after hospital

I had the eye operation 3 days ago and can now (more or less) see. The Eye is bloodshot and tender but seems to be slowly healing.

Hospital is always something of an ordeal. The doctors are mostly South Asian; some give me bad vibes and obviously dislike me on sight, not a good feeling when you know this man is going to be sawing through your fingers or cutting into your eyeball.

I observe the nurses: almost all white, female, usually fat. They are not generally intelligent, though some have a kind of compensatory kindness & intuition. In general, I’ve learnt to watch my words around medical staff, not to expect too much in the way of insight, ability, intelligence, or common sense; e.g. last year I was prescribed codeine to cope with the pain (from gangrene then amputation), however I was generally able to manage without, so I stopped taking it; when I stupidly told a fat nurse, she went red in the fat face, chiding me, “you have to take your medication! All your medication!”

“But is it a good idea to take strong painkillers every day, for weeks, if you don’t need them?” I stupidly persisted. She puffed up like a balloon and laboriously wrote out how often & how much medication to take, in perpetuity. I nodded seriously, carefully took the instructions home, and didn’t take any more codeine (I’ve still got a drawer full).

I think of a passage in a Carlos Castaneda book, where Don Juan says the worst way to die is from illness, and the best is by violence: in combat you don’t really feel pain or fear, you simply fight as hard as you can until you’re dead, but in illness you are increasingly weakened, isolated, at the mercy of others and your own pain. Thus Manhattan Melodrama: “Die the way you lived, all of a sudden, that's the way to go. Don't drag it out. Living like that doesn't mean a thing.”

An old accomplice drew a get-well-soon card (this is more or less what I look like in my gouty middle age):

I am looking forwards to a return to pipe smoking and waistcoat-wearing this autumn, and naturally I will continue to maintain a 1930s moustache.