9:30 am Wednesday, I’m out for a walk. The phone rings.
Hello?
Hello is that Jen?
Yes.
Hi, I’m from the head and neck admin team. I’m calling to book you in for your pre surgery assessment.
My…
Assessment. Before your surgery.
I’m having surgery?
Yes. On the 25th Feb.
Oh. First I’ve heard of it. Do you know what surgery?
I don’t know. Let me see if there are any notes….. It says surgery to fix the denture/obturator.
I didn’t know it was broken.
I’m not sure. Now, will it be [teeth man] doing your surgery?
I have no idea, I didn’t even know I was having surgery…

So…. I’m having surgery next week. I’ve been pre-assessed for it. For what, I don’t really know. I did finally get to talk to Deepti over the weekend and it turns out they’re not sure yet either. It’s so hard to book people in for any surgery at the moment that as soon as they get a day/get the OK, they hustle and get people on the list. Before those people even know they’re on a list. I mean I knew I’d be having ongoing surgeries indefinitely, they’ve obviously been needing to do this, so I guess it’s not really a shock. From what I gather it’s not going to be ‘surgery surgery’ but I will be under General Anaesthetic. It’s more of a recce: see what state it’s all in, try to start formulating a plan for what on earth they’re going to do next. I’m definitely going to ask them to screw the plate thing back in if possible, having it floating around and falling down has been a nightmare.

As Covid has taken over the hospital now, there are no beds and no one can stay overnight. So unless I can find someone to brave the outside world for me, come and pick me up at hospital, take me home and then stay overnight with me (requirements for post anaesthetic), I can’t go in at all. Somewhat of a disadvantage for those of us who live on our own and don’t have immediate family to drag into the equation.

Your Jen’s got friends though, and while I don’t particularly enjoy asking for help, I’ve got wonderful people who will happily assist. So I’m lucky. But just an inconvenience of Covid – usually I would just stay in overnight and then be off on my way the next morning. But I am mostly just grateful that they’re able to get me in to do what needs to be done.

I’ll keep you updated as per usual.

The world is getting warmer here, it’s getting up to 14 degrees on Sunday, so I suspect we’ve seen the last of the snow. What a beautiful Winter it’s been so far though. We had a power outage last night and all electricity went out. I cooked the rest of my diner by candle (and phone) light, which was unique. I forgot how dark everything gets without any residual lights going. I’d forgot how many things rely on electricity. I sat by candlelight and ate my dinner. Even while spending days at home without much external variety, the universe finds ways to shake things up. Thanks for the adventure, universe (/’fault with some of our network equipment, which our engineers have now replaced’, depending on who you ask).