technique he claimed he'd learnt from a Bhuddist Yogi during a trek through the Himalayas ^.
^ Although come to think of it, he once claimed he had copyright on the letter 's', so it's possible he was lying.
Essentially it involved yelling
"SHITFUCKSHITFUCKSHITFUCKSHITFUCK"
very loudly.
The first time I heard him use it was when he drove through an unexpectedly narrow gap between two parked cars at about sixty. After we made it through unscathed and pulled over so we could both have a quick vomit he explained it's purpose, followed by the words
"It's friggin' tantric, innit?"
This came in quite handy in the time since my last blog post. You'll remember I'd been through a bit of a rigmarole with my eye due to a detached retina. The day after I posted that, everything headed south for the winter and the eye started flashing again. This prompted another trip to Moorfields Eye Hospital for a conversation that was primarily comprised of me shouting Dad's tantric stress reliever whilst a doctor tried to calm me down.
In short, whilst the operation had been a partial success there was still fluid sitting on my retina. The doctors tried to combat this by getting me to lie on my back without moving my eyes for two days. Take my word for it that not moving your eyes for five minutes is fairly tricky. After two days of it
I'd gone from this
 |
| "A stranger is just a friend I haven't made yet!" |
to this
 |
| "Axe delivery!" |
I downloaded an audiobook about the Spanish Civil War that was 27 hours long and listened to the whole bloody thing both whilst sleeping and awake. I returned to the hospital to find that the net result of these two days were; backache, a working knowledge of 1930's politics in Spain, and bugger all else. So they scheduled another op.
As an aside, did you enjoy your dinner? Yes? Good. You're about to see it again.
The op they opted for (see what I did there) was called a whatthehellareyoudoingtomyeye er... ectomy. Or something. Unlike my first operation this was done under local anesthetic. The anesthetist was very sweet, and said that since I was a bit of a flower, he'd give me a nice sedative that made me sleepy so I didn't get stressed. Unfortunately he was also a liar and I was awake the whole sodding time.
That said, I had enough sedative to find the whole thing quite fascinating. I can't really describe what it was like, but there were interesting colours and patterns and the drugs really were first class. I had a nice chat, had my footwear criticised and a GAS BUBBLE INJECTED INTO MY GODDAMNED EYEBALL.
The idea being that the gas bubble pushes the retina back against the eye where it reattaches. It all sounds absolutely ghastly, but actually it wasn't too awful. And remember, I'm such a pansy I threw a banana at a woman because I was scared by a spider.
This fixed the problem, for about 24 hours, when at the checkup they told me it had only partially worked. I've heard those words so often in the past two months I'm considering them for my epitaph. There was some head scratching, they told me to come back the next day and see the lead consultant. I came back, he scratched his head and said
"I think it's worth trying to laser the area to prevent any more fluid coming in. Follow me."
I followed him to a room where he sat me in something that was a bit like a dentist chair, leant me back and said those words that only doctors and dentists say
"This might twinge a bit."
Lets be clear here, friends and family, when a doctor or dentist says that they mean "This is going to hurt." Like when the nurse at the blood bank says; "Sharp scratch!" shortly before firing a harpoon gun into your arm. I responded with nervous
"Oooooooookaaaaaaay...."
He held something over my eye, there was a bright flash of light and I said
"Unh!"
He stopped and looked down at me.
"Did that hurt?"
"Well, I think it was surprise more than pain."
"Ok. Lets try again."
zapzapzapzapzapzapzapzapzapzapzapzapzapzap
"You know," I said "actually that is quite painful and I think I might"
And I passed out.
I came round to find a rather flustered lead consultant apologising profusely and hustling me back to the waiting area, where I was given a pain killer in the form of a nice cup of tea.
I'm not too proud to say that as I sat there with the pain subsiding, the whole situation became a bit overwhelming, and I suddenly found myself having a bit of a cry. This made me spill tea in my lap, which in turn (because my emotions were all over the shop) made me start laughing slightly hysterically. A nurse appeared and approached me gingerly.
"Are you okay?"
Now, I'm British - and that means certain rules apply. It means I apologise when someone stands on my foot. It means that there is no greater fear than following someone through a series of doors and trying to find a new word for "Thanks" every time they hold one open. It means that I turned to her, tears running down my face, eyes bloodshot, laughing like a loon and said
"I'm fine, thanks."
And then gestured to tea she'd made me and said
"Lovely."
Since then I've had to lie on my right side for a week, which sounds awesome but is, in fact, bullshit. Particularly as it means my "good" eye is buried in a pillow most of the time so I can't. On the bright side, when you have a bubble in your eye, you always know which way up you are.
And now things seem relatively stable. So, lets move on from this shall we? I rather wish you hadn't brought it up.
