It’s been a while since I wrote more than a couple of brief status updates concerning my hospital based adventures, so I think it’s way past time for a complete update, giving full and frank disclosure about what has been going on over the past couple of weeks.

 To pick up the story, last I wrote I had been summoned to Leeds, attending St James’ Hospital for the pre-assessment for my surgery. During that event I had been informed that a new CT scan would be needed, in order than the surgeon would know where to stab.

 We resume the tale, therefore on the 27th of October, when I am scheduled to be scanned. This is a bizarre day for a number of reasons. Firstly, I decide to drive to the hospital. This may seem very normal to most people, except that I hate driving in Leeds as I inevitably get lost.  Don’t ask me why, but I have this bizarre mental block which seems to make the roads fail miserably to fit the maps I have previously examined, so regardless of how much preparation I may have made, I always end up taking a wrong turn somewhere and taking twice as long as required to get to where I need to be. This trip is no different and is especially hampered by the helpful road signs pointing the route to the hospital being unhelpfully positioned just far enough beyond a junction to be only of use to those who have already selected the correct turnings. Still, I only get lost twice, which isn’t bad for me and I get to hospital in good time.

Here then is the second bizarre item. I get into the multi-story carpark and amidst the hundreds of cars, ‘the’ parking space is free. The parking space nearest the hospital entrance. The parking space from which I can walk, in a straight line, as the crow flies, from car to revolving door. I mean, this multi-storey is rammed out with cars, but this one, magical, perfect parking space is free, waiting for me, beckoning me into its warm embrace. I confess I sat in the car for a couple of minutes, revelling in the experience as other less fortunate visitors had to drive past me and up into the heights of the carpark, to poor quality and inconvenient spaces, from which lifts and/or stairs would be required to get back to the hospital wing.

Having spent enough time savouring the moment, I casually get out of the car and stroll the few yards to the hospital, finding my way to the radiology department. As normal for this building, there is no TV, no wireless and no mobile signal – seriously for all this is a brand new wing and very much looks the part of modern healthcare, they are truly living in the dark ages when it comes to communications technology. Also, I am rather early, the traffic having been kind, so I am expecting a long wait and really would prefer to be in touch… or in truth, be able to cock about on the Internet wasting time.

Time indeed… time for the third bizarre event of the day. I am seen straight away, even though I am about 45 minutes early. They get me in, hook a cannula into my arm and whip me into the scan room where the machine awaits me within about 15 minutes of arriving. This machine is very different to the machine at St Lukes which I have spoken of earlier. It’s bigger and more comfortable for a start. They hook me up to the X-Ray dye pump and tell me to follow the instructions given by the machine. Again this is different from BRI, no angry American barking instructions at me, but rather a gentle female voice tells me, in an English accent when to breathe and when to hold my breath. I later learn that this is the recorded voice of the boss radiographer.

Job done quickly, speedily and efficiently, I am ejected from hospital, just in time to be in front of the rush hour traffic, thus getting home much more quickly than I expected.

All a very bizarre hospital trip, strange in how painless the whole experience was, an almost positive experience. I’d rather not have needed to go at all, but if you gotta go, this is the way you want it to be.

My next visit to hospital was for the surgery, then. I shall write more about this in another note, both to provide a suitable degree of suspense and also to prevent this note from becoming a short novel in its own right.

So… brace yourselves for deep anticipation of the next installment, “The Knife Man Cometh”.