A Pain in the Poo Factory 07 I must have been about four or five years old when my mother took me into a building in Canterbury road, in Canterbury, in the inner-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It was probably a church hall. It was loud and noisy; steel filing drawers slammed and footsteps and heels […]
The End Game
A Pain in the Poo Factory 09 Gradually I became unplugged. The catheter went first, a short but unnerving experience which felt like one’s insides were being yanked out via a small tube through a very tiny opening. Next to go was my deals on wheels. I said goodbye to the pyramids and decided they […]
The bullet holes
A Pain in the Poo Factory 07 Emma changed my dressings. Considering that in theory I was opened right up, it was unbelievable that there were just four bandages. The largest one was in the middle of my belly near my navel, and the centre of a blaze of colour, like a fiery desert sunset. […]
Code Blue
A Pain in the Poo Factory 06 A smiling Malaysian doctor looked down at me as she adjusted my oxygen mask. “Do you know where you are,” she asked. I was bathed in gentle morning sunshine on a lovely little palm-fringed beach on Xanadu. Olivia Newton-John cradled me in her arms, her eyes brimming with […]
The hook-up
A Pain in the Poo Factory 05 Cathy told me later they wanted to speak to me while I was in recovery. I had appeared lucid, and they’d handed me my cochlear implant, hoping I would put it on. Apparently I’d gazed at it a few moments and flaked out again. That’s when they called […]
A surgical model of rectitude
A Pain in the Poo Factory 02 Are colorectal surgeons models of rectitude? The question just begs to be asked. This one was. “You’ve got bowel cancer. Near the appendix, where the small intestine joins the large one. We’ll jump on it quickly. Keyhole surgery is the way to go and we’ll do it in […]