Surgical stockings ahoy!

So yesterday, I went into hospital to have some surgery (just something small – don’t send flowers). My long-suffering mum had to drive me a considerable distance at ridiculous o’clock in the morning, drive back to my house, get the kids to school, then later drive back to pick me up, bless her.

She got her own back when I showed her my fetching surgical stockings and commented, in a loud voice for all to hear: ‘WELL, YOU ARE 43!!’.

I bloody love the NHS. The hospital was spotlessly clean and the staff were amazing – full of fun, very caring and a good laugh too. Much amusement was had by me declining the standard pre-surgery pregnancy check. The conversation went something like this:

Nurse: ‘now we’ll need a sample for a pregnancy test’

Me: ‘oh that won’t be necessary’

Nurse: ‘well, it is standard procedure but you’re welcome to decline’

Me (whispered): ‘my husband’s had the snip you see’

Nurse (shouting against background noise): ‘sorry? I missed that’

Me : ‘MY HUSBAND’S HAD THE SNIP!’

Sadly, this coincided with someone in the corridor turning off their floor cleaning machine and was delivered to background silence. All eyes slowly swivelled and landed on me. Awkward.

Anyhoo, I was well looked after, was awake by the early afternoon and, best of all, it’s all FREE! When I got home, I had, interestingly, received an email from medical negligence lawyers First4Lawyers sending me a copy of a survey they’d conducted that found over 29% of people had experienced poor treatment by NHS staff. I’m pretty gobsmacked by that (and saddened, frankly). I do think a lot of it has to do with how hard they’re worked (in fact, in the same survey nearly half of those people agreed with my feelings that complaints are often due to the staff being overworked). My lovely nurses were running around like headless chickens and doing it all with a smile. It’s also been reported in the media that the total paid out by London NHS trusts last year as a result of medical negligence claims was over £172 million. 172 million! Depressing reading don’t you think? Would you sue if things went wrong?

Happily, none of this affected me and I’m now sitting in bed, still in the surgical stockings, being looked after very well by the boys who made dinner last night and even cleared up.

It’s a miracle.

Plus I have to get well quickly because the pupster is arriving on Friday morning! EEK!