Thursday, March 26, 2009

Michael, on major surgical operations

Michael:

Comments come to me the instant they are posted; so even though you superseded your first note to delete the passage "I have to respond to your comment here on this page again, because I cannot find any blog form for my new comment on your latest post," I saw it anyway. I only mention that to say that if you liked, you could send me your email address and then I could delete it from my blog as soon as I saw it (you would want to make sure I was at my computer before doing that), or you could delete as soon as you posted it, if you have that capability, and then no one else would see it. Then I would send you my email and you could send your notes directly to me and I could post them for you; although this present system seems to be working well enough as far as I can tell.

You introduce what is essentially a new topic, hence your desire to make a fresh blog posting::

You are a man of age, Lawrence, and you must have been some time in hospital, and perhaps you might have even undergone a major surgical operation.
Have you ever?
If so, could you provide me with a brief account of your time spent in a hospital, please?
The matter is that recently (in January) I spent more than a month's time in hospital after a heavy surgery, and I would like to compare my own experience with that of yours.
Agree?
Please, Lawrence!
It might be interesting to compare.
What I have in mind is not the details of the very surgery as such, but my relations with the people -- Russian people -- when in the hospital.
And it is your relations with the people in hospital, both the doctors, nurses, and other patients.
The latter is the most interesting point for me to compare.
You will see why.

Lawrence responds,

While I will admit to being a man of age (74) I have not had a "major surgical operation" since I was 4 years old and had my appendix out. The closest I came to what you describe were cataract operations. Which isn't to say I consider myself to be in perfect health. Since I was young I've had a back problem that cause a lot of headaches; so I must exercise regularly and do a lot of walking if I do not want to cripple myself up and have to drive stiff-necked to a chiropractor. You may have encountered some notes on this blog about dogs. I do love dogs, but also I feel I need them to "force" me to walk them, even when I'd rather sit in front of my computer or in my easy chair with a book.

So, headaches, back aches, neck aches, and then stomach aches when I take too much aspirin, but that's about it.

My wife has had some major operations and has been treated very well through almost all of them. She had a problem with one eccentric specialist once, but the nurses said everyone had problems with him.

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