Wednesday and I wake up with a start at 8 o’clock and reckon that I have just an hour to get across town to the hospital for my pre operation assessment. I have time to down my morning meds and head for the car only to find it iced over. After a hurried de-ice I drive off to town leaving the builders who have arrived to sort themselves out. Of curse its rush hour and Google maps takes me into the centre of town to take me out the other side. I get to the hospital a couple of minutes past 9 o’clock, park up and go to reception.

The reception in true hospital style take an imprint of my credit card and hand me a 12 page health questionnaire and a pen then direct me to the first floor pro operation assessment suite. I sit in the waiting room filling in the form. It is at times like these that I am glad everything goes into my phone diary as I have to constantly refer to it to provide dates of various medical adventures. I also carry my current prescription with me so I can fill in my medication details accurately. The pre op nurse calls me and asks what page am on, I am age 5, just to more to go. When she reappears I am ready and follow her into her clinical room. We go through everything I have ticked and she asks me confirm things or to explain things. Once we have flogged through the paper work she explains what will happen on the day and what and when I need to stop taking some of my current medications. Apparently the order on the operation list is decided on the day by the consultant and the theatre team at the risk meeting, so although I will rock up at 11 o’clock with my dressing gown and fluffy slippers I may not get operated on till later on in the afternoon adn then I will have to recover from the anaesthetic before they will let me go, so I could be released quite late on into the evening. Before I go the nurses will instruct me on keeping my wound dry, which might have implications for showering, but I think that will be okay. With the chitchat done I am weighed, height measured, blood pressure and heart rate and stats done. Then as a cherry on top she does an ECG, the fast one I’ve ever had I have to say. IT looked to me like my pqrs wave was in good nick. So that was me done with her so she shuffled my off to the nurse next door who asked who I was and the usual identifiers before taking bloods, a nasal swab of MRSA and sent me off to the toilet to take a swap of my own groin crease for MRSA. With that all done I was free to go.

I let my satnav take me home a new way avoiding the centre of town, the roads were much clearer so I made good time. By the time I got back late morning the builder badgers were cracking on so I made them coffee and went to the village café for a full English breakfast and hot chocolate having grabbed a paper on the way. Its a treat to sit in the window overlooking the roundabout at the centre of the village while eating breakfast and doing the days crossword. Unfortunately the village café is closing for ever on February the third do to the Co-op taking over the plot and cottages to install a bigger shop. Its a shame, I shall miss the quirkiness of the cash only café with no toilet and an array of calorie laddered cakes like no other all made by the cook. Workmen in the village will miss it as they could get breakfast boxes and take away anything they fancied. So life moves on.

The afternoon is well on by the time I get home so I make the builders more coffee and change into my training kit intending to train when the builders leave and and my partner returns from seeing her mother with her brother. So while I wait I write a letter to friend during which a friend calls and tells my about her piano adventure, which includes delivery folk whose van is too big to get down the tiny road she lives on and cannot be bothered to carry of wheel it down the road to her house. The upshot is that she is collecting on from the shop and transporting it herself home.. Nit something anyone get to do often in life. I finish my letter and take it to the post box in my training gear. The builders are clearing up for the day when I return adn soon after my partner returns, by now I am too tired to train and so I draft the blog.

I note that according to the site stats it has over a hundred views today so far, lots from the USA and Germany, I don’t know why this has happened but if you are one of them reading this, thank you. I draft the blog and drift into the evening in hope of a decent football match to watch and an early night accompanied by my night meds. The last few days I have been out of my usual routine and I need to get back to training and focus on some things I need to do, like a tax return, read the meters and prepare for my operation by reading the info that is being sent to me.