Vigils and other animals

The Vigil is over, by the way. Did I not mention that? Whoops. Ever since I got my shiny new Facebook page, and got addicted to checking it every hour, on the hour (and sometimes even more frequently than that, to be perfectly honest), I just keep assuming that everyone in the entire world is on Facebook and knows what I’m doing at all times. But you’re not, are you? So, for the benefit of those of you who’ve been clinging to the "OMG Terry is totally going to die on the operating table!" vigil since 8am on Friday morning, you may stand down. And also: sorry for not releasing you sooner

As it happens, there was no need for y’all to be starting the vigil at 8am, and this was because the operation didn’t happen until 11.30am. So much for the whole "If he’s there at 8am he surely must be first!" thing. Oh National Health Service, how many are the ways in which you disappoint us!

Other ways in which the NHS disappointed us/freaked us the hell out on Friday:

1. They told Terry he would be having a local anesthetic.
2. So when he arrived at the hospital, he was all ready for a local anesthetic.
3. He was not having a local anesthetic.
4. "No way are you having a local anesthetic, that’s way too dangerous!" said Surgeon A.

At this point Terry called me to let me know that he would now be having a general anesthetic. This made my natural anxiety go into overdrive, because, as anyone who’s been watching Neighbours this week will know, general anesthetic is a highly dangerous procedure which can totally make you have an aneurysm and die. "He will totally have an aneurysm and die!" I told my mum, during a hysterical mid-vigil phone call later that morning (Vigil Stage 6 – ‘Calling in Reinforcements‘). However, this anxiety of mine turned out to be misplaced because:

5. They gave him a local anesthetic.
6. "There’s no way he can have a general now," said surgeon B, "because he hasn’t been fasting. So if we give him a general, he will die, like Stingray in Neighbours."
7. Surgeons A & B then begun the operation with a long conversation between themselves about how very, very dangerous it was to be carrying out this operation under a local anesthetic. This freaked out even Terry, and trust me, Terry does not freak out easily. Unlike, say, me.
8. When the operation was over, they came to look at his arm. "So, what will probably happen now is that you will develop blood clots in your vein," said the surgeon. "Maybe the vein will even totally, like, dry up and go hard, and we’ll have to take it out, who knows?" "Will the blood clots kill me?" asked Terry. "Oh no," laughed the surgeon. "They’re not those kind of blood clots." But then, he was the one who thought it would be OK to give him a general anesthetic. REMEMBER STINGRAY, people, is all I’m sayin’.

Anyway, after that Terry came home (in time for the lunchtime episode of Neighbours! Sorry y’all missed that, by the way, on account of you were still on the Vigil…) and we begun watching his arm obsessively to see if it would fall off or something. So far it hasn’t. But there’s still time…