Bradford Royal Infirmary air pipe insertion

Last minute change of plan before surgery last Thursday meant I had to be given a general, as opposed to local, anaesthetic. 

I've had general anaesthetic before but the anaesthetist did warn me that the air pipe might make my throat sore.

I don't know who did the actual insertion, but four days on and swallowing is agony, looks like soup for Christmas and my throat feels a third of its normal size.

That pipe must have been inserted with all the care and attention of a plumber suction plunging a khazi.

Like a knife through...

Brand new knife, straight out of the wrapping earlier on Tuesday, washed and into the knife block. I go into the kitchen around 10.00 to make a cheese and pickle sandwich (red leicester, by chance).

I don't skimp on the cheese in a cheese and pickle, so I'm about 4 slices in when I become aware that the blade on this Arthur Price stainless steel job is loose in the handle. Not to put too fine a point on it (which the knife soon proved it certainly had), there was a definite wobble.

I took the knife in my left hand and felt the 'wobble' by moving the blade with my right. And ended up putting it straight into my palm. Knife through butter, knife through palm.

Now it wasn't just the cheese that was red by name and nature. Add the floor, kitchen cupboard sink and worktop. The caring person at 111 and her nurse colleague urged me to go to A&E. Arrived at midnight, left at 4.00 am, then back to another clinic at 8.00. Told to come back at 11.00 the next day, so home at last after surgery at 10.00pm on Thursday night. A long drawn out affair for a moment's idiocy.

Stitches out day after Boxing Day and a course of antiobiotics to add a further dampener to the festive fun. Having a shower with your right arm in cling film is a fetish kick too far for me.