Thursday, September 15, 2022

Reverses: Paul is the Burglar

This day last year

Paul had his stoma surgery for suspected bowel cancer on Monday. It took six hours, but he managed to get up for a brief walk yesterday, plus ten minutes on Skype.

The colostomy reversal was originally scheduled for August 31st (passim) but that was cancelled due to some sort of blood test mix up. (Mix up is probably a polite word for it.)

It was rescheduled for last Monday, but when he arrived he tested positive for COVID and was cancelled again.  What sticks in his craw particularly I think is that he had isolated the entire week before, only leaving the house twice, both times visiting the hospital for blood tests. He concludes, and I tend to agree with him, that must have caught it at the NHS' Princess Royal University Hospital because he hadn't been anywhere else and was taking regular lateral flow tests. Again, ironic is a polite word for it.

He muttered darkly about the dangers of "thickening" of the stoma reversal is long delayed. I don't know what that it and I didn't follow up because he sounded quite low over the 'phone. He is actually knocked sideways now by disappointment and genuinely severe COVID symptoms.

Waiting more than a year for a procedure that should have been done in a quarter of that time. Multiply it my millions, and say hello to post-pandemic Britain.

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