Minnie’s Musings

I am not sitting on the dock of the bay. I am sitting on a rubber chair in a day ward awaiting my slot to half the carpal tunnel on my right hand released.

This is the snazzy private hospital round the back of the NHS edifice where procedures are farmed out to in the hope of reducing a waiting list. Apart from the complimentary coffee and and newspaper a (the relatively innocuous‘I’ and the freshness of the paint, there isn’t much difference.

Because I am having this done on the NHS , I don’t have to sign away the cost of several months take-home pay. Hurrah!

Unlike the last time when we found a private hospital round the back of Hatfield who could do this same procedure on my other hand in a timely fashion. While that operation was successful it did confirm my worst prejudices about the private health sector. Namely the risk of a surgeon deciding he doesn’t need to follow a protocol.

If , as I have, you had the misfortune to get breast cancer and the blue dye indicates that your lymph nodes need to be removed, you are not supposed to have any form of tourniquet strapped to you arm, including blood pressure cuffs.

But this chap decided that it would all be much easierr and quicker if the blood supple to my hand was reduced. So he overrode the anaesthesiologist and insisted on applying said rubber band.

The huffing and puffing as he sawed away at the rigid block of tendons that had developed over several months, was alarming. He said afterwards that it was like cutting concrete.

Anyhow I hope for better this time around…. this , I wrote, yesterday.