My goodness, I’ve just realised that it’s been over THREE MONTHS!!! since I published my last hilariously entertaining blog post. You must be missing me terribly, I can only apologise. You would have thought that the thousands of emails that have been sent to me begging for the next instalment would have resulted in me getting a bit of a shift on, but sadly I never received any of them, so I’ve just dawdled on in a long, protracted Near Death-like kind of a way and not written anything remotely funny for ages.
In addition to malingering I’ve also been pretty busy teaching, writing works of literary genius for my copywriting clients and being mithered by my sodding children who have hit on a cunning ploy to get my attention by picking up every blimmin’ illness going and then taking it in turns to projectile vomit up the walls. For a while it was like being the mother in The Exorcist, but with more children, less pay and fewer crucifixes.
I’ve also discovered LinkedIn which is basically like an online dating site but with more bull-shit and fewer dick pics because it’s for professionals. It’s a bit of a shame about the lack of actual penises on LinkedIn but fortunately there is an abundance of metaphorical dicks on it so it’s still worth checking in on a daily basis and clearly the most fitting platform for generating leads for my business.
Anyhow all these excuses aren’t getting us any nearer to finishing the tragic saga of my Near Death so let’s return to the story because it’s still far from over and I know you’ve been having sleepless nights worrying about my missing nipple.
As you’ll no doubt remember (how could you forget?) my last hilariously entertaining blog post left me in my dishy consultant’s consulting room breathing huge sighs of relief because my dishy consultant had told me that he’d had second thoughts about doing a groinal skin graft (thank God). His original mad-cap plan had been to take a skin graft from my groin and to then stitch the groin skin over my left breast so that it could eventually be origamied into a new nipple.
Now a groinal skin graft (how is that even a thing?) sounded to me like something that only an insane person would dream up and my dishy consultant was many things but I didn’t get the impression that he was insane. Luckily I was proved right because instead of doing a groinal skin graft he opted in the end to give me a tummy tuck and to use the skin from my abdomen for my nipple reconstruction instead of the skin from my groin. This would not only save me the humiliation of having pubic nipples but would also reduce the amount of money I would have to spend on shaving products so I was delighted.
In fact, if you’ve been keeping up with my hilariously entertaining blog posts, you’ll remember that I was so overcome by this piece of wonderful good fortune that I actually told my dishy consultant that I loved him. It was supposed to be a joke of course (I am hilarious after all) but it didn’t come across like that in reality. It actually came across as the desperate high pitched squeal of a tubby middle aged woman who was offered the equivalent of a winning lottery ticket and who lacked the social etiquette to just say thanks.
Anyway it was all fine because my dishy consultant was very professional and responded to my declaration of love by completely ignoring it. I was hoping that he would tell me that he loved me back of course and that we would then elope for a plastic surgery fuelled tryst but this was sadly not to be and so I just kept quiet and tried to keep out of the way whilst he drew big blue circles around my non-nipple.
I was a bit put out by my dishy consultant’s complete disregard for my feelings but then I guess when you’re a dishy consultant dispensing new tits, liposuction and tummy tucks to overly grateful Undeads, receiving offers of love is par for the course and probably why he opted to take modules in plastic surgery over proctology in his Health Care B-Tec.
Once he’d finished up I was taken back to the pre-theatre waiting room where I had to sit with the nomarks whilst I waited to go into theatre. Most of my dishy consultant’s patients had their blue arrows hidden under dressing gowns because even though we were in Portsmouth, walking around with your breasts hanging out in a hospital waiting room is a step too far for most women.
It wasn’t just my dishy consultant’s patients who were in pre-theatre admissions with me though- there were also a load of randoms belonging to less dishy and inferior consultants meandering about. This time there was only one other patient in there with me and she was sitting in a chair and reading a book. I sat down opposite her and said ‘Hi’ because we are an army of Undeads and it’s important to have solidarity in the ranks. When she looked up from her book to find out what sort of weirdo was talking to her, I realised firstly that she most definitely wasn’t one of my dishy consultant’s patients, and secondly that I’d hit the jackpot in terms of hospital hilarity.
The poor woman had the biggest blue arrow that I have ever seen.
On her forehead.
Pointing towards her left eye!
It was glorious. Wonderful. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was the best thing I’d ever seen. I could only assume that her non-dishy lesser consultant had only very recently passed the Blue Sharpie module on the B-Tec (probably via distance learning). Either that or the consultants had some kind of top trumps competition going on and were trying to outdo each other with their conspicuous arrow drawing. I knew that those sodding arrows took ages to rub off as well so the poor woman would have been stuck with a big blue, slightly phallic looking stripe on her forehead for AGES. Awesome.
All too soon my blue arrow entertainment was cut short and I was taken down to the holding pen by a theatre nursey. I was a bit gutted that this time I didn’t see anyone I recognised in the holding pen and everyone seemed a bit too busy to have a good old rant about the Tories with me so I sat grumpily in the corner on my own staring at an uplifting poster of a waterfall until I was taken into the theatre.
This operation was completely uneventful (at least for me). I’m sure it was awesome fun for my dishy consultant but because I was unconscious and never saw even the merest hint of dance choreography it was a bit disappointing. Luckily though it wasn’t long before I was back up on the touch-and-go ward wrapped up in warm blankets and being spoken to by the touch-and-go nurseys in calm, quiet voices. I think I mentioned before how much I liked it in on the touch-and-go ward and it turns out it was a good job that I DID like it there so much because the second rate touch-and-go nurseys (who were not a patch on the first rate touch-and-go nurseys that I had seen previously) FORGOT all about me and failed to have me collected for AGES.
I was really put out. Not so much because I’d been left on the touch-and-go ward because I loved it there- more because I had been forgotten. How dare the second rate touch-and-go nurseys forget me. I am a celebrity patient with the most interesting story and the thickest file of medical notes and I was quite rightfully outraged. In the end I stayed on the touch-and-go ward for about three bloody hours which was about two hours longer than necessary and so for the second and third hours I just asked nosy questions about the other patients, told everyone within earshot all about how I Nearly Died and requested more and more warm blankets. I did so love the warm blankets.
When I was finally picked up by my Mum I was pretty high because the second rate touch-and-go nurseys kept pumping me full of painkillers (or possibly tranquillisers) in a futile attempt to shut me up and to stop me asking inappropriate questions. I was a bit woozy and felt a bit sick but didn’t want to worry my Mum so I put on my best chipper sounding voice and tried to look fit and healthy. The effect of this was that my Mum was seriously worried about my mental health and demanded that I be kept in for longer. The nurseys wouldn’t back down though (because of how annoying I was) and so my Mum was ignored and I was sent on my way with a ton of Tramadol and the remains of a stale tuna sandwich. Not a bad result I thought.
Once at my Mum’s the tranquillisers and/or pain killers started to wear off and the pain kicked in. The tummy tuck was by far the most painful procedure that I have ever had- and I now have even more respect for all you supermums who’ve had a C-Sec. It really hurt and you know that I’m a double hard bastard when it comes to pain (I didn’t even flinch when I Nearly Died) but by God the first couple of days after my tummy tuck operation were tough.
The answer of course was to chug on huge doses of Tramadol which not only stopped me feeling the pain but had the added bonus of making me feel slightly euphoric and REALLY talkative. I felt itchy and jittery and couldn’t stop chattering away like a little budgie in a cage. I had Radio 4 on whilst I was in bed recovering and I had a lovely time chatting away to the programme hosts, answering all their interview questions and sometimes breaking into chirrupy little made up songs. My Mum thought this was quite funny at first but soon got annoyed and threatened to put a blanket over my head- old school nurseying at its finest.
Anyway I was having such a nice time on the Tramadol that it was a good couple of days before I remembered to check up on my dishy consultant’s handiwork. When I did peel off the bandages I was thrilled to see that my dishy consultant’s needlepoint had come on in leaps and bounds since my last operation. I had the neatest row of teeny tiny stitches along my abdomen- and it was clear that they had been done by a man skilled in haberdashery. It’s good to know that should my dishy consultant ever get fed up with sticking things in the wrong places he would easily be able to, quite literally, make ends meet by selling cross stitched crafts on Etsy.
My abdomen was pretty swollen at first but once the swelling had gone down I could start to see the results of the operation. It was flipping amazing! I was so much slimmer and I’d completely lost the muffin top that my bastard children had given me. By the time I had fully recovered I had gone down by about half a dress size and once again had to buy a whole new (well, second hand) wardrobe from Ebay (I live in Petersfield remember).
The tummy tuck was pretty major surgery and it was a slow recovery. I initially anticipated being back at work after two weeks but the whole emotional side of things kicked in for the first time since I’d Nearly Died and I became quite depressed for a little while. I think the Tramadol had a lot to do with this and I did start to feel better once I reduced my dose. In the end I wasn’t really in a fit state to go back to work after two weeks so I ended up having four weeks off in total and spent most of this time wandering sadly around the house, trying hard not to cry in front of the kids and cuddling Charlie dog. There’s nothing that a long cuddle with a good dog can’t cure. Apart from Necrotising Fasciitis obviously.
So the tummy tuck was a huge success but of course this was only the happy by product of the preparation that my dishy consultant needed to do for my second nipple reconstruction. If you remember I’d already had one failed origami nipple attempt but my dishy consultant assured me that he had now read the ‘Dummies Guide to Origami Nipple Reconstruction’ and so would be a bit more clued up next time.
I was very pleased and excited because joy of joys my second origami nipple reconstruction was to be under LOCAL anaesthetic- which means I WILL BE AWAKE during the ENTIRE operation and able to watch and comment on the live action as it unfolds. I can’t actually wait because in my head the operation will go something like this.
I’ll be chaperoned down to theatre by my entourage who will be waving flags and blowing on whistles to celebrate the end of my Near Death and the start of my Fully Alive status. There won’t be any need for a holding pen this time because I will be fully awake and so will go straight in with the minions to help with mopping up the blood and guts from the previous operation. NHS budgets are pretty stretched and I for one think that it’s only fair that we all pull together to support the NHS by doing a bit of mopping and swabbing in exchange for proper clever dick surgery.
Once I have flung the bloody bad bits from the lesser patients into the hazardous waste disposal unit and washed my hands I will be seated in a golden fully reclining throne and covered up in warm blankets whilst my huge entourage feed me grapes and entertain me by reading my medical notes out loud in sad voices.
We will all bow our heads and hold hands whilst we wait for my dishy consultant to appear and then, at the designated time, and not a second before, one of the lesser minions will press ‘play’ on the NHS cassette player.
Once The Stripper Song starts my dishy consultant will burst into theatre like a rutting stag wearing his power scrubs and ridiculous bandana and will begin prancing around in a specially choreographed routine. His minions will be on hand to hand him all the bits and bobs that he is too important to find for himself and then once he is tooled up and in full dance mode he will begin the origami-ing of my left nipple with panache.
I’m not squeamish at all and bloody love a bit of gore so I am very much looking forward to seeing exactly how a nipple is origamied out of a tummy tucked skin graft. It’s all a bit Frankenstein’s Monster but I trust that if my dishy consultant didn’t take the opportunity to Picasso me last time then nipples crossed, he’s probably unlikely to do too much of a hatchet job this this time, especially when my entourage will be there to keep an eye on him. You can but hope.
I will of course be fully awake and taking notes so that in my next hilariously entertaining blog post I can tell you all about every single little detail of the surgery- I don’t hold with all this ‘what happens in theatre, stays in theatre’ nonsense- healthcare should be honest and open, just like our politicians, and I’m sure knowing that dishy consultants are only human and love a good boogie like the rest of us would do wonders for NHS PR and attract no end of private sector funding.
In my next post I’ll tell you what ACTUALLY happened in the nipple tweaking origami grand finale. Sadly it was NOTHING like what I imagined in my head but it was brilliant all the same.
Please share this blog far and wide- it’s Christmas after all and it’s far more entertaining than reading about elves on fucking shelves.