A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Back to 500BC.
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Monday, July 3, 2017
Part II – A Hell Of A Ward!
I closed last week at the point that
the Attendant shaving my entire body with a razor blade held between
his fingers had created the opportunity for me to enter one of those
faiths that require circumcision. As an atheist, that would have been a
rather unfortunate fate, to understate the case!
Anyway,
I was trundled back to my bed in the gurney that left something to be
desired in the matter of basic cleanliness, leave alone the asepsis that
one would except in a hospital.
In
the bed next to mine was the young soldier who was awaiting the same
procedure as I and, as is typical in such situations, entered into
conversation with me. He
was, needless to say, more than a little surprised at the failure of
the attendant to take him up on his offer of a new disposable razor at
the time I had to be shaved.
Soon we were wheeled away to our respective fates in the Pacemaker-installation chamber!
I
was placed, on my back, on a “bed” not wide enough to accommodate my
shoulders and instructed to keep my arms horizontal, not letting them
drop. Try
it sometime when you have the time and inclination to engage in such an
exercise and don’t fail to let me know how you prevent an unsupported
arm or arms from shaking uncontrollably! While this comedy was unfolding
the assistants to the doctor who was to put the Pacemaker in were being
directed to run hither and thither, putting on lights and extinguishing
them in a manner that would have done the Keystone cops proud!
When it was finally acknowledged that both my arms needed support, a rough board was wedged on the side of the arm that was shaking uncontrollably to keep it still. That worked!
Then began the actual process of installing the Pacemaker.
The
anaesthetic was still working when the cut was made because I didn’t
experience any pain. A trip down the internet highway to locate “Doctor
in the house” a classic film of its time might prove most instructive
and entertaining in the context of what followed however!
The
exertions of the “Pacemaker-installer’s” conduct was uncannily
reminiscent of Dirk Bogarde and company, as young interns, doing a
pantomime of their curmudgeon of a senior surgeon (James Robertson
Justice) closing up an operated-on patient, jumping up and down on his
sedated body in order to get his innards where they belonged!
Anyway, let me return to the narrative.
After
having rammed the pacemaker into the (inadequate?) cavity in my
pectoral muscle, our worthy then set about sewing up the cut.
This
required the occasional request from yours truly that he could feel the
suturing needle going in and out of me and could he please do something
about it? The response was that, since I had a heavy body, the dose of
anaesthetic administered initially was inadequate and, in all fairness
to the man, he did give me more of the fluid as and when requested
thereafter. Also, prior to the commencement of the suturing and during
the procedure, my shoulder was pushed as far inwards as possible,
supposedly to ensure that the wound did not open later. In this the
doctor performing the procedure had the assistance of his two helpers,
fortunately neither of whom was a body-builder!
My
travails seemingly over, I was wheeled back to the ward and soon my
soldier friend and I had recovered from the sedation and began
recounting our respective experiences of “the procedure that didn’t
amount to surgery.” Despite
the fact that he was slim, verging on skinny, he too had had to request
extra anaesthetic because the initial dose had been inadequate to numb
the area of his body being worked on.
That evening I began to experience pain in the area of the incision. This
grew steadily worse and I texted, on my mobile phone that I had
smuggled into the ward, the doctor who had performed the procedure. The
garbled response appeared to suggest I use an oral anaelgesic (which I
didn’t have access to).