I wasn’t going to bother writing a note about every single visit I might make to a medical practitioner, but seeing as I’ve logged on and found a number of messages, I can only presume that enquiring minds want to know, so here follows the tale of my trip to the arse drill.

Now, as I’ve noted before, this isn’t my first time with the good old bone marrow gear, so I was looking forward to this about as much as a person with no anticipation of having a good time, who is about to have a very bad time. Nevertheless I arrived in Ward 7 promptly. There’s a nice waiting room for day clinic people (like me) and a ward full of in-patients. Additionally all the rooms which form part of the ward seem to be dedicated to various individuals. I can’t remember the actual names, but it wasn’t the waiting room, it was the Fred Bloggs waiting room and there was the John Smith counselling room and so on. I couldn’t work out if it the names were those of charitable donors, or the deceased. I chose not to enquire.

 After a short while I saw a guy, who looked nurse-ish wearing a smart blue uniform and a white pvc apron. Being as I was wandering about looking lost (and I was, pretty much) he asked if he could help me. I informed him why I was here and who I was. He said he would “let them know” and said I should take a seat in the waiting room.

 And so I did. I could observe across the corridor into the main ward opposite where there was what looked like a reception desk (with nobody there). Various other staff did start to appear, however wandering back and forth. I saw Dr Williams (my other haematologist, I’m collecting a set) walk by and even caught a glimpse of Dr Lisa. Eventually as I continued to sit, waiting, one of the nurses sort of looked at me with a smile, which managed to communicate the sentiment “who the fuck are you and why are you here?”. I therefore got up and asked if anyone had told her I was here.

 “Are you Stefan?”

“Yes”

“No, nobody has told us, but I know now, take a seat and it shouldn’t be long.”

 Well, thanks a bunch PVC apron guy. I guess your reason for existence must be to wander about randomly and pretend to do some work. All you need is a cup of coffee and we can call you Wally.

 So I go and sit back down and in between levels of ‘refraction’ on my phone I watch the world go by. I am disturbed by the presence of chip factory woman wandering about with some files, but I am beginning to think she is admin staff and nothing for me to worry about. A kindly nurse offers me a sandwich, which I politely refuse and another offers a cup of tea, which I gratefully accept.

 Just as my tea arrives, so does a doctor who shows me into a treatment room – I bring the cuppa, I think I’m going to need it. He explains that he is Doctor Sundul. Now, I can see quite blatantly from his name tag, that he is, in fact, Doctor Sundulyianama. I guess he is pretty fed up of people being uanble to pronounce it properly. I choose to remain silent upon the issue, not wishing to upset a gentleman who is shortly to be attacking my arse with spikey pieces of metal. He starts to explain the procedure and I inform him it’s not my first time. He nods in acceptance of this and gives me the consent form to sign.

 I won’t bore you with the details. Some amount of unpleasantness and pain followed. When the job was done, they brought me a second cup of tea. I needed it.

 At this point Dr Newton (Lisa J) appeared wanting to talk to me about my surgery. Well, one of my friends had made the excellent suggestion that I tell them if they want a lymph gland, they should whip out the one which is causing me all the shoulder pain. So I was pleased to hear that they wanted to ultrasound my neck as there’s a good looking candidate up there which didn’t quite get fully mapped on my recent CT scan. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out that they are looking on the OTHER SIDE FROM THE PAIN. They gave a variety of answers as to why they didn’t want to go into my already painful shoulder – but let me assure you all, dear readers, that this discussion is far from over and I will be having further words upon the subject.