Reader(s) of this column may recall one I wrote last year about having an operation to straighten a curved finger known as Dupuytren’s Contracture.
It only affects people with Viking DNA, which caused some amazement, if not outright mirth, because I look about as Scandinavian as Mickey Mouse.
Anyway, while the doctor was examining my hand, he noticed another misshapen finger that had been crunched by my ski boat’s goose-neck trailer in South Africa 16 years ago. He had the finger X-rayed and it showed a splintered bone, resulting in a crushed nerve.
As it still hurt, particularly when I bump it or when the weather gets cold (where’s global warming when you need it) he asked if I wanted to have the scrunched nerve removed. I said you bet, even though it would result in no sensation in that finger, and thought nothing more of it.
Until two weeks ago, when I got a letter stating I had been booked in for surgery and needed to report for a pre-operation assessment.
This I duly did, and on my arrival a nurse asked if I needed a translator. Silly me – I thought she was asking if I needed anyone to translate from English. It was only later that I realised she meant translating into English.
The first nurse who took my blood pressure was a pretty Filipino, and because my hand was cold, the machine clipped to my finger wouldn’t work. She started rubbing my hands and I hoped no-one I knew would walk past and think I had organised a mail-order bride.
This was also when I realised I had been wrong in not requesting a translator. She gave me a lengthy preview of what to bring to hospital on the day of the operation, of which I understood not a word. Fortunately, it was written down in a pamphlet she gave me.
She then started rattling on about ‘fotograss’. I was about to remind her I was here for a medical check-up, not a modelling assignment, when I gathered that the hospital wanted to photograph my finger for medical training purposes. She then went on to inform me that it would be anonymous and just my misshaped finger would be ogled over by doctors of the future. I only know this because it was written down on another pamphlet she produced.
What wasn’t written down was how to get to the photo-lab down the hall, but her instruction was clear: I had to find a sign stating ‘Radium and Waxing’.
As luck would have it, I saw a sign saying Radio Wexham (the name of the hospital’s in-house radio station) where someone pointed me in the direction of the photographer.
The next step was having blood taken and being strapped to an ECG for heart blips. This time the nurse was German, so I thought we could have a chat. In Europe, the Germans and Dutch speak better English than the English – but not this one.
As she was about to jab a needle into my arm she said something along the lines of ‘thees vont urt’ (it didn’t), and after filling several capsules with blood, she gave an instruction which by complete fluke I guessed was to take my shirt off.
She then stuck electrodes onto me with plaster saying ‘I vont shaf chest harrs’, which I took to be a joke about me being a bit hirsute. After she had finished and yanked the electrodes off, she said something and convulsed with laughter. I gathered that she remarked I had had a free chest waxing. I would’ve have laughed too, but my teeth were still clenched.
But she was correct; I had indeed had a free medical check-up – from mouth swabs to ‘chest wax’ – on the National Health Service. And despite my poking fun at the nurses, they were to a person absolutely fantastic; all smiles and efficiency and kind words.
Well, I think they were kind words. Next time I’ll ask for that translator.
