Surgery

In 2024, I had my standard bout of surgery, in this case, a new left hip.

I already have an artificial right hip, a metal left knee, and a ‘piano wire’ joined Achilles tendon.

This new surgery was scheduled for six months ago but, being sick of taking pills, I’d made the unilateral decision to stop taking my medication. The result was blood pressure up and that was enough for the surgical team to tell me to get my act together and go back on the pills or no cut and slice for me. Having got a finger-wagging from my lovely (scary) Spanish GP (she is divine) I did as I was told an everything quickly returned to normal and the slicing and dicing was rescheduled for Mayday, the 1^st of May.

The plan was that at 8.00am on the 1^st of May, a mere 11 hours after Cushla and Finn landed back in Tamaki Makaurau from Shanghai, Cushla would take me to Ascot Hospital to process my admission.

Thanks, once again, to the government’s desire to get rid of the politically annoying hospital waiting lists or at least to make them less constitutionally embarrassing as we get the country ‘back on track’, buckets of funding had been added to the pool for what they euphemistically call ‘elective surgery’. Once again, I was to be the beneficiary of such funding and my surgery, for the third time in succession, was scheduled to take place in a private hospital.

That means same surgeon, same medical team, just better food.

I have no issue with the public system, it’s looked after me superbly well. In fact, the angels who turn up every day to care for us bottom feeders and to ensure that the creaking, underfunded edifice that always seems at imminent likelihood of collapse, survives are quite simply brilliant, not only brilliant today but brilliant all day every day, all week every week, and all year every year.

As for those who have left the ever-shrinking ship to seek their fortunes in foreign fields, I wish them prosperity and hope they never feel the need to return to the medical Mines of Moria in Aotearoa New Zealand.

I also hope that they (and you) will forgive the triple mixed metaphor that I have dropped into the bubbling broth of this reflection … yes, now its four.

I learnt a new word this year in relation to my body.

When I arrived at Ascot and was required to fill out the endless paperwork, the lovely receptionist asked me if I had any other ‘metalware’. I’d never heard that term before but quickly worked out that it meant ‘any other metal in my body as a result of surgeries previous. The answer of course was yes, I set off alarms all over the country with my knee and my other hip, and we had a bit of a laugh about that.

I know Andrew Johnson, my surgeon, quite well now as he has looked after me and my other hip and I’ve met him many times as he (or his registrar) has prepped me for whatever comes next. I love doctors and I especially love Andrew. He’s a family man and his wife, in the past and pre-babies, has acted as my anaesthetist. So, we always have something in common to chat about – whānau and babies – not that we ever do. Andy (may I call him Andy, everyone else does) is much too professional (read busy) for that.

I love medical chronicles, and this surgery is book-ended by a brace of beauties.

In the week leading up to my admission and my surgery, Finn was competing at an archery World Cup event in Shanghai and Cushla was the coach/manager. The plan was that they would arrive home on the evening of 30 April and that Cushla would take me to the hospital for my 8 o’clock admission the next morning. The best laid plans, however, seldom ever eventuate and that’s what happened in this instance.

They arrived and disembarked at Auckland airport at around 9 pm. Somehow, I learned that Finn had Covid when he competed in Shanghai which must have been a challenge for him, archery requiring such a high level of concentration and fitness. He had, however recovered by the time he got back, but sadly, and unfortunately for me and our plans, Cushla had become infected and arrived back fully masked up, but unwell. The plans for my admission the following morning went down the gurgler and Finn was deputised to accompany me on this new phase of my journey. He was great, of course, and handled my anxiety and my bad jokes with aplomb.

He’s the King of ‘Whatever’.

I was honest and admitted when I arrived that Cushla was not well and that we had Covid in the whare. The outcome was I was tested every eight hours, and because I was not infectious myself the surgery went ahead as planned. My stay, however, was extended by five days until such time as Cushla tested negative for the virus and it was safe to go home.

Under normal circumstances, I would’ve been kept in the private system for a couple of days and then shipped off to Auckland Public to serve out the rest of my recovery. Andrew had different ideas and, because of ‘experiences’ on my previous visit where I had impressed him with my resilience and dedicated hard work, he arranged for me to stay the extra five days in the private system which meant excellent food, topline care, and five days of quality physiotherapy. All in all, it couldn’t have been better.

So, what were the ‘experiences’ that had so impressed him on my last visit?

I’d been scheduled to lead an in-person seminar session at AUT Millennium for Archery New Zealand (Inc) and it was politically important that I be there. I was chair of the organisation at the time, and I was under attack from a number of quarters for transphobic reasons, among others. The good, old, conservative straight white male ‘imagine what the neighbours will think if we have a tranny in charge?’

Yep, pathetic, eh.

Taking all this into account, I arranged to do my presentation online. The only issue was, I’d had surgery just the day before and Andrew wasn’t sure it was a good idea. He didn’t try to stop me, so I set about arranging my space to look less like a hospital room and did the presentation. It went well and that was that. I had no idea that this had impressed my surgeon so much because, for me, teaching online was just what I did.

Cool to be acknowledged like that all the same.

I had one morning visit from Andrew to check on my recovery and to find out how I was doing. Andrew’s an interesting man and I enjoy his company, so I looked forward to his visits. On this morning, he opened the door, accompanied by a nurse, and asked me how I was. I said, ‘I am excellent, thank you’ to which he responded, ‘it’s my birthday today, I’m 50’, before turning on his heels and leaving the room. The nurse did an affectionate eye roll at me, and I took from his response that my recovery was right on track.

I said earlier, but there were two aspects to the story that were interesting/amusing. Here’s the other one.

After I was discharged and came home, the time I got to spend with my family was short-lived, a mere few days, as they both departed for Korea to enable Finn to compete in World Archery Hyundai World Cup #3 in Yecheon. This was always planned for, but what we didn’t consider was Cushla’s ongoing love affair with Covid. I was barely mobile when they left, so the entire time they were away was spent being extremely cautious with myself as I lurched around the house on my crutches, abluted, fed myself, and looked after the cat.

Surprisingly, it all worked out well.

Cushla left plenty of food on the servery, so I didn’t have to move far for my sustenance. I had a chair positioned next to the jug so I could sit down while the water boiled for coffee or to dampen the two-minute noodles which are always my staple when the family are away. Two-minute noodles are as close to cooking as I ever get, and these wonderful provisions are stored in our pantry just a metre or so from the freezer where my other ‘staff of life’ perched just asking to be gobbled down. I refer of course to the large tub of ice cream that is essential to my continued existence. I certainly feel a sense of achievement having got through both the planned surgery and all of the unplanned events that happened subsequently while remaining in one piece.

A special vote of thanks to the kind folk (Myshka) who made themselves available to rescue me if the worst happened and I went arse over kite and crashed out on our entirely innocent feline.