I do not know how I feel about this idle workless malarkey.
I am not at work.
The reason for this is that my face is roughly the size and shape of a small, rather puffily unappealing, balloon, if only balloon manufacturers were to select greyish pink and blackish purple as appropriate colours for their wares, which unsurprisingly, they haven’t.
I am entirely sure that I could work perfectly well, but think that perhaps, on balance, I had better not, in case anybody of a sensitive and easily frightened disposition were to get in the taxi. It might be dark, but there are limits.
On a positive note, this means that I have got plenty of uninterrupted time to tell you all about my adventures, after yesterday’s shirk.
As you know, we stayed in Barrow the night before the operation, in an hotel which was trying hard to be sophisticated, but whose interior designer had potentially never ventured further than Ulverston. We ate an enormous dinner, which was actually jolly good, drank too much and were mildly embarrassed to discover that our exhausted retreat to bed had been at about half past eight. I am sorry to say that we turned the evening into a monumentally expensive one by browsing through the mighty Internet and, in a moment of intoxicated glee, booked ourselves tickets to see La Fille Mal Gardee at the Opera House in London in June.
I felt mildly guilty about this, but also elated, it is going to be wonderful.
Of course the next morning started at the ridiculously early hour of a quarter to six, so that we could avail ourselves of the hotel’s Full English Breakfast before the hospital.
Mark dropped me at the door and I wandered around vaguely for ages before eventually finding my way up to the ward, where a bored-looking nurse informed me that I would have to wait because none of the nurses from the eye clinic had yet arrived.
She showed me into a cupboard, already full of several other anxious old people with droopy eyelids, and we waited.
After half an hour a nurse turned up. She said that we would have to wait because the doctor had not arrived, and took us to another cupboard, where we waited for a bit longer.
After another half an hour the nurse made sure that we knew our names and that none of us were prone to diabetes or heart disease, and took us to yet another room, which turned out to have comfortable chairs and tables, and which was the final waiting room.
We waited.
Then we waited a bit longer.
Then the doctor arrived and the day got going.
Fortunately I was the second on the list. Some other poor souls were destined to wait for most of the day.
It turned out that we didn’t need any of the stuff that the hospital letter had insisted that we bring, being dressing gown, slippers, and a sackful of other clutter, rather to my irritation. This was, the nurse said, merely a standard letter sent to everybody, and for most patients it was completely unnecessary.
I was relieved. I had not been able to understand why the doctor might need me to undress in order to operate on my face.
Eventually came the dreaded surgery.
It was not nice.
I had to lie on a trolley whilst the surgeon injected some nasty substance into my eyelids. Much as I had been hoping for a sedative, it turned out that the NHS is on a tight budget, and telling patients to Man Up is cheaper, so I did that.
I don’t mind telling you that I was very frightened, which was ridiculous, because it really didn’t hurt. It was just the thought of the thing.
He snipped lumps out of my eyelids. I could hear the little snippy noise of the scissors, even though I had my eyes shut. He had told me not to shut my eyes but there are limits to my manning up. Then he sewed the edges back together with what turned out to be a very neat running stitch, and the nurse told him admiringly how clever he was.
That was it. It took about three quarters of an hour, and afterwards they sellotaped enormous patches over my eyes and took me back to the waiting room in a wheelchair.
I was told that I would have to wait for half an hour and then they would take one of the patches off so that I could find my way out. The other one was supposed to stay there until the next morning.
I don’t mind telling you that this bit was absolute agony.
It wasn’t the cuts that hurt, it was my eyes, which felt as though somebody had squirted them full of lemon juice. I could barely sit still, because of longing to wrench the awful patches off and tear my eyes out. I had to try not to fidget, though, because even though I couldn’t see them, I was painfully aware of half a dozen horrified people, all waiting for their own turn to be mutilated.
I called Mark, by saying Hey Siri, and getting my phone to do it, and eventually the nurse came over and tugged one of the patches off. I stood up, woozily, refused all offers of assistance, and staggered out.
Finding my way out with one swollen, streaming eye, proved challenging, but in the end I found the main entrance door and tottered into the sunshine, where I found a bench at the roadside and collapsed. I had brought some pain-killing drugs with me, and was so desperate that I swallowed them straight down, without even any water
Mark, turning up ten minutes later, said that I looked like a sheep with blow-fly, the sort that dies ten minutes after you find it.
We stopped at Elspeth’s to collect the dogs, and I tore the other patch off. It was sodden and blood-soaked, and the sticky tape had been itching dreadfully, and things started to improve after that.
Mark took me home, and then he had to get ready and go, because of being off to Aberdeen. He tidied up and organised everything so well I was quite touched, and I stuffed myself full of all the drugs I could find and retired for an early night.
I ignored everything that the doctor told me to do, like not washing it, which I did because it was horribly crusty and sticky, and in consequence am considerably recovered today.
The awful feeling of being poked in the eyes has gone, and I made it all the way over the fells with the dogs this morning. This was wonderful, well worth the effort, because the sun shone and the tadpoles were just hatching out. The first dandelions were appearing, and suddenly the world seemed to be becoming green.
I am very pleased to be able to say that I am getting better, and the spring is upon us.
I can probably go back to work tomorrow.
