A few weeks ago I had the unpleasant experience of falling
and damaging my thumbs. I thought
I’d merely sprained them, but the right thumb wasn’t healing and I was
compelled to trot off to the doctor’s in Nairobi.
She promptly sent me for an X-ray and within what seemed
like moments, I was being admitted to Nairobi Hospital for corrective surgery
on a dislocated joint. My surgeon,
Professor Atinga, advised me that thumb joints are notoriously challenging to
get back in to place and he might need to do keyhole fiddling around and insert
wires to keep my joint in situ. I
consented and was, after about 3 hours delay, on my way to theatre.
I hadn’t actually traveled on a hospital trolley bed since
I was a child – when I was parted from my foreskin at age 8. And even back then I recall being
administered with the anaesthetic in the ward, this time I was fully conscious
as we wended our way through the now dark corridors – it had passed 8pm. Did they really do procedural
operations so late?
Apparently, they do…!
Lying flat on your back and watching the lights zip past one
by one, you are aware you’re reliving hundreds of scenes before seen on
TV. The light fittings glide past
and it is a kind of fairground sensation.
I arrived at theatre and was unceremoniously plonked next to
the ante-chamber door, propping it open with the trolley bed. I had more time to reflect and notice a
few damp patches on the ceiling as well as a broken tile on the floor. Convulsions of anxiety raced through my
being – oh no, where am I, I thought….what I have done to commit to this
treatment here?
But then my surgeon appeared, reassured me that all would be
well and I was pushed into the theatre proper by the all-green-clad vision that
was my anaesthetist.
The theatre did resemble something from 1980, but as they
patched my chest with heart monitoring “stickers”, pricked my hand for the tube
of anaesthetic and soothed me with calming words, I floated off into slumbering
oblivion.
Waking up in recovery room, I was groggy as hell, but glad
to be back with the “living”. All
had gone according to plan – two wires now embedded in my thumb and a bandage
larger than a banana.
Thank you Nairobi Hospital. I’d give them a thumbs-up, but that’s still a little painful
just yet.
