And three and two and...

I remember having an operation on my knee when I was 15. The pre-med was given and I was wheeled into theatre and, once parked alongside all the various expensive bits of equipment, I looked up into a pair of soothing brown eyes who told me he was about to give me something to put me to sleep. After grazing my hand with a needle he started counting down from 5 slowly and the next thing I knew it was 18 hours later and the op was over. OK, the op was only two hours but it seems I decided not to bother waking up for the best part of a day; clearly I needed the sleep :)

This time there wasn't even a chance to countdown. My cardiologist started to spray the back of my throat to numb it against the sensation of the tube he was about to shove down in and then injected something into the tube on my arm and asked me to turn onto my left side. I remember saying how fast the injection seemed to be working and then suddenly it was 40 minutes later on the theatre clock and I was waking up feeling a slightly sore sensation at the back of my throat.

"You have a small hole in your heart, but you won't remember this conversation" my cardio told me. "I'll come and see you next week then" I replied before being wheeled back to my room by some maniac porter who was trying to break some land speed theatre trolley record.

I napped and looked at the nurses and after an hour was offered something to eat and called a cab to come home. The staff nurse explained that they would most likely recommend plugging the hole with a keyhole procedure that goes in via an artery in the groin (that will need shaving then) and then manoeuvres a small device into place that plugs the hole. Recovery time is about a week and then we'll know for sure whether the dizzy spells etc are connected with the hole in the heart.

At least I know I won't feel any nerves once I get to theatre. The whole thing was really calming and painless. Just need to find a date for the surgery and get on with it now.

Today's lesson, and something that keeps recurring quite a bit through this experience, is no matter how convincing your friends and family are able to make themselves sound on medical matters, leave it to the professionals! It's what they do every day of the week so if you think about it, they know what they're talking about. So to all you wannabe quacks and advisors, in the words of my dearly departed friend Mr Xero Slingsby, "Shove It!" - in the nicest possible way of course.