Crest

1.30 pm (ish) : HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT

The medical team gave me the news -- we've heard from the Mater, and we have a date: 17th July. !!! My face dropped. I made my disappointment immediately evident and obvious, I was told the timing was due to surgeons being away on holiday, only two being currently available to perform bypasses, and an extra slot always been kept for emergency cases. The only option for an earlier date would be if an emergency were cancelled and I got promoted. 'Will I have to stay here in between?' 'Well, I'm pretty sure the cardiologist would prefer you to be here so you can be monitored. As it is, the only question is whether you'll have a quadruple or a triple bypass (!!!) Anyway, we'll see if it's possible to get the date brought forward, though personally I doubt if anything can be done in practical terms because of the situation in the Mater.' One final little nugget which was dropped into the timing equation was the fact that somebody else had been sent up from here, expecting to have the bypass done today, but had now been put back to next Tuesday. And a final thing: rather than transfer me the day before the scheduled date, they may decide to send me over three or four days beforehand (which would be preferable to another 12 days here: at least it would be a change of routine and surroundings).

The cardiologist and his team came round again in the afternoon. I told him I was really disappointed about the long wait for surgery and he gave me his end of things: 'It's partly my fault, I meant to phone them, but here's what happened. I originally contacted the on-call surgeon, but he's since gone on holiday. The surgeon who's now on call already had a large list, to which you've been added, so that's where the delay came in. I'll get in touch with them and arrange to have you done sooner if at all possible.' Thank you, Doctor! Let's hope all this works out okay.