It’s the Anniversary of ‘Custardgate’

It’s a year since I was an honoured guest of our NHS. I remember it like yesterday. I went in with the aid of a zimmer frame walking aid and walked steadily out of there ten days later without it. Better than some but not as well as others. The drugs worked. The memory lingers on, and it’s not generally a gloomy one.

To get the nitty gritty out of the way I have a condition called polymyalgia. Not very pleasant, and I was a guest there to eliminate any other potential ‘nasties’. I’m a Viking! I discovered later in the year that people with the condition generally have Viking blood in them. The thought of any pillaging never occurred to me when I entered the ward where I eventually ended up. My priority at the time was a decent night’s sleep. The condition is treated with steroids which I continue to take a year later, but in an ever decreasing dose. Hopefully I’ll be getting off them completely in due course, the hope is that the built in steroid factory in my body will kick in and keep Poly at bay.

I’m reminded of this time last November as we were due to fly toLA to see daughter and family. I landed just down the road with a view over the hospital car park instead. I was prodded and tested by doctors and scans were done to eliminate anything else that might be giving me this trouble until eventually the charming lady consultant decided that what I had was what they thought I had. The drugs worked almost instantly and having been unable to walk and move very much at all without a handy zimmer, I could walk properly again without pain within an hour or so.

My memory of the time is of a place alive with drama and boredom in almost equal measure, the high point for me was the standard hospital puds on the menu which I thought were a triumph. The system of choosing the menu with a list the night before were a chance for me to write a review of the previous night’s pudding triumph. I hope the cooks got it:

“Nestled in a bay of the very finest industrial custard lapping onto the beach of crumbly goodness backed up by dunes of sweet cooked apple, your apple crumble was a tonic, a boost for the soul and the body, Bravo! “

One of the encouraging factors of being in hospital is the feeling that ‘well at least I’m feeling better that that poor person’. Generally many patients are moved on the bed they are in, I was myself on the second night, my first night having been in a en suite room that felt like a Premier Inn without the frills. I think I’d got there by accident and that it was intended for people in a poorer state that I was. My transfer at night time took me through all sorts of underground passageways and then past many wards in darkness save for the odd nurse at a computer, their faces lit by the screen. The lady with the lamp? I witnessed another patient being transferred whose parlor and demeanour was so grey that it sent a shiver down my polymyalgic spine.

I eventually got my shared ward place with a window view and stayed there until my release papers came through some ten days and quite a few tests later. The farmer opposite, the victim of self inflicted lung issues from years of smoking as he described it himself. When he went with a suitcase of drugs and then brought us all chocolate eclairs the next day, he was replaced by a young Brazilian tattooist, who looked very unwell when he came in, and within a day was looking human again when his diminutive girlfriend and walking portfolio of his work came to see him. She was so small that he was running out of drawing space. It was an illustration if you’ll excuse the pun, of how someone can recover in just a few hours and the right medication. My immediate neighbour a chap who claimed to be a very successful comedian from Middlesbrough, spent his day making the odd slightly off colour joke that got little response from any of us. None of us were really in the mood for it. One chap who’d had a fall and a broken arm as a result became ‘telly man’. I tried to keep the telly off as much as possible, he generally wanted it on and then fell asleep when it was, giving me the opportunity to pull the plug on it as soon as possible. Tellyman also decided to have a face makeover whilst he was there having his full beard removed for him and shaved by a cheerful medical orderly. She put him in order. He looked so completely different the clean shaven version looking years younger. What a strange mix we were. One obviously unwell chap was brought in and spent one wordless night with us, continuing to look very unwell, before being hurriedly transferred on the bed he came in. He’d got something unknown and then covid. I’m not sure to this day where they took him. But when he left a cleaning team came and gave the area a massive clean up. His visitors came looking for him but he’d already gone. It was all a little strange.

My treatment was a dose of painkillers every four hours whilst they tried to find stuff. Included in my dosage was the occasional tiny beaker of morphine. I was asked by the nurse after one of these if I felt any better: I replied that it did not take away the pain but it made me feel that it didn’t really matter! One of the oddest feelings I’ve had.

Eventually, after all other tests had proved thankfully negative, I was told I’d be given the magic steroids and freedom to go home. Before I went the consultant asked me if I’d mind being a guinea pig for one of her training doctors. I agreed as it seemed to me that I’d get a full examination with him whilst she looked on and made notes about him and not me. The young man was nervous but charming as he went through his paces and tested , prodded and questioned me for about an hour. I don’t remember having such a thorough medical examination, thankfully no rubber gloves were harmed in the process.

So, since my trip to a view of a hospital car park I’ve been gradually getting better and feel much better now. In the first few weeks of my return home I started sleeping much better and the pain was gone. One strange side effect was a feeling of being energised, wanting to do all sorts of thinking and writing, no wonder that bloke won the Tour de France yellow jersey on his bike with the help of steroids. He probably went home after and wrote a book.

If I ever get the chance to ride in it ( unlikely ) I’ll be sponsored by Cheltenham NHS Custard, and it will naturally be a yellow jersey.