Colonoscopy

I’m more worried about saying the bloody name of the job than I am about the job. You’ve to make an appearance at the surgical ward. But you only get changed and recover in the ward. All the action happens downstairs. But you go down in a lift, trolley and all.

I’m changing into the gown – fastened at the back, like a wetsuit but it’s nothing like a wetsuit. Except for having to stretch for the ties or getting some help.

I’m recognising the voice of the big guy talking to the nurse. His symptoms have cleared up so he reckons there’s no point in going down. That’s what they call it here. Believe me, the term has got nothing to do with oral sex. He’s turned up anyway and they’re trying to get a doc to see him. It’s a conveyor belt of jobs so it’s not easy. Maybe he’d better just go down.

My symptoms aren’t so bad either. I got scared when there was blood round the bowl in the morning. I got the outside area checked. My arse, not the toilet. No sign of piles or anything, so they want to know where that blood’s coming from and why. Then there’s blood in my mouth. And I’m crapping more and softer than I should be. Maybe losing a wee bit of weight and I don’t have a lot to start with. So they want to have a look next compartment up – the bowels.

I’ve mucked it up already, before the New Year. I got three dates. Changed one. Forgot all about the second – till the morning I was supposed to go in and that’s no good because you’ve got to do a treatment first. And of course I didn’t read the instructions on the laxative properly, the third time unlucky, so there wasn’t much point in going in. To go into the ward, get changed and go down. So that was me off the list till I went to the doc about something else and she said I’d better get that posterior of mine back on the list and get it checked properly.

So there I was. No solids since midday Sunday. Just green tea and water and the sweetened solution that turns everything into liquid. You know how they told you at school how mostly everything is water. Well, I believe it now. Steak, sausages, anything that looks solid. It’s not really.

Back to the waiting ward. First I recognised that tall guy’s voice. From the harbour. The boat-watchers society of the city of SY. Then I caught the twang of the twin-port man. That’s another popular club, the classic vehicle brigade. I’m just going to call him my neighbour because operations are a wee bit personal. Mine’s a colonoscopy. I kept calling it other things but the auxiliaries and sisters and porter kept correcting me.

Cheery guy, the neighbour in the ward. I knew, first hand, he had a good bedside manner himself, if the parts were going to be expensive. Breaking it to you gently. Usually he just took bits from one he’d dismantled earlier. I could hear him now, keeping up the banter with the nursing-auxiliary. Weather outside, change in the seasons and how life was in general. I didn’t want to interrupt his flow but I did want to know if he was still into VW engines.

Beetles, Type 2 vans, Karmann Ghias.

One trolley was ready, parked at my neighbour’s. I couldn’t see him, because of the all-round curtains. Then the chocks were away. I caught a glimpse of it, passing a gap in my own curtains. He was being wheeled to the lift. The style of driving the trolley is good for a minute or two’s discussion along the way. It’s hospital etiquette – a thing you’ve got to do, discuss the driving. Award the points. I used to swerve a trolley round the round myself. Just for a year. A lot of years ago.

‘I think you’ve a deal going with the painter,’ someone would say. ‘Hell, the plasterer, too. Shit, the brickie as well? You’re keeping them all in work with that driving.’

So time passes and the cove who was pushing the trolley is going to be lying on one very soon.

Never mind going on or off the trolley. When you’re lying down, the mind can get into athletic mode. Before sedation. Or maybe it’s the first stage of sedation, before you let go completely to it.

I’m going to speak to you of the beauties of the VW twin-port engine. Mounted at the back. Guys like that cove who was in the neighbouring bed – they can drop one of these beauties onto a trolley-jack to change a clutch. In about twenty minutes. It’s a good idea to feed the throttle-cable through first before you re-connect it. Otherwise, you’ll need to drop and jack-up the whole unit, over again. You’ll be quite intimate with every nut and bolt but you won’t be popular with the mate who’s giving you a hand. If that happens to be your daughter, you’ll be lucky to remain alive.

Listen to the word. Listen up now. Hear the dulcet putter. Right enough, they might not be all that fuel-efficient by today’s standards. But then there’s the issue of life expectancy. And they can be rebuilt. Which was our man’s forte. And maybe still is.

Lewis sheds. Sheds, all round the coast of the British Isles, host these fine machines which were manufactured pre-1979. And you will find them throughout the continent of Europe and in all other continents, with a very high density in North and South America. I was thinking of the time one chassis needed complete reinforcing to get an MOT – you don’t get them in a lucky-bag any more, that piece of paper I mean. Well, the chassis neither. That’s not exactly a spare part. So someone might put a tarp on a motor on a pallet and it’s waiting for the day someone else has a good body and an engine that’s done its work. Very frustrating thing. When the driving force is still sweet as a nut, steady as a Singer, and the joints, the spine, the very chassis of life is rotten.