X marks the spot

Not that I want to tempt fate, but we have reached the TV sitcom cliff hanger, perfect for that tear jerk ending, all it needs is just a short note saying thanks for everything but Elvis has now left the building. Now that would get my daughter on the Oprah show who would console her by letting her have a free run around at ToysRus.

Although I am not a head in the sand sort, I have to admit I have avoided returning to this writing lark. I did have a big hole in my head for a start, my visual and emotional focusing was all messed up, and lets be honest, there is no deadline now and fingers crossed for the foreseeable future. I can come up with a hundred and one excuses but I know deep down, I just did not want to return to an area of seriously bad karma.

I assume this mental watertight door came about to preserve our early ancestors. Limited by grunt vocabulary they could not debate the whole meaning of the cycles of life, in fact millenniums later we still cant. After witnessing their club wielding neighbours become some Godzilla afternoon trail mix, they leg it and warn others through camp fire charades. No one wants return to see huge dung piles infused with their chums loin cloths.

My feeling of invincibility has taken a serious battering we are so fragile. Not that I want to come over all new age and lentil soup, I can appreciate why old folks get up early to see the start of a new day. Ten o'clock in the morning feels pretty much the same as midday, but at dawn, you really can smell, see, and be part of the day coming alive.

Its this same self preservation make up that gives us goose bumps when spending a night in a room of a recent gruesome murder, putting down my thoughts again is returning to those subconscious steaming piles of dung.

Having said that, this coffee covered sticky keyboard in front of me served well as an emotional and therapeutic crutch through the post OP period, so as a sign of respect to my lord Logitech I return for some sort of "closure", I say closure with a bit of trepidation, as its only been a few months since my day under the angle grinder and not out of the woods yet. I stayed in touch with a number of people who had the same operation, and lets just say some of the outcomes are not so good. You often hear disasters victims wonder why they escaped unscathed while all their chums perished, instead of being happy they are alive they get depressed they survived.

I am really pushing my luck here, this is tempt fate number 2, sort of Russian roulette with a with two bullets in the cylinder, I cant help feeling that it was almost, dare I say it.. Lots of wood touching later...an anticlimax. I know these things have a tendency of coming back and biting you when you least expect it, bacterial or viral meningitis microbes are lurking around every corner, brain fluid leaks is just only a cough away and re-growth is a very real issue requiring scans every year.

Think of the millennium bug, everyone was stock piling cash and food, expecting civilization to collapse at midnight 31 December 1999, orphanages would be wiped out by planes and satellites plummeting from the sky. Mile long bulk oil tankers would careen out of control and ram into Krakatoa. When the clock tick past midnight nothing happened, maybe in the morning the odd vending machine spat out a latte instead of an espresso. Most people saw the anticlimax as a confirmation that the whole thing was fabricated by the big hardware firms to offload new software and computers on a panic global population. The geeks views was nothing happened because they were prepared, silently beavered away in bunkers sorting it all out.

While people who have been permanently disfigured or disabled by this operation must read my anticlimax statement with utter contempt. Let me redeem myself, it shows that all the preparation, teamwork, research and surgeons quietly practicing on previous guinea pigs has paid off. Like the millennium bug, no body noticed it, anticlimax to brain surgery is the ideal result.

If you have never been faced with your own dark cave, you need imagine a Captain Hiroshima of the newly formed kamikaze squad, after weeks of practicing flying into giant inflatable spongy targets, he is there standing bolt upright under an awe inspiring sunrise, his bandanna tails dramatically flutter behind his no nonsense shaved head. One way ticket in his pocket, swords drawn and sake held high, lots of Banzai later, he climbs aboard his brand new zero mileage Mitsubishi zero, the engine is just run in, and the next oil service will not be required.
After lots of guttural grunts, that only hardcore Japanese men seem excel at, he squats Asian style on the cockpit floor, seats and cushion is a luxury that is not required, he is now focused on his ultimate goal of being a lump of metal fused to an American flight deck. Captain "mushroom" Hiroshima then takes off with his fellow steely eyed chums.

The night before, our squatting chum put in to play a plan, to guarantee he will be the one to give the enemies of Nippon Inc. the most spectacular of firework display. He packed his plane and wallet with so much explosives, the aircraft became a solid block of bad news from the sky.

You now fast forward a few hours after the big send off and we see the locked gates of the deserted airstrip, the gates rusty wire mesh prevents the jiggling tumble weeds from doing their manic cart wheeling journeys. A dejected and exhausted Hiroshima gets off a dusty number 74 bus and shuffles to the gate. The petrol attendant Private Yo-Sushi was so caught up in the Banzai moment hours earlier, he failed to notice although the plane tanks were full, due to the excess Roman candle baggage it would only reach the paddy fields at the end of the island. With a crusty stain in his pants from landing a volatile brick between some shoji screens, Captain Hiroshima hesitates a moment before pressing the door bell, he doesn't even hear the Ding Dong his mind is churning over and over why me?

We all arrived in L A a few days before the big day. When asked by the custom officer whats the purpose of our visit, I told him its for my brain tumour surgery, he looked at my young family behind me and didn't have to say anything, his now sad eyes and faint smile said it all, a small nod in the direction to the exit was all that was needed. Our neighbour in Singapore kindly offer the use of his car and driver in LA, even his father turn up with a bunch of flowers. They under estimated the gypsy nature of our clan, luggage and bodies could not fit the large SUV. I had to take the bus to Hertz for my first task, to get the biggest set of wheel they had, wife was going to be driving for the first time in the US so when in Rome do as the Romans do. The following days was manic, we had to organize the apartment, collect the nanny from the airport, this nanny had the correct passport but the customs department singled her out because of her terrorist like name, she was reprimanded and penalized with demerit points, for non declaration of a few packets of hot chocolate powder for my toddler.

I slept surprising well the night before, wife didn't, I read a story of some poor bugger who had the same tumour, his fiancée just legged it never to be seen again. Its a tough and often underestimated commitment. My wife would be faced with the daunting task of looking after a toddler and possibly a bitter wheel chair bound cabbage, not just in a new and unfamiliar place but potentially for the rest of her life. In Her line of work makes she is normally tough and as hard as nails, but that night while she thought I was asleep I heard her silently crying, and it was heart breaking.

I had the last pre-op meeting with the Doc the day before the operation. He said I should only be worried if he was worried, and asked me if I thought he looked concerned? The cheery cheeky smile was there, the huge Hollywood white teeth stood out because of his California tan, if he had any doubt he certainly didn't show it. I was not to bothered myself, I had more heart burns and emergency trips to the WC from college examination stress. Unlike my academic days this time I did all my homework and was actually prepared for this big test.

No drink or solids for 12 hours before the surgery which was not a problem, knowing you are going for brain surgery the next day is a pretty good appetite suppressant.

Got up all bright eyed and bushy tailed and headed off to hospital at 8.30am. At the admittance reception there was a big queue, I felt like putting my hand up and saying that I should be allowed to bypass the line as I am the one having brain surgery today, but then one look around at all the sad and grey faces, I realise no one is here for a holiday, for some folks this could be the first of a dozen check-ins for others it may be the last. Check in went smoothly and they gave me this wrist bangle with a name and number, I asked if I get one for my toe like the movies, they did not find this funny.

This ritual of removing all my knick knacks is a surprisingly powerful one, especially if you are the sort that never removes watches, bangles, hair extension, make up, and contact lenses. Even in a shower you are not actually naked, festooned like a Christmas tree you are still carrying lifes baggage. The fact that you manage to track down and purchase rare Rolex, your credit card is black instead of green is all quite meaningless now. I smiled at the irony of it all, should it all go horribly wrong, I exit this world in the same suit that I arrived in. Now my only personal belongs are the good memories in my my head and a nice green disposable cremation friendly paper suit, It is like a space suit all thats missing is the NASA logo and some moon dust. I am attached via an umbilical cord to a hair dryer pumping warm air around your body, a very pleasant Zen like start to the day. If you are tight fisted or a tree hugging greenie its an underestimated efficient way of keeping the family warm without heating the house up.

Then the call came, its show time, my previous experience of being wheel chair bound in a busy lift was bad enough, try being flat out in a tube sprouting space suit on a hospital gurney. The lift was full and all playing the avoiding eye contact game. I was tempted to say Good Morning to the people getting on and revel in the awkwardness, but I bit my tongue and just played the retard role, looking up to the ceiling and occasionally twitching for added effect.
I may as well get used to this ceiling view as the next one month it will be pretty much all I will see. Ever noticed anyone cleaning a ceiling? you do get the odd disconcerting splatter of what looks like dried blood up there but on the whole its amazing how spot less and terminally dull they are. If ever there's an opportunity to design a hospital or dental surgery for that matter, I will pay a lot more attention to the ceiling design, Michelangelo was way ahead of his time.

When the lift door open my wife was told that is as far as she can go, I was on my own from then on. In many ways it was was a good we were not prepared for the sudden T-junction separation, all we could say was just "see ya later" I went right to the pre-op, and she went to the waiting room on the left. To be honest she had the short straw, having to wait on your own for surgery updates for the next 5-12 hours, can't be much fun in a room full stressed out relatives of other patients and bad coffee. It turns out she could return home and the surgeon just kept her updated with text messaging, she in turn updated our relatives and friends with emails. Marvels of modern technology there was chip by chip, slice by slice, suture by suture information beaming around the globe at the speed of light , and I was just a slab of meat on a stainless steel table oblivious to it all.

In the preparation room I was parked between two other bodies, I say bodies because they did not move or say anything, there are times when a wise crack in a difficult situation would normally break the ice, I realise this was not that time to crack ice, I just lay there like a bit-part actor in some coma movie. All three of us lying there in our space suits in silence thinking "OK this is it", must have been like Armstrong and his Apollo crew perched on top of a black and white giant stick of dynamite, my one small step for man.. is now out of my hands, admittedly it was probably never in my hands, its all down to the mission control egg heads and associated technology.

I over heard a porter outside complaining about how busy it was today and there's a bit of backlog, great of all days to have a grid lock, stressed out staff will start to cut corners. The internist came in to shave my head, I already had a number zero crew cut to save him the effort, plus I wanted to make sure there was no mistakes with hair obscuring the surgeons view. There is no procedure for marking surgery incision points, I heard of cases where they cut open the wrong side, apparently the nursed stuck a big X in the side of this blokes head, the doc assumed X marks the spot. The nurses X meant "not this side". Urban myth or not I was not taking any chances they wrote THIS SIDE on my head, and confirmed it a number of times with documentation.

The anesthetist came in, a lovely chubby English lady. She was fiddling with tubes and stuff in my arm, it turns out her brother is an Architect and amazingly I knew him, we went to a mutual chums stag night in Brighton 15 years ago. I can remember saying her brother is a lousy dancer. Then the infamous white light appeared before me, a glow at the end of a tunnel gradually getting brighter, I started hearing voices and felt a strange deep down chill, a cold that I have never felt before. The ethereal light turns out to be a 4 dollar K-Mart penlight being waved in front of my eyes. When are they going to start? was my first thought, I tried to look around and that's when it hit me, the disorientating spinning world, instantly I vomited. The vomiting convulsion moved my head which exasperated the disorientation, resulting in a permanent feedback loop of barf, movement, spin, barf, movement, spin.

I vaguely heard my wife saying the operation was a success and they got all the tumour while preserving my facial nerves, but as expected my balance and hearing nerves had to be sacrificed to remove the tumour. You would have thought I would be confused that it was all over in a split second, I can tell you the way I felt, I knew there was no grey area, I just been through something that has seriously messed me up. The operation took 8 hours, 2 and 1/2 hours was spent just opening my nut up.

My head felt like it was in a vice, with a handle shape and coloured like a giant banana, the vice operator was a pissed off and hungry gorilla. I was frozen stiff no amount of heating, and blankets could warm me up. I was expecting the "Hit by a freight train full of bowling balls", but nothing prepared me for the Mother of all hang over, and being strapped naked to a roller coaster in an arctic blizzard. I found Anne Franks Diary in the hospital waiting room a few days earlier, we all know what happens in the end, but the biggest nightmare for her and me, was not living in a cupboard, which surprisingly was actually bigger than an average modern two bedroom London flat, it was not knowing how or when this would all end.

I knew I was going to have a bit of a reaction to the knockout cocktail, alcohol free beer even gives me a hang over. This one really took the biscuit, they kept pumping me full of medication but my head was like a sausage on a BBQ just about ready to split open. This was all occurring over my eyes and forehead and nothing to do with the the incision area which was surprisingly pain free. I thought I was going to be cool hand cucumber coming out of surgery, saluting the surgeon with a fag in my mouth, but out of the three people in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) that night, I was the only one flailing around like a lobster in a hot pan. What actually did the trick was good old fashion ice pack on my forehead and eyes.


Ice chips now have a whole new meaning, to avoid vomiting I was not allowed to drink. There was already 12 hours pre-op fasting then another 8-10 hours operation, then add the side effects of all the drugs, and my mouth ended up as dry as a camels butt, in fact the my vomit was like a refreshing mouth wash. The only thing they would give is a couple of ice chips. Just as well I didn't have my wallet and a cash point was no where to be seen, I would have sold my soul for a few extra ice chips during my time in ICU.

My eyes were shut for pretty much two days in ICU not just due to the heavy drugs cocktail, but also every time I tried opening them a crack the world would spin, setting off my barf feedback loop. There was very nice lady who job was to stop me covering the walls and staff with diced carrots, she has a mini vacuum cleaner that deals with the bile before it even leaves my mouth. My bed felt like it was bolted to a fairground carousel that was tilted at 45 degrees, always spinning in a clockwise direction.

I know my own right hand side balance mechanism is now pickled in a bottle of formaldehyde, and resides on some medical school shelf, and yet curiously my brain doesn't know it. It still hasn't come to terms with the equivalent of having the starboard wing being totally ripped off. It is frantically trying to figure out why the body it has been piloting all these years is not responding and is now out of control in a clockwise spiral dive. What causes this lack of neuron communication in my bonce is a mystery, it just goes to show the complex nature of the mind. If it was my leg that was amputated I can see that, I can feel that.

My in-house neurological homing pigeon is sending signals from the front line back to HQ. The urgent message is asking the Captain to do something instantly I am falling to my right, and lets be honest I cant blame the pigeon, the sensation really does feel like I am slowly falling in downward clockwise spiral. If someone told me at the time I was a blindfolded passenger in a glider, that was carrying out a steep right hand banking maneuver, I would believe them. My eyes on the other hand was sending its own set of pigeon messengers telling the brain another story. The internal working of my head would be on overdrive trying to decipher the flurry of conflicting signals, my brains messaging department would look like a scene from Alfred Hitchcocks The Birds. The external hint of this fog of war going on in my head is the disorientating barf feedback loop, I could not even sit up let alone walk, and my eyes, the Docs use it as a guide on how the conflict is going, the eyes was involuntarily zipping around my eye sockets like a pinball on speed.

I was transferred out of ICU on my second day to a private room, I cant remember much of it, all I can recall is while being transferred to a CT Scan machines they nearly dropped me, and of all places to grab me was my head. Being in my own room now meant I did not have a nurse sitting at the end of my bed so if I needed anyone I had to yell or press a button. Pressing the button does not guarantee someone coming in, but what I discovered is if I disconnect one on the leads attached to me, it sets off an alarm that seem to get their attention. Though only to be used in real shit my pants emergency, the boy who cried wolf story still traumatises me to this day.

The hospital must have a comedian in the F&B department, there I am barfing away and they come in with a couple of real greasy spoon meal option, even the plastic smell of the menu made me feel green.

I was allowed water now, and drinking gallons of the stuff, I hate medication so I was doing everything to flush it out, I wanted to know if the overripe melon head, my tongue glued to the side of my mouth and the just licked a Newcastle city center pub astray taste, was the result of surgery or side effects of the medication.

Its now the long road to recovery and from where I am lying this is no road, its more like a ragged, avalanche prone, ice encrusted, Tibetan mountain goat trail to recovery.