No need to make a drama

I give thanks for waking up feeling strangely like my old familiar self - sore, but not unbearably so and kind of relatively nifty and nimble again. It was a lovely feeling to turn over without groaning and snuggle under the covers to snooze some more. I also give thanks that both my kidney and stoma were working fine, and if my stoma bag had been too it would have been a peaceful time. I give thanks for being relatively nifty and nimble again...

I give thanks for a nap after breakfast and sorting the washing out. For a tasty Higgidy pie for lunch and for settling down cosily to watch some cosy fake murder tale...until a warm seeping sensation began, this time in a colour more in keeping with the story line. Keeping calm and assuming soon it would stop, I give thanks for putting the kettle on and going about my business mostly unperturbed...until it reached the stage when calling the GP's surgery for some advice might seem prudent. I give thanks that when the nurse called me back she agreed that as by then I was sitting on the toilet so my tummy didn't drip on the floor maybe dialling 999 was a plan. I know I complain about my neighbours but underneath their problems and foibles they are goodly sorts and I'm grateful I was eventually able to rouse them from their afternoon stupor and explain I needed someone to go and let the paramedics in which they readily did. Very grateful indeed!

There was too much gore for anyone to tell exactly what was going on so I give thanks for dressings and help collecting bits in case I had to stay in before a whisk up the road the hospital I had my op in. I give thanks for the tender care they gave me en route including stopping the ambulance by the side of the road to insert a cannula when my blood pressure crashed. And particularly that when they told me what they were doing it all seemed way too dramatic and serious and potentially dangerous with rubber necking motorists trying to see what was going on, so the mild panic brought it back up and they could stop talking to me in those scary careful voices and abandon the task.

I give thanks that careful swabbing and inspecting found only a tiny hole and it seemed only that a haematoma underneath had burst so dressings and antibiotics, a sandwich and a cup of tea were provided. Plus eventually transport home in a picture window patient transport bus to admire the pretty blue night sky...driven by a man who'd had sciatica and knows. 

I give thanks for our wonderful NHS and the kind and skilled people who work within. Tattered and torn it may be but it is still pretty damn incredible. And for me. Likewise.