Resuscitate or.....?

Warming Up

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My first ever non-baby related night in hospital was quite eventful.

After doing a fair few tests already I got a visit from a doctor, who seemed a bit more concerned than I had hoped. I don’t know how old she thought I was, but she asked me if I was still working. I know I am a bit ill but that’s the first time I’ve been accused of being a pensioner.

Even though the only time I have had a high temperature was when waiting for my injection yesterday, she wasn’t taking any chances. She proposed some more tests, including heart monitor and chest X-Ray and putting my on a drip.

At the end of the chat she said “We have to ask this, but if it comes to it do you want to be resuscitated.” She didn’t seem to think it was likely to happen, but of course I was quite shocked by the question. Did she think I was 90? I’m 58 for three more weeks thank you very much and if I didn’t want to resuscitated then I wouldn’t be wasting your time coming in looking for a cure.

“Some people don’t want to be,” she insisted.

I mean much as I’ve enjoyed my life of leisure and not having to do any childcare or cooking, I don’t think I’m ready to give up permanently. Do any 58-year-olds say, “Yes, don’t worry about doing your job. If I go it’s God’s will.”

“I want to be resuscitated,” I told her. Before then spending some time worrying that I’d flipped the definition or that she might have accidentally written down the opposite.

I’ll just say now I always want to be resuscitated it resuscitation is an option. This is like the bollock removal “local or general anaesthetic?” question all over again.

Anyway, that freaked me out a little bit. Were things that bad?

Then just after Harry Kane missed his penalty I had to go for my chest X-Ray and a man called Bogdan (just like in a Richard Osman book) got me in his wheelchair and zoomed me through the hospital. Again I was mildly insulted that they. thought I was old/decrepit enough to need a wheelchair, but I after saying I could walk it I relented and I enjoyed the ride. And it was miles away.

Having not seen the illness part of a hospital at night (apart from when I’ve taken Ernie to kids’ A and E) I was impressed that the place still kept running and I was second in the queue for the X Ray (they seemed amazed that I was capable of walking from my chair into the room) and it took about 30 seconds and I was whisked back to watch the rest of the match.

I was tired, but knew there was more stuff to come so didn’t go to sleep.

After the game a nurse came and put me on a drip and told me that I’d be on that for 10 hours. And if I bent my arm at all during the night it would stop and an alarm would go off. All the tubes were not quite long enough for me to reach the bathroom, which meant if I needed the loo in the night I’d have to press the call button for someone to stop the drip and free me. I did not like this at all. I wasn’t sure I could sleep in one position (especially after last night) and also the minute I know that I can’t go to the toilet I want to go to the toilet. I went to the toilet before I got hooked up, but then the minute the nurse was gone I wanted to go again. And I was too embarrassed to ask her to come back.

My fitful sleeping was interrupted by nurses coming every few hours to take my blood or my blood pressure or inject me so I didn’t get blood clots. So I was able to go to the loo then, but it was not a restful night.

But look, it wasn’t like I was going to do much today.

In the morning there was more tests and a nurse came in with a huge cardboard wee collector (maybe because I’d complained about the tiny tube yesterday) and a cardboard potty for me to poop in. Though unusually I did not need to defecate - I haven’t really eaten much and it took a while to get a small sample for them. I felt strange giving a man I didn’t really know a cardboard potty with my poop in, so I put a paper towel over it, as a faecal modesty curtain. I expect he wasn’t that bothered.

After blogging about this and it being on the comedy websites the story has been on other news outlets, who have really run with the incurable joke that I’ve been doing and not then immediately point out that the cancer is treatable.

“Taskmaster star Richard Herring reveals “incurable” cancer diagnosis at 58.”

It’s paragraph 5 before they reveal the “gag”, but they just want those clicks. Even though it does mean I’ve got a lot of concerned texts and emails from friends and people who like my work.

It’s all right guy. I have told them I want to be resuscitated. I am very unlikely to die. Even if someone thinks I look dead, they still have to have a go at waking me up.

Eventually another doctor came in to tell me the results and he pretty much thought that I probably didn’t have any kind of infection, which is good news, but also annoying as I now have to restart the chemo in a few days, making my recovery time before our proposed holiday quite a bit shorter.

Anyway better safe than sorry. And because I am vulnerable I have my own room and everyone has been looking after me brilliantly

He wasn’t sure though and said I could go home if I really wanted to, but he’d prefer if I stay another night so they can be sure. He didn’t ask me if I wanted to be resuscitated though, which is weird because he basically asked me all the other questions again, as each new medical person does every time they meet me.

I wonder if the first doctor wasn’t actually a doctor and was a murderer just looking to find a victim who was ready to go.

Ed Fringe RHLSTP guests confirmed so far: Susie McCabe, Flo and Joan and Mike Wozniak. BOOK NOW.