Where do I start? At the beginning is the normal answer so that is what I will do. Although, for context, I will go back to the 9th July 2026. Below is an extract from a (short!) WhatsApp message I posted on that day in my family forum.
Now then. It’s been very quiet in here recently so I thought, what could be better than a medical update? I can see you all agree, so here we go.
As you all know it has been rather warm of late. Last night I went to bed and was quite quickly covered in a thin sheen of sweat. At around 01:15 I woke up in intense pain. The pain started off in my groin region (more details available upon request) but quickly moved to the lower left quadrant of my abdomen. Using a scale of 1 to 10, the pain was akin to multiplying the level of pain a sabre-toothed tiger would have felt from severe tooth ache requiring root canal surgery with the pain a person would feel after their lumbar muscles ripped themselves to shreds just to make room for a slipped disc to escape (note the clever non-use of numbers!).
Anyway, cutting a long story short, I then spent the next six hours alternating between sitting down, standing up, lying down, walking and sitting on the toilet. Even the strategic use of 1,000mg of Co-codamol and 10mg of oxycodone (left over from my ‘liver’ days) made absolutely no impact on the level of pain I was experiencing. At 07:00 I gave in and decided I had to go to Maidstone A&E. Your plucky hero therefore set off to hospital, assisted by his batman (I do wonder in these days of correctness whether this should be batwoman. I’ll leave you to ponder this).
At approximately 08:17 your hero arrived at the doors of the Maidstone Hospital’s A&E. I successfully navigated the triage desk, where a nurse wrote down the answers to the questions she asked me and was given a piece of paper with said answers. This piece of paper I then deftly passed to the receptionist who was 1 and a half paces away from the triage desk and had heard the entire conversation. She then proceeded to enter all the details on the paper (which she had heard) onto her computer. I was then invited to take a seat. At this point I won’t go into too much detail other than to note the gentleman who decided the best seat to sit on, in the very empty A&E reception area containing approximately 47 seats, was the one next to me. I was relieved when, as he staggered past me, he said ” don’t worry I’m not drunk I’ve got Parkinson’s”. Anyway 35 minutes and one puking season later I was called in by a nurse for my second triage ( the pedantic amongst you may question the word triage surely ‘duoage’). Anyway, having answered exactly the same questions I had been asked at the triage desk and had passed on to the receptionist, I was asked to sit back in the reception area. Only about 15 minutes later I was called into another office where a cannula was fitted (more on this later) and blood drained from me never to be returned. I then immediately proceeded, with batman/batwoman in toe, into the corridor of woe.
I think a brief description of the corridor of woe is required. The corridor was approximately 40 paces long (for becky that’s about 127 paces). It was strategically designed to be just not wide enough to allow a hospital bed to be wheeled along it whist having, at the same time, a row of chairs along one wall with all the people who had successfully passed their triage/duoage entrance exams by answering the same questions correctly three times. Whilst respecting data protection principles I will quickly highlight the two brothers sat next to our hero. Brother number one was clearly in a lot of pain (like our hero) but fortunately brother number 2 was there to support him by going into great detail about how incompetent Maidstone (and Medway) hospital was and how, over an extended period, they had failed in their duty to look after him and his problems with kidney stones and how this had led to him having to have his left kidney removed in two weeks time because it had died. It was a truly dreadful tale and a warning to all those with kidney stones. I’m sure this reassured brother number 1 especially as the reason he was in A&E was because of very painful kidney stones. I could mention the lady who was waiting to be seen because she had fallen over whilst engaged in rumba dancing and thought she may have broken her leg. I was going to helpfully suggest that next time she lost a considerable amount of weight before taking up dancing but the look I got from my batman/batwoman seemed to suggest that this may not be taken in the friendly and helpful way that it was meant. Finally a comment about culture which I think is important to emphasis. It would seem that it is de rigueur for people attending A&E at Maidstone Hospital early in the morning to have tattoos. Our hero and his batman/batwoman felt strangely naked. The tattoos on show were some of the finest I have ever seen. They seemed to cover every each inch of their bodies, including those parts that even Heineken couldn’t reach. It was a breath-taking montage of colour and artistry that Michelangelo would have wept before.
Swiftly onwards before your enthusiasm for our hero wanes.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, our hero’s name was called (about 1 hour after entering the corridor of woe). We were led down the corridor of woe until we found an unused bay on a small ward. Now, before I continue, no doubt some of you may be asking why did I refer, in an earlier paragraph, to my body being covered in a sheen of sweat? Was it to simply point out how warm it was? Perhaps merely to invoke arousal with some of you? Well, we may never know but forward to the cannula incident. Having been led, for what seemed an age, down dark winding corridors with the screams of innocents reverberating around the walls we reached an empty cubicle. Our hero, very kindly, let his batman/batwoman sit down whist he took up a reclining position on a hospital bed. What had gone unnoticed during the epic expedition to find a bay was that it was very warm and even our superfit hero was showing very limited signs of perspiring. However this very limited amount of sweat had had a catastrophic impact on the adhesive strips securing his cannula. Where once the cannula had been held firmly in place it was now completely untethered. Pointing this out to the doctor it was decided a new one would be needed. BUT TO LATE. As if guided by an invisible phantom the cannula slipped out of our hero’s vein and fell to the floor. It is quite impressive how much blood can pump out from a vein. Quite soon a sizable pool of blood had formed on the floor, covered our hero’s hand from knuckle to nail and significantly altered the colour of our hero’s light beige trousers. Turning around, expecting to see his batman/batwoman leap into action to help our courageous hero he was met with a face that seemed to have turned slightly green. Clearly no help was to be expected. Anyway, 10 minutes later, after the approximately 2 pints of blood had been cleaned up (some of the more literate and mathematically inclined amongst you will point out that 2 pints of blood is equivalent to nearly two arms in Hancock units(hu)), the hero successfully passed the triage/duage entrance exam for the fourth time, which under such gruelling and gruesome circumstances should be applauded. He was then allowed back to the corridor of woe.
Time is passing on so we must pick up the pace of our tail.
Back in the corridor of woe, and following two more vomiting session, it was noticed that there were two less brothers but that the amount of colours to be found on the human bodies present had increased significantly. A joy to behold indeed.
At some point later (time, by this point, had rather passed out of relevance) our hero was informed that he would be required to undertake one of the most challenging things one can ever undertake. A triathlon some may think. The Tour de France a few of you mutter. Reading the complete works of David Mellor I hear cried out in fear. No, a CT scan. So our hero, unabley (new word alert for our pedants) supported by his batman/batwoman fearlessly strode forwards to undertake his next herculean challenge.
On arrival in the torture chamber he was tied to the table and instructed to wiggle his trousers down so that his zip didn’t set off the alarm. Fortunately, due to the level of pain our hero was in. there was no misunderstanding in what this instructing may lead to. It was then noted that our hero was cannulaless (pedants alert). Faster than Usain Bolt on speed, the onlookers rushed around our hero’s prone body fighting amongst themselves to be the one to plunge the 13 inch shining scimitar into our hero. Swiftly one was selected and the blow was struck. The vile group of bystanders left the torture chamber to allow our hero to meet his fate. At this point I must move on at speed as some of the details for what followed whilst tied to the table of horrors will be too much for some of the younger members of this group. It is needless to say that our hero somehow survived. It didn’t matter what the vibrating circular monster did to him. He never divulged the secrets about how spurs had not been relegated in the past 49 years, was Lord Lucan in Bucks Fizz or how a red card changes colour depending on what state it is in? Furthermore, whilst the rabid mob were chanting incantations to their dark Lord our hero slipped his bonds, dashed to the cell door and burst through it like a finger through toilet paper. Finding his batman/batwoman they fled angband faster than a ferret up a trouser leg.
The following year our intrepid hero was clearing out a cabinet which contained a number of documents, never opened, following his escape from the chamber of horrors. Tentatively he opened the first letter and immediately recognised the spindly writing of the doctor that had tried to help. Reading through it brought a slight tear to his eye. Remembering how he had battled evil and the dark forces of the night. How the lost 5mm stone of left kidney had been discovered hiding away in dark recesses along with his slightly smaller brother, the 3mm lost stone of right kidney. Then finally, a little glint twinkled in his eye as he remembered turning around to his batman/batwoman with smug satisfaction when he discovered that the 100mg diclofenac pain relief tablets were suppositories. (Note to any reader, this last paragraph could be misconstrued – it was actually about 1 hour after the CT scan that I was informed of the results, not the following year!)
The end.