Roland's Revenge: Chapter 36.

Monday 1^st February and it’s off to the treatment centre to see the bowel surgeon. I had the nurse come early to change the dressing because I thought that my appointment was at 11.15 am when it was in fact at a quarter past two.

It was a bitterly cold day although the sun was shining as we made our way to the park and ride to catch the medilink bus. I had my new cassette adapter so I could play my MP3 eh? machine through the car radio. Irene mutters “boys with toys” – she is not impressed with my choice of music. The £2.99 spent on the adapter is money well spent.

We arrived at the treatment centre and the nurse looked in the cabinet for my file. I remember when it was a new yellow folder with just a couple of pages in it and now it is over four inches thick! Have they really collected so much information about me?

We get called into the consulting room and the registrar comes in – not the main man. He is good doc from the ward when I was trying to get home – good doc kept telling me I could go home and bad doc kept telling me I couldn’t. I had my best Marks and Spencer’s white cotton underclarts on and after a few questions it was britches down and assume the position. The doctor examines my front and I tell him about the oozing from my groin which is now making the skin on my bum sore. He, like the head honcho is underwhelmed by it. I have an MRI scan on the 24^th February and I will have to wait until then before they make any decision. I am given a chit to make an appointment in eight weeks and we leave the consulting room. Outside in the corridor and a nurse asks if I would agree to take part in a clinical trial.

The trial was to allow release of all of the tissue which had been removed and retained in my operation. There was a brief questionnaire and a blood test. “How good are your veins for giving blood?” “It all depends how good you are!” I tell her. She gets straight in the vein.

Back in the corridor and another nurse asks if I want to see the stoma nurse and I tell her I do because I want to go on irrigation and I forgot to ask the doctor.

We are sat in the corridor when the stoma nurse arrives and I say “Hello” but she doesn’t seem to recognise me.

“That’s because I have a plaster on my face that she didn’t recognise me.” I tell Irene who erupts in a fit of giggles. The stoma nurse returns and asks us to follow her. Irene is still giggling and I say “This is the last time I bring you when you’ve had a drink!”  Irene tells the stoma nurse that all she has had is cups of tea!

I ask the nurse about irrigation and she gushes enthusiasm and asks me what I know about irrigation. I tell her it is a means of training the bowel so that there can be some control over when the bowel empties. She agrees to get back to me within two weeks. We discuss Tom-ass misbehaviour and my sore bum from the oozing liquid. Finally we make our way out at the third attempt.