For in this deluded knowledge you would be in august company, namely me.
Just before the operation, I remember talking with both the consultant surgeon and the anaesthetist about what to expect after the procedure in the days to come. Don't worry, you'll be fine, plus we'll give you plenty of pain killers to help.
Three hours later and after the op, unbeknownst to a still drugged patient, I was wheeled from the theatre and taken to the Intensive Care Unit for observation.
Dreamily I reacted to the prodding from my nurse, a rather stern lady called Sam. Exuding none of the warm encouragements usually associated with the kind nursing practitioner, Sam set about her observations in a swift perfunctory manner. Temperature, blood pressure, oxygen and wound dressing, check.
She steered at my wound, her face evolving from a mask, to a slight creasing to her brow. Hannah, she called, come here...What's that, she said, pointing at my groin, where the surgeon had made his incisions. Why is that blue? I never seen one that colour.
Her colleague stared helplessly hard into my recent wounds, presumably aware of my acute embarrassment. It must be the surgeons pen, she kindly offered.
But blue Hannah? It's blue. And the scrotum? She hissed loudly.
I looked for a third member of the medical team, called scrotum, but then realized she meant my member.
To say I was profoundly self conscious at this point misses the point.
They stared a while longer, whilst I continued to feign death.
It was only later as the angel of mercy removed my urinary catheter that I saw the deep bruising that had caused such concern. Blue was indeed rather a bland adjective to have chosen. The colouration of the traumatised area was now sufficiently vivid that it had gone beyond mere blue, and now had taken on the visual personification of the black adder.
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