Thumbing a lift on a Kenyan stretcher

 

 

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.