Category: Health

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The Man With Two Penises

Since the Murdocherisation of MySpace and the creeping Orwellian overtones of F*c*book, I’ve been looking for a new home to hurl around my nonsensical noodlings. It seems that WordPress may’ve given me my new bed of hay.

I think I’ll begin to write a few more blogs on these pages, to pass the time, and flex my withering writing muscles. I’ll undoubtedly write some new blogs too, but I’ll also scoop out some mouldy old wordery, spray it with antibacterial and laughingly present it as new… which, of course, it will be, assuming you haven’t read them before.

The Man With Two Penises

Just over 10 years ago I suddenly required a h-u-g-e operation… Thanks to some, uh, comfort issues, I found myself in need of a circumcision. [I was very apprehensive about the prospect of this op – what with it being on my, umm, favourite organ – but, on reflection, Penis II [as he was named at the relaunch], has performed really quite well. And my wife has had the relatively unusual experience of having one man and two penises in her life… well, at least, only two that I’m aware of. Besides, it all quite naturally added to my continuing spiritual journey; in the sense that I was suddenly in a position to potentially adopt a number of alternative religious persuasions.

The following words come from my journal of the day. You remember journals: hard covered books containing paper that required a hand-held writing implement that exuded ink. Yeah, I know, they’ll never catch on… again. So, over to you journal: [Metaphorical Cut… {Winces at memory}…/Paste]

It was a little like Chinese water torture, as a mixture of nervous faces sat together in the sauna-like atmosphere of the waiting room; a collection of dressing gowns, anxious frowns and embarrassingly unfashionable footwear. [The young woman sat opposite me seemingly unaware that she had her feet stuffed inside two small dogs.] For some unexplained reason the Day Case Unit was running slightly below well-lubed machine and nobody seemed to know when, or in which order, we would be variously diced and sliced. So I found myself sat quietly in the corner, trying to look as unobtrusive as possible, with my book pulled up to my face…

…for fear of someone catching my eye and striking up a conversation that might lead to “So, what are you in for?’

The clock ticked on and painfully slowly on, and with my empty stomach playing wind instrument, it eventually transpired… I was last. The room slowly emptied, each name called and they duly disappeared to have their organs harvested by the country surgeon. Eventually, at just after mid-day, my time had finally come.

I soon found myself lying on a slab being prepared for the anaesthetic, my veins apparently retreating to within the depths of my hand; maybe due to a combination of no liquid intake for close on 15 hours and being roasted in the waiting room for another 4! But, after some persistent stabbing, they eventually got the line in and offered up the oxygen mask to my face. I distinctly remember being told that I would start to drift off and found myself clearly thinking… “But I’m not!…  No!… Wait!… It’s not going to work… I haven’t even said a proper ‘Goodbye’ to him yet!” But the next voice I heard was that of a beautiful young nurse saying “Mr Gorilla… Mr Gorilla… Wot… It’s time to wake up now…”

After babbling quite incoherently for a while I was finally wheeled into recovery. Well, at least they call it Recovery, only I didn’t exactly recover…

My wife, Sue, came in just after I had come around. But, as I was still feeling a little dopey, and the staff a little perturbed that she was upsetting the other patients by continually putting her head under the sheets for a closer look, they persuaded her to slip off for a cup of tea. I would be ready to go home when she got back.

When Sue walked back into the recovery room, my bed was tilted sharply backwards, I had an oxygen mask strapped to my face and I was connected to the machine that goes ‘Beep’! About 15 minutes earlier they had sat me up for my own cup of tea. I don’t remember a great deal after that, aside from a brief moment wondering why the recovery room was situated on a fairground ride. Apparently, I quickly went a distinctly unwelcome shade of grey, as all of my blood seemingly drained into my ankles: the consequence of very low blood pressure.

I was soon admitted onto a surgical ward, where they very kindly kept waking me every two hours throughout the night; presumably to see if I was still alive. [This was before the medical advancement of holding a mirror up to your breath.] It was mid-morning on Thursday before I finally began to stabilise. It was certainly nice to be able to sit up and have something to eat without feeling like I was about to slip into another dimension; a really curious feeling. By late afternoon they were happy to allow me home.

Sue then made us a nicely ironic ”Welcome home” tea… of skinless sausages!

Some skinless sausages yesterday

I feel utterly exhausted, though. And it’s not too easy to sleep; I’m at a complete loss as to why they used barbed wire for the stitches! And, looking at the scar, it would appear they allowed a student to have a go at the stitching; which is fine, everyone has to learn, but why a horticultural student?!!

How did it look?… {S-h-u-d-d-e-r} …Imagine I had been persuaded to place the old fella on a table, and then someone with a great deal of pent up anger and aggression hit it with a cricket bat, about 38 times in a frenzied attack!

I later found this photo on the Internet of nursing staff lining up next to my anaesthetised body

Well, it kind of looked [and felt!] a bit like that: wider than it was long and all colours of the rainbow [an opening in the, er, novelty area of a certain movie business beckoned had it stayed like that for long]. And, with stitches sprouting out in all directions, imagine, if you will, breaking the end off a Chinese spring-roll…

They’ll never be quite the same again

A few days after the operation I managed to get some underwear on, but when I went to the loo, I just about managed to arrange the equipment to within a degree of comfort, only to subsequently find that I couldn’t bend down to pull my trousers up! What could I do, but stand there laughing. I was still laughing when Sue came home for lunch 3 hours later… and she pulled my trouser up for me.

During the week after the operation, I could’ve written a fully detailed thesis on the curious male anatomical trait of ‘Erections While Sleeping’ – as I became very aware of every single incidence of this particular phenomenon! I would wake up to find the remaining stitches desperately linking arms and bravely attempting to take the strain; quickly, I’d have to switch my thoughts to bath night at the old people’s home, supermarket shopping or knitting patterns… Ouch! Erections notwithstanding [no pun intended!], for a couple of weeks, sleeping became nigh on impossible. Having spent my whole life naturally sleeping on my front in subtle variations of the foetal position; no variation on that position was viable any more! Even if I slept on my side, as I slipped into Dozyland, I would invariably topple over and have one of the stitches spear my delicate bits; I never realised there were quite that  many nerve endings in there! I seem to recall my eyes watered permanently for about a fortnight; I never did remember actually buying those wire wool underpants.

Anyway…enough of my genitals; I hope you’ve been in stitches reading about, uh, him? Who knows, if this blog proves popular, maybe it’ll begin a whole new series of stories and adventures starring my penis/es. Or would that be penii?

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The Anatomy Of A Stroke [Day 24]

No turning back now.

Dad went to meet the consultant who will perform the operation tomorrow [Day 25]. Thankfully, he presented the necessity for the operation [carotid endarterectomy] clearly, concisely and compassionately. And, while being realistic about its inherent dangers, left dad reassured and acceptingly philosophical over the choice.

Having witnessed such remarkable progress to this point, it seems almost counter intuitive to return to the hospital and willingly plunge yourself into the vagaries of chance again so soon; the temptation to simply go with how you’re currently feeling. But the only virtual guarantee without the operation is another stroke: next year… next month… next week… tomorrow… And that, realistically, is an impossible thing to live with. “It would be like walking around with a time bomb waiting to go off in my head.” A time bomb that would now likely kill or permanently paralyse. Essentially, the very epitome of Hobson’s choice.

So, tomorrow will inevitably feel like the longest day. Dad’s being picked up at 7:00am. Operation will be late morning and lasting 2-3 hours. Given his age/condition, it will be an overnight stay, but home on Friday without complications. And then… get on with the rest of your life [and, of course, the ongoing torture of the daily physio visits and his ultimate measurement of recovery and motivational aim: to play golf again. Which is usually a bloody long walk! Even the way he played it before the stroke! : )].

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The Anatomy Of A Stroke [Week 3]

I took this photo about an hour after he came home from hospital today. His 79th birthday. All things considered, an extremely welcome present.

Within 5 minutes of getting home my wife somewhat incredulously caught him half way up a step ladder into the loft, “There’s another walking stick up here somewhere…” Yeah, well, we’ll be sure to get it down for you and put it on the stretcher when they take off in another ambulance after you’ve broken your neck! Unbelievable.

Dad continued to make steady physical progress throughout the first week of 2012, but it seems clear that the autonomic rewiring has finished and now it will be down to the daily visits of the physiotherapists [for 6 weeks] and his own motivation to reinforce and strengthen those newly constructed neural pathways.

Here you can see how his left hand is attempting match his right but, despite immense effort on his part, stubbornly refuses to comply; the arm and hand tiring quickly as the tension of the movement slowly evaporates. The index finger is working much more effectively now, in tandem with his thumb, but the second, third and fourth fingers currently remain ‘mostly asleep’. Dad often reports the sensation of holding something which isn’t there. [Er, like a step ladder?!]

During the week he had another scan of his neck which showed severe stenosis of his right carotid artery. On the plus side, this is virtually guaranteed as the cause of his stroke, but with his rating at 70-75%, means he will need to return to hospital on Wednesday for a carotid endarterectomy. Think: your drains need rodding to clear a blockage, then apply that image to the artery in your neck.

Obviously, as with any operation, there’s a risk – of death and/or of a second stroke [between 1-5%] – but it will reduce the likelihood of a second stroke occurring within three years, essentially a daily living form of Russian roulette, by 33%. So, it’s a bit of a, umm, no-brainer.

Psychologically, dad’s currently dealing with the idea of the operation, but is otherwise in good spirits and very happy to be out of the acute ward. Two guys sadly died during the week and, as we were leaving, another is now on permanent oxygen and fading. When we take a look around us, the reality of dad’s progress in less than three weeks since admission is truly blessed and remarkable.

(Source: https://twitter.com/#!/AnatomyOfStroke)
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The Anatomy Of A Stroke [Week 2]

The brain is an extraordinary thing. And to witness its innate ability to rewire only adds to its weird and wonderful aura. But along with the brain, comes the mind. And with it, the real challenge begins.

The images here quite clearly illustrate the brain’s remarkable, largely autonomic, rewiring capacity. In just two short weeks; from a starting point of complete paralysis of his left side, dad can now walk, head [and catch] a ball, and the hardest thing of all: pick up and place small plugs into a cup. [If you look at the right hand image, you can see the tension in his background right hand. He also lifts his left leg too, such is the effort involved in that task. The complex mechanisms of the hand are notoriously the slowest to respond, and require the most ongoing work.]

All this has been incredible to see. And, removing all the wishes and hopes from the equation, it’s honestly the last thing my step-mum and I had expected in this time frame. But now, there’s a new hurdle on the track… his mind.

A couple of days ago we had a meeting with the entire stroke team [doctors, nurses and physios], every one of them remarking on his exceptional progress. The mood was buoyant. And finally suggesting, at this rate of improvement, he could be home in a week; something which seemed completely incomprehensible not much more than a week ago. And there sat dad, silent, distant. All perspective seemingly lost. To him, that week sounded like a month, a year!

It had been creeping in for a couple of days now. The gentle humour receding, the anxiety and the grumpy emerging. I say, emerging, but in reality, re-emerging. It was partly where the idea for the journal came from, sensing this part of the challenge that lay ahead of him; to maybe give him an empowering outlet for those feelings and emotions when they came.

One thing my step-mum is slowly realising, she appears to be getting back exactly the same man that came in; the man of his more later years. Two weeks ago a blood clot slice him in two and his brain responded incredibly. And now, two distinct slices of his personality – the genuinely lovely, determined and the humorous, and the anxious and the grumpy – are responding to the challenge. And which balance of those characteristics gain the upper hand may well be the ultimate arbiters to his level of recovery.

(Source: http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=6619382137&size=large)
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The Anatomy Of A Stroke [Day 10]

‘Of all people who suffer from a stroke. About a third are likely to die within the first 10 days. About a third are likely to make a recovery within one month. About a third are likely to be left disabled and needing rehabilitation.’ The Stroke Association 2011.

It’s still admittedly early days, but to our and the stroke team staff’s collective incredulity, it’s looking increasingly likely that dad will predominately, if not entirely, inhabit that middle third category.

I’ve often had my doubts as to the complexity of my dad’s brain. But now, thanks to recent events, I think we’ve finally had it confirmed beyond any lingering doubt: it’s quite a simple one. I mean, to have made such extraordinary progress from where we were barely a week ago, clearly there’s not a lot in there to go wrong, eh?

So, today you get him in his own words, from the journal [below] I tactfully gave him for Xmas. My dad’s never been much of a writer. And he’s certainly never [to my knowledge] had a journal. So this is all new territory. All part of my subconscious feeling that was the catalyst for this documentary, all the psychological tooling up for what seemed like the challenge of his life.

You also get to subtly witness another aspect of my dad here. We’ve been through a great deal together in our time – notably after being cast adrift when my mother suddenly left home when I was 12-years-old [taking my then not-quite 2-year-old sister with her]. I’d find it difficult to adequately express how much his support through the baffling teenage years meant to me, but it’s also no great surprise, here, to witness his somewhat perfunctory prose. He’s a genuinely lovely man, but emotion and feeling would often require an electron microscope to locate. Maybe the journal will find them?

Update: [Day 11] I’ve just put the phone down to my step-mum, effusively telling me that in front of the disbelieving consultant/stroke team on rounds this morning; dad got out of bed, walked to the kitchen, made himself a cup of tea, drunk it, then walked back to bed. : )

(Source: https://twitter.com/#!/AnatomyOfStroke)