My brother’s time-table:

1. Survive the first surgery.
And he did. Phew. That was the (first) risky bit. They opened him up, cleaned out all… yeah, cleaned out and then… they left him open!!! It’s what they do. Cover with a bit of cling-film, leave a fucking great chasm open to the world.

2. Do absolutely nothing for 48 hours.
Which they do ‘facilitate’, but keeping him sedated. He’s always been brilliant at sleeping so this bit was always going to be easy.

3. Have more surgery to actually try and repair the ‘leak’.
In the NHS we trust. The fact is though; we don’t. Our GPs have let ‘us’ (speaking on behalf of every single person in the country here; I’m allowed, if not voted) down tragically. Hiding from the patients they’re supposed to see. Offering telephone appointments 6 weeks hence. Frikkin’ useless. But have a near death experience and there is nowhere better than the National ‘Elf.

4. Recouperate.
Please God we should reach that point. And again, Intensive Care Units not only have loads and loads of nurses around, they have all the doctors that no-one else can ever get hold of as well. Plus, they have shit-loads of amazing equipment. All of which my brother appears to be plugged into. He has 2 consultants, one liver, one I.T., a sound engineer, three electricians and a plumber. It takes 13 people and 353,264 quids worth of equipment just to keep one brother alive. Bless em all. Fortunately they don’t use accountants.

Hopefully at some point they’ll seal him up again. Can’t walk around forever with a great big hole above his belt. And then he can go home. But at least, when I saw him last night, I gave him all the days football results (he hates football), and the rugby scores (hates that too; never had any time nor interest in any sport involving balls or people), showed him Joey’s new haircut (he loves Joey), then told him to stop lollygaggin’ around, there’s people needing beds. He would have smiled. But they’d given him extra sedative when they heard I was coming.

If I’m honest, its not the best he’s ever looked, a million miles from how I want to ‘see my brother’, but compared to the alternative, he’s positively blooming.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx