My lad's just turned 15 now, thus safely in the world of Friday teenhood. (The eldest daughter is about to leave her teens, but apart from that they are pretty much equal when it comes to brain power - brilliant, apart from the increasingly worrying episodes of extreme stupidity)

I won't tell you about the laundry tablets episode, because that was when he was still 14, bless him. Instead, I would like to relate this conversation to you - it was between myself, my son and my eldest daughter. I'm still not sure if this was a case of a) The male and female versions of standard Friday Nextism rearing their heads, or b) yet more proof the dreded mispelin vyrus has infected our world for real.

It all started when I reminded The Son to get cracking on his school uniform sort-out, as he would be returning from holiday, returning to school, and packing mum off to hospital for a serious op, practically on the same day.
Oh. Serious faces all round. In the excitement of our impending trip to Piddle-on-the-Martyr, Dorset, it appeared Mum's impending operation had been forgotten about. The serious faces were because the op involves the removal of a growth that may or may not be malignant, and as it's pretty much contained the easiest and safest way ahead is to remove the part of me it's growing in - ladies 'of a certain age' will know what I'm on about. Gents - just keep reading.

Son: 'This was, like, what you told us about a month ago, right? Is it serious? Guess it must be if they're going to do an autopsy.'
Eldest daughter (imperiously): 'Oh, honestly! Don't you know anything, stupid? An autopsy is for DEAD people. She's having a BIOPSY. But it'll be alright, because she's having a vasectomy at the same time, so anything nasty will be taken out anyway. That's right, isn't it Mum? You're having a vasectomy just to make sure.'

At which point, I picked myself up off the floor, said yes, a vasectomy was EXACTLY what the doctors had ordered - and went off to think up a quick and witty title for this thread, in the hope someone would read it.

I promise, this was the conversation pretty much as I remember it from half an hour ago. No embellishments or additions. With my kids, you don't have to. I've given birth to 4 of the little blighters, and must confess to having a notebook full of 'bloopers' and anecdotes from their childhood (I'm even thinking of getting it published) But even I didn't realise the affliction extended past teens and into adulthood!

Although I'm sure you lot can prove different.
Teenage anecdotes coming up?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2008 03:58PM by Jazz_Sue.

Hang on your having a vasectomy?

What did I get done in March then?

I still can't talk about Wainwrites Walks without wincing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blood! Death! War! Rumpy pumpy! Triumph!

A hystericalectomy? That's what I'll be having, if conversations like this are anything to go by.

Based on your comments I had an inadvertent hysterectomy when they did my prostate last year.

And curiously, what part of the female anatomy should a gent(leman) (as opposed to fish bait) not be interested in?


I hope they get it all, coz I've lost a lot of family and friends due to them not being got in time, or not being got completely.

Slightly off the words of teenagers I know but we all wish you the best.

Hmm, men ... fish bait; gentles = gentiles = non-surgically enhanced geni ... no, I won't go on, this could get disgusting! (Although there probably wouldn't be much else you could do with them BUT use them as fish bait, if you got an NHS surgeon for your prostate op)

My experience of 'normal' men is, they're very good - practically anatomical grade - when it comes to ladies exterior parts, but get them anywhere near the thought of a few pounds of internal workings connected to a needle-and-thread, and they come over all queasy and faint, like. Curious, given they generally own a string of DVD's with titles like 'Hellraiser meets Alien Encounter the Third' and 'Bambi - the uncut version.' Then again, 'normal' means not logging on to sites like this one, Bun!

Thanks for your concern, by the way - I'm sure it'll all be okay. It's just that they're being extra specially careful; I've got a convoluted endometrial wotsit according to my doctor's squiggle, which means they can't - ahem - get to the bit they need to remove via the 'usual route.' Since this is the same route by which I a) delivered 4 healthy kids and b) conceived them in the first place I'm not too worried. It's being done in a private hospital anyway - admittedly, one that had the arse sued off it a couple of years back but I guess that's all to the good, huh?.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2008 03:12PM by Jazz_Sue.

JS

I had my prostate (and 4 other ops) done under the Oz version of NHS in Royal Adelaide Hospital last year (being on a Disability pension right now) and there is a marked difference to when I was in King's in 1977 when my back realised it had been 'severely traumatised' two years previously and my legs wouldn't work.

I think it is a result of population density and public expectation, plus the background social setup, that makes for a good/poor public health service.

I have had to wait for 6 hours in pre-op a couple of times, (once when expecting a 10am op I was put into post op as it was so late in the day (6pm) that the pre-op people had to get things ready for the next day and than get some rest) as the poor bastards ahead of me were in far more trouble than the surgeons had first thought. They didn't defer me as it was a melanoma of critical size that they were removing from me, along with lymph glands.

I now consider a trip to surgery as a reason to buy a new book, have a three day rest where I am pampered and and have nice young ladies to talk to, as well as some nice young men, (but they are not my preference).

I have heard people bitching about the service at the hospital and have said quite plainly'If you don't like it go private. But remember the next time you make someone wait for you for whatever reasons, however justified they are to you, that those people made to wait are quite justified in thinking you are incompetent and rude.'

Usually makes them shut up.

the only thing I find irksome is that they always seem to arrange operations for days when i had something of importance planned - like a hernia operation on our wedding anniversary, a prostate op on my wife's birthday, etc.

Such is life.

Anyway, that op doesn't take away your girlish looks, in fact it allows you to stop worrying, so go and enjoy the next 50 years of your life.

Regarding the original question, I had a series of nosebleeds over a week around a couple of years back, so went to the doc's, where I was told the best option would probably be to have the blood vessels cauterised - a process which they did there and then, and basically involved sticking a soldering iron up the nostrils (not as painful as it might sound, but makes you sneeze once or twice so hard you think they're stopping the nosebleeds by removing your whole nose).

I then went home, and told my family about the cauterisation - to which my sister asked "but surely that would just make it worse? Wouldn't the vessels bleed more if they'd been chopped into pieces?" Made the whole thing worthwhile, really.

On the more serious note, best wishes for the op, J_S. Good to hear you're optimistic about it.

Yay nose cauterisings: you sit back and watch the smoke billow up from your nostrils and then for the next several hours everything smells like an overdone barbeque.

Later on, when the scabs have hardened, you sneeze and they fall off and you are back to square one.

I endured this procedure for about ten years until the nosebleeds died down in severity.

But they continued into my twenties and occurred so regulary every month that I acquired a very unpleasant nickname.

Fortunately I have outgrown the problem and still have lots of blood, which the Red Cross in Oz wont take as I lived in the UK in the mad cow disease era.

It strikes me as silly as people are suffering from the shortage of blood, but they wont use mine because in 20 years or so someone might sue them. Let the buggers die, I say.

I have heard frequent nosebleeds can be a sign of an allergy to something.

bunyip Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Fortunately I have outgrown the problem and still
> have lots of blood, which the Red Cross in Oz wont
> take as I lived in the UK in the mad cow disease
> era.
>
> I was referred to this hospital by the NHS. A bit disconcerting to realise - after being 'reassured' there was nothing to worry about - that I'd been referred to a McMillan specialist surgical unit. The specialist bit being female cancers. Still ... They wanted me in next week. I said no go, I've booked a holiday for the end of that week and I'm not losing the damn deposit, let alone the tan if there is one. After we'd agreed the best date was the 3rd September, I got a panicky phone call. 'Um, can you possibly come in a week before the operation, for a small procedure?' No, I bloody well couldn't - I'd paid for the entire holiday by then and besides, originally this op was supposed to BE the small procedure! I then asked what this 'procedure' might be. It was nothing important, just a scrape to check for bugs. Next question: had I been in an NHS hospital within the last 6 weeks? Seeing where this was leading I assured them that no, I had not been to an NHS hospital within the last 6 weeks. Which was true, if you ignored the 3 outpatient appointments and the 2 scans. The op bypassed the 6 week rule - just. Them:' Oh, that's alright then. It's just that if you've been anywhere near an NHS unit we have to check you haven't picked up an infection.' Not because of the dangers during myoperative procedure, but in case I pass it on to the North Downs £1000 per night paying customers, I suppose.
Look, I travel on the London tube and the British railways, right? I've eaten in a Toby carvery within the LAST 3 WEEKS. I'd be contagious if I lived the rest of my life in a sterile bubble.

Ah, bureaucracy! (tending to forget that one was a bureaucrat for 30 years)

When I came back from the UK in 1981 and the medical fraternity learned I have just left London after 5 years they said: 'Oh well, you'll probably test positive to everything.'.

But your immune system will really be switched on.

And so it was, apart from it taking four months for my lungs to dry out.

Geez. Hospitals are weird over there.

We have just gone back to the honorable tradition of patients surviving the illness, but not the hospital. (c.f 19th and earlier centuries)

<has this image in his head of a dying hospital, because all the patients are walking out, healed>

<thinks this idea has some merrits>

Returning to Kings: they were rebuilding it (not sure if again or continuing) when I went in for Xrays they had to shoo the builders out while the Xray machine was operating.

They hoped it would alll be finished in a few weeks from then. I never dared go back to find out if it ever did get finished.


The idea of destroying the hospital to rid the patients of their illnesses seems to be a vague approach to some of the more esoteric medical practices from around the globe - almost like the Chinese recipe for cooking the pig by burning down the house.

Returning to Kings: they were rebuilding it (not sure if again or continuing) when I went in for Xrays they had to shoo the builders out while the Xray machine was operating.

They hoped it would alll be finished in a few weeks from then. I never dared go back to find out if it ever did get finished.


The idea of destroying the hospital to rid the patients of their illnesses seems to be a vague approach to some of the more esoteric medical practices from around the globe - almost like the Chinese recipe for cooking the pig by burning down the house.

Or throwing the potter in the kiln to make the copper reds come out nicely...

Is that a reference to "The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern", Miss Kitten?

Do Wednesdays and Thursdays count? I have had a bad run. I got home yesterday to find that my baby (my pet chinese silky) of ten and a half years had had a fox dig it's way into her night time cage the night before. All that is left are two wing feathers.

I have had a really bad time with buses and trains.
And I've been moving buildings, so I've been having to jump up and down about unfinished plumbing, electrical systems, paintwork and all manner of details. Worst, it was my day off too.

when you move buildings, do you just pick them up (c.f. Superman) or subtly rearrange them? (c.f. Blaster Bates)