Life in the Armpit of England
It has been so long since my last episode (‘How I Became a Post-graduate Alcoholic’) but at the same time so little has happened. That’s what you get for living in a campus the size of… well, a Polo field (don’t ask…. I have NO idea how small or large a polo field is. But too small for 600 students and associated staff anyway). Indeed, I have stuck it out in Silsoe, near Luton, the armpit of England, and I have been spat out the other side alive and well and a Master of Water Management. All that was required of me over the course of the last few months however was a thesis. Talk about a trial and a tribulation all rolled into one… it took me some very long weeks of research and many more of writing to finally get it to some semblance of an academic paper worthy of a pass (or even worthy of merely wiping my rear end with). In fact, I was in DC to do the research and most of the writing. It won’t take much time for you to put two and two together; I chose to do my work there because Jillian is there. No points for guessing that: it was an easy one. Anyway, I came back to Silsoe campus, near Luton, the armpit of England, two months later to put the final touches on the thesis, and basically just polish it up. However, some of you may have heard the well known… Bantu… yes, uhm….Bantu proverb, ‘you can’t polish a pooh.’ Well, I defied Bantu wisdom by pursuing the foolhardy endeavour of polishing my faeces…. I mean… my thesis…. Ach, all one in the same, thesis/pile of shit (Note: first mention of excrement, and only in the first paragraph. Yes! Still have the touch).
This just transpired, but what has gone on in the roller-coaster ride that has been my life since starting the MSc? Casting my mind back so far is in itself a tribulation for me these days. I only recently had my day of birth – my auspicious birthday in fact – which means I am one year older than I was… well… last year! Ok, ok, 28. I turned the ripe old age of 28, on the 28th of July and it is exacting its toll on my grey matter. But I’ll try hard and hope nothing gets squeezed out of my brain in the process… (Although granted Ed, not much would ooze out really, seeing as I have a head the size of a pea).
Well, for one, it’s been an excruciating time, seeing as Jillian is across the Atlantic from me pining away (well, I damn well hope so). And yes, that would lead one to believe that we are still together, and very happy, thank you very much. Couldn’t be better (well, that is a complete lie as we could be TOGETHER which would be a WHOLE lot better). In fact, she came over to this neck of the armpit over the Christmas period. We indulged in some university Christmas Snow Ball frivolities, whence I dressed up as Santa, gave sweeties to the masses, had melting chocolates thrust into my bearded mouth thereby eating hairy mars bars, shook my bearded self to some Saturday Night Fever on the dance floor, lost 10 kilos in sweat and continued dancing to live covers of Bryan Adams, Celine Dion and the likes. Aaah, I miss the campus already… I miss it like the world misses Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, General Franco, Augusto Pinochet (oh yes, no mistake here; he belongs with that distinguished list of dictators, genocidal killers and downright unruly lot).
Jillian and I then spent three blissful weeks at my parents in Ibiza. Indulging in home cooking, seven course meals with humble Ibizenco indigenous peasant folk (otherwise known as our neighbors), orange juice made from the oranges from the orange trees in our terraces… imagine that, orange juice from oranges! And oranges from ORANGE trees!! Unbelievable. But the relaxation could not last forever, and I had to be back in Shitsoe, I mean Silsoe, for some more watery education.
For those of you that have not met Jillian (which is most of you I believe), She is GREAT! An example of her greatness was typified one day, a month or so after Christmas. I spoke to her one Sunday late afternoon, to get my ‘Jillian-fix’ (a month is the threshold, after which I start missing her desperately). The next day I had morning lectures, and during the coffee break I was in the cafeteria buying some milk when someone taps me on the shoulder. I wheel around with milk in hand, and there right in front of my eyes was Jillian! “Hello, would you like some home-baked cookies to go with your milk?” I was completely… flabbergasted, gobsmacked, bowled over, taken aback. Supposedly I muttered something like, “Can you stay?!” How’s that for a SurPRISE?! Definitely livened up that week on campus for me.
The campus was an interesting one really. A wonderful diversity of students from all walks of life and ethnicities; Ethiopia, France, Taiwan, Jamaica, Mexico, Brunei, Ghana, Libya. Aahh, my Libyan friends…. They unfortunately left, and the campus wasn’t the same without them. No male chauvinist harassment of our female friends, or any stalking into the laundry rooms late at night (not stalking ME; the girls, still talking about the girls on campus) or bartering of camels for our female colleagues…. Ah, we missed them sourly (OK, I come clean. We didn’t actually partake in any bartering of Silsoe girls for camels. I have always wanted to own a camel though... but going by what Silsoe had to offer I would have been lucky to get a limping flea-ridden stunted donkey in exchange…).
Talking about limping flea-ridden stunted donkeys…. I went back to Costa Rica. (What does Costa Rica have to do with limping flea-ridden stunted donkeys? Well, I am sure it has its fair share of them, and were they worthy of attention I might have remembered clasping my eyes on one… but anyway it’s a great segue into my Costa Rica episode; great segue…superb…). I can’t seem to get away from the enchanted Rich Coast. The BBC required my services to do what I love to do most: consort with monkeys (There you go! Monkeys resembles donkeys, and there were definitely a couple of limping flea-ridden stunted monkeys in Curú). That is, the second thing I love most; the first being consorting with my Jillian! This time I not only had to contend with little white-faced capuchins but also a little Argentinean human. You see, in the past I
had been asked to work on a Wildlife on One on the capuchins we had filmed a couple of years ago. But since I decided to take my brain for some well-needed exercise at Silsoe campus (near Luton, the armpit of England), I wasn’t able to take up the offer. Instead however, I flew out for two weeks (in the middle of classes) to train this little Argentinean guy in everything I know about monkey business.
The trip was much less eventful than previous ones. A normal day involved reading about Phosphate movement in soil horizons and how it leads to diffuse pollution of watercourses in the River Pizzle of England…. underneath a mango tree in southwest Costa Rica… while monkeys (not donkeys) laze about in the trees above us in the midday heat; basically just another run-of-the-mill day at the office in Costa Rica. But at least I didn’t get any ticks this time, well not on my member anyway. I did however get something mysterious that drained me of all energy for the last two days… ominous to say the least, causing me to even visit a
hospital/clinic/vet/small-building-with-white-clad-people-calling-themselves-“doctor”-and-“nurse.” Whatever kind of outfit it was, I decided to just get my temperature checked out to be sure I didn’t have malaria or dengue or worse still “Chagas disease” (where a particular species of beetle feasts on your blood overnight and proceeds to regurgitate some particular substance that causes your heart to swell up to three times its normal size, causing you to keel over and die) or something, and walked out.

I have since been to a hospital, although this time in Bedford, East Anglia, (the armpit of England). I don’t know what’s better; a random “clinic” in faraway Costa Rica or one of England’s National Health Service hospitals… Case in point: a nurse inquired, “What are you doing at uni?” To that I reply, “Water Management”. She looks at me perplexed and says, “Excuse me, what?” “W-A-T-E-R Management.” Suddenly the certified NHS trained nurse’s face lights up, “Oh, as in O2!” I rest my case. I can picture it now; an old woman is in dire need of oxygen due to a collapsed lung and the nurse rushes in with a fricking canister full of water, “Gang way, gang way… Who’s in need of O2?”
Anyway, my affliction was… well, to tell you the truth I thought it was trapped gas, and so I lay on the sofa for what must have been hours with my ass up in the air hoping the gases would slowly emanate upwards and out of me. To my wild disbelief, that strategy did NOT work. Consequently, I spent a horrible night with abdominal pains and no sleep whatsoever. All my housemates were either hung over to shit and still over the limit, or from Ghana and therefore unlikely to be able to drive on the right/correct (left) side of the road. And anyway, it was 6am on a Saturday morning. So it came to be that I drove myself to the hospital and checked myself into Bedford hospital with what was later diagnosed as acute appendicitis.
Thankfully, painkillers were administered shortly after arriving. But I must say, morphine is underrated. Actually it’s more of a pain in the ass if you ask me. A literal one. It felt like that limping flea-ridden donkey had gone and kicked me square in the left butt cheek. Shit, I think I could feel the bruise where the nurse jabbed me a month after!!
The three days I spent at the hospital were three too many. I shared my wing of the ward with five other patients, their average age being at least 81. Oh, the farts, coughs, moans, shitting, vomiting… there were all sorts of bodily function tunes at all hours of the day… it was a veritable wind orchestra all around me. Thankfully curtains were drawn when those unable to walk to the toilet had to defecate, so I was spared the visual ‘entertainment,’ but unfortunately the accompanying soundtrack was audible to the naked ear. Oh too audible. But it’s a horrible thing to not be able to walk yourself to the bathroom to do the business. I learnt the hard way the morning after the carving session/operation. As the drip I was connected to had been doing its job pretty damn well I was busting at the seams for a pee. But I was in so much pain, partly because no nurse was around to ask for any painkillers, but mostly to do with the fact that only a few hours ago THEY HAD CUT OPEN THROUGH MY SKIN, MUSCLE AND TISSUE AND TOOK OUT A PART OF ME!! It took a lot of will power to sit myself upright on the edge of the bed, but I could not for the life of me hobble to the toilet. No way. But I couldn’t even stand up to draw the curtains around my bed, or summon any inept nurse to do so, and so commenced urinating into some potty contraption they have for such occasions, for the entire world to see. As Murphy’s Law would have it, a nurse came as I was in midflow and kindly drew the curtains; better late than never.
Over the course of the unfortunate days I was in the hospital I was able to learn more about my fellow inmates. For example, there was a 70+ old man (he actually looked like The Penguin from one of the Batman films, except without the make-up… in other words… like Danny Devito) who would bitch about a poor old incontinent man spending too much time in the bathroom! But once he was out, Danny DeVito look-a-likey wouldn’t go in! Charles, to my right, was suffering from pancreatitis, and would shuffle back and forth to the toilet to brush his teeth, with his drip alongside him on wheels. He also had a colostomy bag, which he would carry with him. When coming out of the toilet and commencing his shuffle back to his bed, he would be all twisted and wound up in all the tubes. Of course the nurses were nowhere to be seen and so I would slowly get up and attempt to untangle him from his tubes and help him to bed.
There was a rough old Scot with tattoos all over his body moaning in his cool new modern bed (the rest of ours were old metal hospital beds). He wouldn’t stop shouting for the nurses and moving around in his bed. “NURRRSE, help me. NURRRSE, aren’t yee gonna help meee?! I’m falling off mee bed.” [Of course sir, that would be because you are squirming around like a hamster in Richard Gere’s anal passage]
Being in hospital is like travelling. Everyone is fixated with bowel movements; size, consistency, frequency, texture of shits… etc. In fact, they weigh the piss and pooh on a daily basis. I always forgot and failed to mention when I went to the bathroom. D’oh! The nurses were constantly asking whether I had broken wind yet and if I had moved my bowels yet? “Do you mean if I have let rip or taken a dump recently? Nope.” Imagine, me, David Bonnardeaux, had not farted for more than 24 hours!!! Also for the first time in my life I was constipated!! Although that was not to last long, as the exertion of walking to the telephone moved something down under causing me to break wind. A horrible feeling as they put Vaseline around your… uhm, bottom, so as to avoid bedsores and cracking of the skin around… well, the crack! I’m sorry. Too much detail eh? Well, nonetheless I whooped out loud “YES! Nurse, NURSE, I farted, I farted!” Amusement was had by all around. The fact my bowels were starting to work again meant that I could be discharged within 24 hours. Woohooo!!
During my stay at Bedford Hospital I was cornered by a hospital priest/chaplain who took advantage of my incapacitated state to try and convert me! The nerve. He gave me a little leaflet with “Be Still and Know That I Am God.” Well, yes there is not much else to do in a hospital after an operation than BE STILL… There were some other great morsels of uplifting and optimistic stuff inside the leaflet. For example:
“All sorts of questions may be in your mind at this time. What is wrong with me? Will my family cope? What about my job? What is the meaning of suffering? Is there a God? Does God care?”
[I like how they just slipped the “is there a God” one in there! What is wrong with me? Will my family cope? What about my job? How long will I take to recover? Shit, I missed the new episode of ER... Is there a God? I wonder if anyone has fed my pet Chihuahua?!!”]
“God’s word to you is, ‘Be still and know that I am God’. [There he goes again, adding salt to injury. I can’t MOVE, I AM INCAPACITATED!] May God help you to receive his comfort, his strength and his courage during your illness.”
Morning Prayer
“When you pass through the waters I will be with you [pass through the waters, or does he mean pass waters…if so, why didn’t HE help me pull the curtains when I needed a piss?! Thanks for nothing]; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you [who’s they? Piranhas? Caiman? Waves? Electric eels? That’s it. Must be. Electric eels will not overwhelm me as I pass through the rivers…]; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God… you are precious in my eyes… and I love you.” (Isaiah, 43: 2-4) [Oh wonderful, so if I can walk through fire, I should be able to just get off this hospital bed and do the Irish jig then…? OK…]
A Prayer
O God, thank you for this new day, for the rest of the past night, for the nurses and doctors, and for all those who have worked through the night, caring for the patients in this hospital. [Rest in the night? What with the doctors and nurses waking you up every other hour checking blood pressure, sticking needles in you, poking thermometers in your ear, asking you if you are sleepy? “Ah yes, I am sleepy. It is 3am and you JUST WOKE ME UP!” But really, thanks to the NURSES. What would we do without them?! Particularly the cute ones…, which amounted to… ONE.]
O God, help me to remember that I cannot undo the past; to remember that I cannot see into the future; [Yes, for all those deluded people that have been watching too many Back to the Future movies or Quantum Leap…. YOU CAN’T GO BACK INTO THE PAST OR INTO THE FUTURE!!] to leave the past and future in your hands. [Great, but doesn’t anyone wonder where HE, the Almighty, was when they fell down the stairs after their stroke, or coughed up a lung, or had pancreatitis?? Nope. There’s no accountability is there?]
Help me to face discomfort without complaining, to bear pain if need be with courage, to be as helpful and considerate as I can to other patients and all the staff [clearly neither the other patients in my ward OR the staff read this little prayer!] Amen.
Evening Prayer
‘Now I will lie down in peace, and sleep [“NURRRSE, NURRRSE, aren’t yee gonna help meee?!” “Hello Mr. Bonnardeaux, let’s check your temperature, and give you a jab, and some painkillers, and chat to you inanely while you attempt to get some shut-eye.” “Eh, get OUT of the bathroom!”]; for thou alone, O Lord, makest me live unafraid.’
Thank you, O God, for all the people who have looked after me today; for all those who visited me today; for the letters and the get-well cards; for the flowers and gifts friends have sent. [Why thank God? Better still; thank the people that came to see you, as I did. It was great. 8 people came to see me! I was grateful. To them.]
I know that sleep is one of the best medicines for both the body and mind. [But give me some painkillers NOW!] Help me to sleep tonight. [“NURRSE, NURRSE, I’m falling of mee bed!!”]
A Prayer before an Operation
"O God, you understand my feelings at this moment; you know my fears and my nervousness; you know the thoughts that I cannot put into words. […Because I have a mask over my mouth administering a general anaesthetic].
I thank you for all the skill and wisdom of the surgeon, the anaesthetist and the nursing staff. Give them your strength during all their work today [but not too much strength… we don’t want them to cut through any other organs or important bits of piping in my body], and help me to place myself in their hands. "
Anyway, did you know that three days before the 1922 British General election campaign began Winston Churchill had to have his appendix removed? Quote: “Three days before the contest opened I was struck down by appendicitis. I had a very serious operation only just performed in time…There is no doubt a major operation is a shock to the system. I felt desperately weak and ill…” He was able to campaign only briefly, and lost the election. “I found myself without office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix." Well, the timing was ideal in my case; it seemed my appendix was pretty rotten. I however wasn’t running for president… but I was discharged a day before my final MSc exams. The short-and-curlies of it all was I did not have to take them! Perfect!!
And so the story continues in the next episode of “David’s Trials and Tribulations of Life”. Once again I am thinking of your sanity, and so will spare you another three pages of drivel; that’s the next instalment! Where you can find out what I am doing, where I am doing it and why at present. Sneak preview: a run in with Nestle’s president’s wife… a chat with the former President of the Republic of Bolivia… thesis drama with a squirming weasel-like supervisor… consorting with Greek Mafiosi… and the end of England for me… perhaps…
To the loo,
David
This just transpired, but what has gone on in the roller-coaster ride that has been my life since starting the MSc? Casting my mind back so far is in itself a tribulation for me these days. I only recently had my day of birth – my auspicious birthday in fact – which means I am one year older than I was… well… last year! Ok, ok, 28. I turned the ripe old age of 28, on the 28th of July and it is exacting its toll on my grey matter. But I’ll try hard and hope nothing gets squeezed out of my brain in the process… (Although granted Ed, not much would ooze out really, seeing as I have a head the size of a pea).
Well, for one, it’s been an excruciating time, seeing as Jillian is across the Atlantic from me pining away (well, I damn well hope so). And yes, that would lead one to believe that we are still together, and very happy, thank you very much. Couldn’t be better (well, that is a complete lie as we could be TOGETHER which would be a WHOLE lot better). In fact, she came over to this neck of the armpit over the Christmas period. We indulged in some university Christmas Snow Ball frivolities, whence I dressed up as Santa, gave sweeties to the masses, had melting chocolates thrust into my bearded mouth thereby eating hairy mars bars, shook my bearded self to some Saturday Night Fever on the dance floor, lost 10 kilos in sweat and continued dancing to live covers of Bryan Adams, Celine Dion and the likes. Aaah, I miss the campus already… I miss it like the world misses Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, General Franco, Augusto Pinochet (oh yes, no mistake here; he belongs with that distinguished list of dictators, genocidal killers and downright unruly lot).

For those of you that have not met Jillian (which is most of you I believe), She is GREAT! An example of her greatness was typified one day, a month or so after Christmas. I spoke to her one Sunday late afternoon, to get my ‘Jillian-fix’ (a month is the threshold, after which I start missing her desperately). The next day I had morning lectures, and during the coffee break I was in the cafeteria buying some milk when someone taps me on the shoulder. I wheel around with milk in hand, and there right in front of my eyes was Jillian! “Hello, would you like some home-baked cookies to go with your milk?” I was completely… flabbergasted, gobsmacked, bowled over, taken aback. Supposedly I muttered something like, “Can you stay?!” How’s that for a SurPRISE?! Definitely livened up that week on campus for me.
The campus was an interesting one really. A wonderful diversity of students from all walks of life and ethnicities; Ethiopia, France, Taiwan, Jamaica, Mexico, Brunei, Ghana, Libya. Aahh, my Libyan friends…. They unfortunately left, and the campus wasn’t the same without them. No male chauvinist harassment of our female friends, or any stalking into the laundry rooms late at night (not stalking ME; the girls, still talking about the girls on campus) or bartering of camels for our female colleagues…. Ah, we missed them sourly (OK, I come clean. We didn’t actually partake in any bartering of Silsoe girls for camels. I have always wanted to own a camel though... but going by what Silsoe had to offer I would have been lucky to get a limping flea-ridden stunted donkey in exchange…).
Talking about limping flea-ridden stunted donkeys…. I went back to Costa Rica. (What does Costa Rica have to do with limping flea-ridden stunted donkeys? Well, I am sure it has its fair share of them, and were they worthy of attention I might have remembered clasping my eyes on one… but anyway it’s a great segue into my Costa Rica episode; great segue…superb…). I can’t seem to get away from the enchanted Rich Coast. The BBC required my services to do what I love to do most: consort with monkeys (There you go! Monkeys resembles donkeys, and there were definitely a couple of limping flea-ridden stunted monkeys in Curú). That is, the second thing I love most; the first being consorting with my Jillian! This time I not only had to contend with little white-faced capuchins but also a little Argentinean human. You see, in the past I

The trip was much less eventful than previous ones. A normal day involved reading about Phosphate movement in soil horizons and how it leads to diffuse pollution of watercourses in the River Pizzle of England…. underneath a mango tree in southwest Costa Rica… while monkeys (not donkeys) laze about in the trees above us in the midday heat; basically just another run-of-the-mill day at the office in Costa Rica. But at least I didn’t get any ticks this time, well not on my member anyway. I did however get something mysterious that drained me of all energy for the last two days… ominous to say the least, causing me to even visit a
hospital/clinic/vet/small-building-with-white-clad-people-calling-themselves-“doctor”-and-“nurse.” Whatever kind of outfit it was, I decided to just get my temperature checked out to be sure I didn’t have malaria or dengue or worse still “Chagas disease” (where a particular species of beetle feasts on your blood overnight and proceeds to regurgitate some particular substance that causes your heart to swell up to three times its normal size, causing you to keel over and die) or something, and walked out.

I have since been to a hospital, although this time in Bedford, East Anglia, (the armpit of England). I don’t know what’s better; a random “clinic” in faraway Costa Rica or one of England’s National Health Service hospitals… Case in point: a nurse inquired, “What are you doing at uni?” To that I reply, “Water Management”. She looks at me perplexed and says, “Excuse me, what?” “W-A-T-E-R Management.” Suddenly the certified NHS trained nurse’s face lights up, “Oh, as in O2!” I rest my case. I can picture it now; an old woman is in dire need of oxygen due to a collapsed lung and the nurse rushes in with a fricking canister full of water, “Gang way, gang way… Who’s in need of O2?”
Anyway, my affliction was… well, to tell you the truth I thought it was trapped gas, and so I lay on the sofa for what must have been hours with my ass up in the air hoping the gases would slowly emanate upwards and out of me. To my wild disbelief, that strategy did NOT work. Consequently, I spent a horrible night with abdominal pains and no sleep whatsoever. All my housemates were either hung over to shit and still over the limit, or from Ghana and therefore unlikely to be able to drive on the right/correct (left) side of the road. And anyway, it was 6am on a Saturday morning. So it came to be that I drove myself to the hospital and checked myself into Bedford hospital with what was later diagnosed as acute appendicitis.
Thankfully, painkillers were administered shortly after arriving. But I must say, morphine is underrated. Actually it’s more of a pain in the ass if you ask me. A literal one. It felt like that limping flea-ridden donkey had gone and kicked me square in the left butt cheek. Shit, I think I could feel the bruise where the nurse jabbed me a month after!!
The three days I spent at the hospital were three too many. I shared my wing of the ward with five other patients, their average age being at least 81. Oh, the farts, coughs, moans, shitting, vomiting… there were all sorts of bodily function tunes at all hours of the day… it was a veritable wind orchestra all around me. Thankfully curtains were drawn when those unable to walk to the toilet had to defecate, so I was spared the visual ‘entertainment,’ but unfortunately the accompanying soundtrack was audible to the naked ear. Oh too audible. But it’s a horrible thing to not be able to walk yourself to the bathroom to do the business. I learnt the hard way the morning after the carving session/operation. As the drip I was connected to had been doing its job pretty damn well I was busting at the seams for a pee. But I was in so much pain, partly because no nurse was around to ask for any painkillers, but mostly to do with the fact that only a few hours ago THEY HAD CUT OPEN THROUGH MY SKIN, MUSCLE AND TISSUE AND TOOK OUT A PART OF ME!! It took a lot of will power to sit myself upright on the edge of the bed, but I could not for the life of me hobble to the toilet. No way. But I couldn’t even stand up to draw the curtains around my bed, or summon any inept nurse to do so, and so commenced urinating into some potty contraption they have for such occasions, for the entire world to see. As Murphy’s Law would have it, a nurse came as I was in midflow and kindly drew the curtains; better late than never.
Over the course of the unfortunate days I was in the hospital I was able to learn more about my fellow inmates. For example, there was a 70+ old man (he actually looked like The Penguin from one of the Batman films, except without the make-up… in other words… like Danny Devito) who would bitch about a poor old incontinent man spending too much time in the bathroom! But once he was out, Danny DeVito look-a-likey wouldn’t go in! Charles, to my right, was suffering from pancreatitis, and would shuffle back and forth to the toilet to brush his teeth, with his drip alongside him on wheels. He also had a colostomy bag, which he would carry with him. When coming out of the toilet and commencing his shuffle back to his bed, he would be all twisted and wound up in all the tubes. Of course the nurses were nowhere to be seen and so I would slowly get up and attempt to untangle him from his tubes and help him to bed.
There was a rough old Scot with tattoos all over his body moaning in his cool new modern bed (the rest of ours were old metal hospital beds). He wouldn’t stop shouting for the nurses and moving around in his bed. “NURRRSE, help me. NURRRSE, aren’t yee gonna help meee?! I’m falling off mee bed.” [Of course sir, that would be because you are squirming around like a hamster in Richard Gere’s anal passage]
Being in hospital is like travelling. Everyone is fixated with bowel movements; size, consistency, frequency, texture of shits… etc. In fact, they weigh the piss and pooh on a daily basis. I always forgot and failed to mention when I went to the bathroom. D’oh! The nurses were constantly asking whether I had broken wind yet and if I had moved my bowels yet? “Do you mean if I have let rip or taken a dump recently? Nope.” Imagine, me, David Bonnardeaux, had not farted for more than 24 hours!!! Also for the first time in my life I was constipated!! Although that was not to last long, as the exertion of walking to the telephone moved something down under causing me to break wind. A horrible feeling as they put Vaseline around your… uhm, bottom, so as to avoid bedsores and cracking of the skin around… well, the crack! I’m sorry. Too much detail eh? Well, nonetheless I whooped out loud “YES! Nurse, NURSE, I farted, I farted!” Amusement was had by all around. The fact my bowels were starting to work again meant that I could be discharged within 24 hours. Woohooo!!
During my stay at Bedford Hospital I was cornered by a hospital priest/chaplain who took advantage of my incapacitated state to try and convert me! The nerve. He gave me a little leaflet with “Be Still and Know That I Am God.” Well, yes there is not much else to do in a hospital after an operation than BE STILL… There were some other great morsels of uplifting and optimistic stuff inside the leaflet. For example:
“All sorts of questions may be in your mind at this time. What is wrong with me? Will my family cope? What about my job? What is the meaning of suffering? Is there a God? Does God care?”
[I like how they just slipped the “is there a God” one in there! What is wrong with me? Will my family cope? What about my job? How long will I take to recover? Shit, I missed the new episode of ER... Is there a God? I wonder if anyone has fed my pet Chihuahua?!!”]
“God’s word to you is, ‘Be still and know that I am God’. [There he goes again, adding salt to injury. I can’t MOVE, I AM INCAPACITATED!] May God help you to receive his comfort, his strength and his courage during your illness.”
Morning Prayer
“When you pass through the waters I will be with you [pass through the waters, or does he mean pass waters…if so, why didn’t HE help me pull the curtains when I needed a piss?! Thanks for nothing]; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you [who’s they? Piranhas? Caiman? Waves? Electric eels? That’s it. Must be. Electric eels will not overwhelm me as I pass through the rivers…]; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God… you are precious in my eyes… and I love you.” (Isaiah, 43: 2-4) [Oh wonderful, so if I can walk through fire, I should be able to just get off this hospital bed and do the Irish jig then…? OK…]
A Prayer
O God, thank you for this new day, for the rest of the past night, for the nurses and doctors, and for all those who have worked through the night, caring for the patients in this hospital. [Rest in the night? What with the doctors and nurses waking you up every other hour checking blood pressure, sticking needles in you, poking thermometers in your ear, asking you if you are sleepy? “Ah yes, I am sleepy. It is 3am and you JUST WOKE ME UP!” But really, thanks to the NURSES. What would we do without them?! Particularly the cute ones…, which amounted to… ONE.]
O God, help me to remember that I cannot undo the past; to remember that I cannot see into the future; [Yes, for all those deluded people that have been watching too many Back to the Future movies or Quantum Leap…. YOU CAN’T GO BACK INTO THE PAST OR INTO THE FUTURE!!] to leave the past and future in your hands. [Great, but doesn’t anyone wonder where HE, the Almighty, was when they fell down the stairs after their stroke, or coughed up a lung, or had pancreatitis?? Nope. There’s no accountability is there?]
Help me to face discomfort without complaining, to bear pain if need be with courage, to be as helpful and considerate as I can to other patients and all the staff [clearly neither the other patients in my ward OR the staff read this little prayer!] Amen.
Evening Prayer
‘Now I will lie down in peace, and sleep [“NURRRSE, NURRRSE, aren’t yee gonna help meee?!” “Hello Mr. Bonnardeaux, let’s check your temperature, and give you a jab, and some painkillers, and chat to you inanely while you attempt to get some shut-eye.” “Eh, get OUT of the bathroom!”]; for thou alone, O Lord, makest me live unafraid.’
Thank you, O God, for all the people who have looked after me today; for all those who visited me today; for the letters and the get-well cards; for the flowers and gifts friends have sent. [Why thank God? Better still; thank the people that came to see you, as I did. It was great. 8 people came to see me! I was grateful. To them.]
I know that sleep is one of the best medicines for both the body and mind. [But give me some painkillers NOW!] Help me to sleep tonight. [“NURRSE, NURRSE, I’m falling of mee bed!!”]
A Prayer before an Operation
"O God, you understand my feelings at this moment; you know my fears and my nervousness; you know the thoughts that I cannot put into words. […Because I have a mask over my mouth administering a general anaesthetic].
I thank you for all the skill and wisdom of the surgeon, the anaesthetist and the nursing staff. Give them your strength during all their work today [but not too much strength… we don’t want them to cut through any other organs or important bits of piping in my body], and help me to place myself in their hands. "
Anyway, did you know that three days before the 1922 British General election campaign began Winston Churchill had to have his appendix removed? Quote: “Three days before the contest opened I was struck down by appendicitis. I had a very serious operation only just performed in time…There is no doubt a major operation is a shock to the system. I felt desperately weak and ill…” He was able to campaign only briefly, and lost the election. “I found myself without office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix." Well, the timing was ideal in my case; it seemed my appendix was pretty rotten. I however wasn’t running for president… but I was discharged a day before my final MSc exams. The short-and-curlies of it all was I did not have to take them! Perfect!!
And so the story continues in the next episode of “David’s Trials and Tribulations of Life”. Once again I am thinking of your sanity, and so will spare you another three pages of drivel; that’s the next instalment! Where you can find out what I am doing, where I am doing it and why at present. Sneak preview: a run in with Nestle’s president’s wife… a chat with the former President of the Republic of Bolivia… thesis drama with a squirming weasel-like supervisor… consorting with Greek Mafiosi… and the end of England for me… perhaps…
To the loo,
David
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