Who Is This E@L?

Who is this person staring back at E@L?

The person in the bathroom mirror with the zipper line of scabs peeling from a scar down the middle of his chest. The person with the healing wounds where drain tubes once sucked out blood accumulating in the spaces between his heart and his chest. Who is the person who would submit himself to such surgical ignominy? Certainly not E@L. E@L would never let people hack at his sternum and prise open his ribs, nor let let them stop his heart, nor let them place a clamp on his aorta - the source of oxygen to his entire E@Lness. He certainly would not let them dig arteries and veins from arm and leg. E@L does not know this front-to-back reversed E@L.

Who is he?

What sort of person is he?

What sort of person is this E@L, who decided such violent effrontery was the best idea at the time. This acquiescent E@L, this bowed into submission by logic and research E@L. This E@L who knew that he might die, and comfortably made the choice to take the risk. This E@L who put thing in order: will and testament, bank accounts, password list. 3% is not an insignificant statistic when they do 60 of these a month. This E@L who really thought he was going to be the one in 33 1/3 who died, the one every month and a half. This E@L who shelled out $50k for the promise of staying alive a bit longer. The E@L who wanted to live but knew, in his cramping heart, that he could die: and die easily, quietly, quickly, never waking up. Death. If not now then eventually, and he couldn’t decide which would the be best outcome. The slipping into oblivion, into annihilation and pre-birth emptiness. Peace. Who is he?

Where is the E@L without these battle wounds? The E@L who feared the pain and dependence that would last for months after, should he survive those first few days. The E@L who said “No fucking way.”

Who is this E@L who dismissed the anxiety. Who is this E@L who knew what could go wrong, but shrugged. Who is this E@L who, while on the operation table, agreed to being intubated while still awake, because of his severe apnoea. The E@L who was hit with a massive headache that burst up the large muscle (sterno-mastoid) in his neck next to his skull, that went up into his brain when the central venous line was inserted, and who mentally shrugged and thought (he could still think!), well that’s it, a massive stroke, but whose both hands still felt strong when he squeezed them as he kept testing them.

But the E@L who joked with the anaesthetist about upgrading his ultrasound machine when he came through this, now that sounds like the real

E@L.

Microemboli

- Taxi rank, it's just on the street out front, says the concierge.

- Ta, brilliant, says E@L and he skips (slowly) down the steps in the chill wind down the easy winding, brick-paved walking steps to the road. There are four taxis. E@L considers jumping into the last one, but hey, don't be a smart-arse prick E@L.

The driver in the front cab, somewhat sullen, says nothing; no 'Good morning,' nothing. He starts the car, puts it into D and starts to pull out.

- H***** hospital, please.

The driver looks at him. His foot lifts sightly off the accelerator. They are already out of the rank's demarcated confines.

- Which H***** hospital?

- The H***** hospital. The Royal? Hang on let me check.

- Which hospital? the driver repeats. There are several.

E@L drags his man-bag onto his lap and pulls out his Tab.

- Yep, the Royal H***** Hospital, he says looking at the email from his colleague.

They are slowly (this is H***** at 8am: there is no other traffic) passing through the first intersection.

The driver points up the road to a squat grey, white, glass, mulit-blocked, multi-temporal building two streets away.

- That's the Royal H***** Hospital, just there. Shit man, you pulled me out of the rank. You could have walked.

- Well, OK, so it's not far. I'll know for tomorrow. You can drive me there. Like, it's you job (E@L mumbles this.)

They are up to the next block, and the driver turns right.

- Shit, man. Which entrance. I'll drop you up here on A***** St.

- I'm meeting someone on the coffee shop on E****** St.

- That's around the corner.

He keeps moving out of the drop-off bay and back to the road, where he immediately turns right, to the road behind the hospital. This side of the hospital is partially obscured by scaffolding. Half the earth seems to be under construction, have you noticed that? The driver drops E@L at a closed sandwich shop on the next corner.

- That's the only cafe on this street. Must be this one, man.

E@L shuffles his wallet out from under his arse. Like everyone else, he only goes for his money at the last possible minute.

- How much?

- Man, I didn't even turn on the fucking meter. (No receipt then?)

- Here's five for your troubles. Buy a pleasant attitude.

~~~~~~~~~~~

E@L meets his colleague, not at the coffee shop on the corner but, on the phone with her for directions until he sees her at the coffee-shop outside the north entrance to the hospital, waves, hangs up - hidden behind the scaffolding.

After introductions and small-talk about the customer's not-all-uncommon-amongst-gastroenterologists obsession with David Foster Wallace, she begins to walk towards the entrance. E@L hesitates, his tummy protesting, and asks:

- Breakfast?

- Haven't you had breakfast yet?

- Well, no (it was included in his hotel room-charge, but, hey, might as well be sociable), I was expecting, you know, as we were meeting in a coffee shop… You've had breakfast?

- I have. But sure, sorry, let's have something.

- Do we have time?

- Plenty of time. (Then why did I get out of bed so fucking early?)

The serving ladies seems your classic looking waitresses, slightly updated; homely apron (the word 'apron', interestingly, or not, has the same root as 'nappy' and 'map', btw - any rectangular piece of material), scarf (not sure how this fits with previous comment) tied back DFW bandana-like, and she is moderately unattractive. Could have been a body-double for the girl in Five Easy Pieces, except shorter by a little, but movies, TV, you really can't be sure, can you?

- How can I help? asks the shorter of the two waitresses.

- Oh, in lots of ways.

They crack-up for some reason. The waitresses can't help laughing, one has her arms on the counter, she lays her head in them. Never heard this one before, obviously. Stressed out; too many serious types this morning?

- What's wrong, asks E@L with a grin.

- Oh, nothing. We have dirty minds that's all.

- That's all? (They're still laughing. These girls go in the front row when E@L next does a show.)

- OK, what do you want to order?

- Ah, you're back. Flat white and some of that toasted banana bread. (Hold the chicken.)

- Thanks, have a seat. I'll bring it to your table. (She wipes away a tear.)

~~~~~~~~

They arrive in the Day Surgery, sign in as visitors, get some Ni-Viz stickers for their shirts and are 20 minutes early. The machine is ready to go, but they need a scope as his bloody thing won't let you do anything unless there is a full scope attached. The machine's probe is part of an endoscope and so it needs to be connected to the large fibre-optic camera - a stylish stack of cream and blue boxes from once respected company that has yet to completely negotiate itself through major legal/corporate issues back in Japan. The scope is still in the disinfectant and will be another 10 minutes.

They have another scope, they'll go get that. E@L fishes into his bag, pushes his hand around. Tries the secret compartment at the back. The secret compartment insode. Nope. He has left the USB thumb-drives (USB sticks, USB drives, what do you call them) back in his hotel.

Microembolism.

Shit.

A small clump of self-adherent RBCs have pulled out of his heart (the disjecta, the jetsam from an atrial thrombus?) or his leg (ditto from a long-haul flight induced soleal sinus DVT?), shot up the carotid, found an impassably small arteriole and knocked a few brain cells into ischaemia this morning: the integrated synaptic song-lines are interrupted and so a memory fades, an essential task is omitted, an anomic aphasia tips on the tongue, a name is list at a crucial career-making/breaking introduction, a forgotten lover's face coming towards you at a party. Hate it when that happens.

- Do I have time to go back to the hotel? (A short walk, two blocks away, don't need a fucking taxi, man.)

- Sure the Doctor is normally not in 'til about 20 to. (Then why did I…)

E@L puts his jacket back on (a jacket and tie, E@L? Unhealthy precedent, that) and finds his way past the anxious patients and the indifferent staff (stranger? shrug) to the lift, thence the street.

It is 8 minutes to the hotel he guesstimates, past interesting old buildings - 1889 built Theatre Royal, "Bare Witness" starts next week, "Crapunzel" still playing. A converted 1880's warehouse, Victorian style (the queen not the rival State up north); red-brick place, the old City Hall, with pale rendered pillars and two incongruous bell/observation-towers, weird, probably the stairwells. But no time/further-interest to look closely and sort this out.

E@L is in his room now, panting. The USB suckers were in his other briefcase. Sigh. He pockets them and heads back. It's an uphill gradient, only 1in 40 or so, but still, he nearly died a few months ago (Death on his holiday) so it's 10 minutes to get back. The scope is by then out of the disinfectant, the machine is on. He loads the presets and fiddles with them, a bit of tweaking.

Three hours later, they are finished all the scans, only one of the three patients nearly died, a good enough morning, and E@L has backed-up the further tweaks to his USB sticks. He has admitted only getting 70 or so pages into "Infinite Jest" but the Doctor has forgiven him, as he at least had completed "Ulysses," which he (the Doctor) agreed was more daunting in reality. "Gravity?" E@L nods. The Doctor nods back, approvingly. "IJ" is more of an endurance test, he said.

E@L's colleague had her copy of "50 Shades" carefully tucked deep in her bag, but she already left, gone back to M*********.

Which triggers the following aside: E@L wonders - Why would you fly down from M********* last night, stay for half an appointment, and fly out at lunch-time leaving The Talent (Phil Connors E@L) who has flown from Singapore - via, A*********, B*******, M******** epspecially to support and train her, and here he is on his own for the most important part of the commsioning/training. He is here merely to support you, beatch, not to do your job himself. Sigh. He shrugs, like Atlas - you're getting obscenely well paid E@L, STFU.

(She's not a beatch, just an over-stretched, under-paid (commission only 4.5%) little Greek girl.)

The doctor has more cases to do, not using the machine, but after lunch. Can E@L come back before they start agina, and do some more training, explaining, uncomplicating? Sure, certainly, that's why they're paying him so obscenely well.

~~~~~~~

A lunch at Cafe Sawak - Malaysian food in H*****! OMG, and they have Kopi! E@L, being shown a seat, asks the girl with the strong mainland accent, if they use the sock! Yes, she answers. He order the kopi, some water and the traditional, homemade laksa. The kopi is of course, densengauno inducing, disappointing: over-milked, too white, only warm. The laksa is OK - not brilliant - however just homesick defusing enough. Chili oil droplets, nonmiscible, on the creamy coconut broth, but not enough tofu, not enough "oysters" i.e. no clams, not really enough laksa kick. But hey, even in Singapore you can get just-as-shit kopi and a-lot-worse-than-this laksa.

- Salamat, shit. I mean telema kasih. Tsche-tsche (谢谢), Mm goi. Khap khun krup. Thanks. Fuck.

Microembolism.

~~~~~~~

The Instruction Manuals are on a DVD - large files packed with Japglish and completely unhelpful explanations ("Spatial Enhance Switch [a button] - This Switch To On and Off Turn Spatial Enhance." Yes, but what the FUCK does Spatial Enhance do?), but the customer wants to read them in hs computer to find out, not about Spatial Enhance (which E@L doesn't understand and therefore has hidden its "switch") but how to turn the system itself on and off, and how to do simple measurements. E@L offers to email some simplified instructional PDFs (2 pages, VERY simplified, we are talking about the limited capabilites of surgeons here) to him.

- Why not send them by Bluetooth?

Doctor fires up his iPhone and tries to pair with E@L's Android tablet. Of course, fucking iPhone, the Bluetooth on Apple devices is fucked proprietary and no files can cross the intangible ether from its OS to a rival OS. (Cue Dr Evil pinky: A BILLION dollars!)

Me, get an iPhone? You've got to be joking.

- Email OK?

E@L's files are in Dropbox and, and, they must be de-clouded before he can trans-etherise them via Gmail. He manages to pull the smaller file down but the larger one (12MB) is taking too long, via 3G, so E@L promises to send it that night. All done, great, shake hands.

- Oh, I have a case tomorrow afternoon. Could you come in about 1:30, 2? Have you read "Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story," yet?

- Sure, sure. (Like who want's to go to MONA, the only reason he agreed to do this diversonary trip to T*********.) Tomorrow. Reading it now, actually.

~~~~~~~~

Back in his hotel room, E@L fires up his MacBook Air (yes he does have some Apple products, reluctantly) and looks in his jacket pocket for the USB drives to back up.

Hmmm. They are conspicously absent. In the pants? Nope? Shit. Man-bag? Nope. Hey, his Tab is not in the man-bag either. Not on the bed, not on the desk. Oh Jesus.

No USB sticks, no Android Tab. They are back in the hospital, the USB still in the machine, the Tab on the back tray.

Microembolism.

Shit. He pulls his jacket back on and heads for the door, steps out quickly in the corridor and as he walks away the door starts closing and he taps his pocket for the door-card. Top pocket, no. Wallet, nnnn…hey! No wallet at all, he lunges back at the door just as it firmly locks with a solid clunk.

Microebolism.

Walking in an anxious pace, in 6 minutes he is the hospital door, he hopes he doesn't send off a real embolus.

He has been thinking of the people who were in the room where he was explaining the system to the doctor. A chubby (fat, but not as fat as him) red/gray-haired nurse from the cleaning room, who waddled and was cheeky. A laconic theatre tech. Tall, in a decorative paper theatre hat somewhat like a DFW bandana, but slack-mouthed, somewhat dopey looking. But these are the smart ones, slow and measured, they know what's really going on, can anticipate. These are the ones you'd want taround if something went wrong, if some surgeon or nurse didn't know how to work one of the ping-machines. The smart, sharp briskly efficient and over-friendly seeing ones are, apart from being as a rule shorter, often as not, try-hard dumb-fucks, and desperately hard to reach a level of competence your big C or G dopey look guy has when he wakes up with a fucked-over hangover, a dozen bongs and a slab of beer downed during a re-run of Apcalypse Now last night. The sort of person who already knows how to drive E@L's machine.

The sort of person who wouldn't steal a guy's Tab.

And they are still there, where he left them.

Sigh.

Shit.

Microembolism.

E@L

Laugh And The World Laughs With You; Snore and You Sleep Alone.

Snore? Moi?

It's interesting. You can like someone when you first meet them, you can think they are interesting or funny, really hit it off, but if you have to share a room with them and they snore, you turn into a hate monster.

It's as if they robbed you of a lot more than sleep. It's completely disproportionate to the actual offense they caused. And you BLAME them for their snoring... It's like they have control over this, like they did it on purpose, just to offend and disturb you. You don't care about the details and cures: lose weight, have an operation, oh that's interesting you have a deviated septum from a cricket ball exploding into your nose, all that medical stuff. These are just flimsy excuses. They SNORE. That's all it is. You hate them!

Invade Poland, annex the Sudatenland, fine, so long as they don't snore!

That's right; you are not interested in finding a reason for them snoring, that is irrelevant. You just HATE them because they snore. Doesn't matter you liked them last night, this morning they are out of your life completely. You storm off, hoping that your paths, or at least beds, never cross again.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Examples:

1) My darling wife gave up and went to sleep in the spare room, then she went to sleep in London. Two steps to the right and she could have been as far away as possible.

2) My skiing buddies in the shared room in New Zealand threw their shoes at me all night. I skied alone, sob.

3) I used to share a room for expenses reasons, at my hospital's and State Premier Jeff Kennett's insistence, when attending conferences. My room-sharer referred to my snoring as "industrial strength" and vowed to get drunk each night so he'd fall asleep first.

4) When I first met my current bestest buddies, M@&Km, after a party in Sydney where we were all too drunk to drive home, (over 0.08, at least) so about six of us crashed around the living room. M@&Km threw their shoes at me in the middle of the night. At one point Km got up and forcibly turned me onto my side (she's a strong girl) which did not interfere with my snoring at first. However, for some reason, I did eventually stop. M@&Km thanked heaven... but then someone else started instead. They hated me next morning and called me "Snoring E@L". I moved to HK and then a year later so did they. It took me three months to work up the courage to give them a call...

5) After I'd had a few red wines, Izzy could hear me (just) through two closed door and eight feet of concrete.

No more evidence required; I need help. My name is E@L and I am a snoraholic

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hang on, help is on its way.

Last night I slept in the Tan Tok Seng Hospital's sleep centre.

But first, what is it with Singaporeans?

The ward nurse was OK. She smiled asked to asked me to get changed into my sleep gear, which were a grey tee-shirt and grey gym shorts. Shorts? I never wear shorts to bed! But I did so and I came out of the bathroom; she was gone. For a few minutes I was by myself. Whatever.

But then in came the world's most uncommunicative "sleep technician" (a nurse?), a young woman in jeans, casual shirt and a lab coat. I was by now comfortably ensconced (there's word you don't hear everyday, thankfully) on a vinyl chair (which might have been a commode chair, I didn't look underneath) listening to one of Melvyn Bragg's amazingly good podcasts from the BBC, this one on Joyce's "Portrait" (I need to reread that; I realize now that I know nothing).

Lab Coat said nothing to me, didn't even look at me. She began arranging her gels and scraping ("desquamating") tools on the desk, with her back to me.

For about five minutes she seemed to be squeezing stuff out and tearing packing tape into little strips. She explained nothing about the procedure, nothing about what she was doing, nothing about the weather, asked nothing about my family, offered nothing about her family, the missing dog, the world economy. She didn't talk to me, she didn't look at me, she didn't acknowledge my existence. I began to wonder if I was really in the room.

I also imagined having this procedure done in say, America. I'm sure some grossly overweight woman in a nurse uniform three sizes too small would be fussing about the room, doing this and doing that, talking non-stop at volume about everything under the sun and I'd be thinking, "Shut the fuck up," by now. Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes would be nice.

When Silent One had done preparing whatever it was she was preparing (an enema kit for all I knew) she pulled out the desk chair and indicated that I was to sit. So I AM here!

She then broke her vow of silence to ask a series of questions, including, "What race are you?"

I said nothing, mimicking her style. Pretty fucking obvious, what? She asked again, in an even tone, "What race are you?" And again I said nothing but I raised my eyebrows at her. She asked with exactly the same couldn't-care-less emphasis, "Are you Eurasian?"

"Do you think I look Eurasian?"

"Are you Eurasian?" she repeated, a tad hopefully.

"What do you think I am?" Like it fucking matters what 'race' I am anyway. I regret, in retrospect, not saying, "Homo Sapiens". I guess she would put me down as a homosexual with that answer anyway.

She was silent. She didn't know.

"I am a westerner, a Caucasian."

"I'll just put down Caucasian then."

"You do that," I mumbled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I considered asking her out for a quiet (ho ho) drink some time, as you would a waitress or a golf caddy (as some would). She was not at all unattractive, but I guess there are plenty of reasons why she wouldn't fraternize with her patients, one of which is that they all snore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then, without any warning or explanation, she began to measure my head. I wonder if the ghost of Galton looked on with approval. At various key points, she scribbled marks onto my skin. She put the tape away and at these marked points began her desquamating process. Grab a pencil rubber and rub it on your semi-bald head. It warms up pretty quickly, hey? I wondered if this irritating pain was how it felt to get a tattoo.

Then on went the gel and on went a series of electrodes, all around my scone, the ones in my stubble held with HUGE patches of tape or something, maybe those clear plastic surgical patches. It felt gooey, cold and horrible. She made me stand up and, with a stretch and a maximization of velcro, she managed to get some straps around my chest and belly which held breathing sensors.

She then told me to get on the bed and lie down while she continued planting electrodes around my body and taping them on with the packing tape. She put them on my neck on my shoulders, on my legs, next to my eyes and then she hooked me up to some breathing sensors. One went in front of my mouth and a double pronged one up my nose. I took a photo of myself and looking at it, wondered how the fuck I was going to get to sleep tonight. A O2 sensor went onto my finger, was taped on. I felt like the mummy by this stage, like Laura Palmer, wrapped in plastic.

The process of mummification...

I tossed and turned all night, as far as I remember, am not even sure that I got ANY sleep. Left side, right side (ow, my left hip hurts). Yuck, I am drooling onto the pillow. Hell, the gel is oozing from my scalp onto the pillow cover as well; it's like putting my head onto a giant over-firm slug. Amazingly, none of the sensors came off in all this wriggling and reconfiguring of the pillows and bedclothes. I must have slept because I dreamed, but I can't recall what the subject was, something dark and *CLANG* - a trolley outside room woke me up to the chill of the over-airconditioned room.

Note to self: if doing this again bring your own pillows and own duvet (it's freezing in there).

And with nothing else to think about, except young Stephen Dedalus being tossed into the muck at Clongowes and coming down with an hallucinatory fever, I waited for sleep to come. I listened to myself breathing, watched myself in the near dark from above the bed, aware of all the wires on me and I hoped not to rip them off, as Silent One had threatened to come in from her video surveillance room and put them back on. In this toss and turn time, I arrived at the unexpected realization that I can breathe better in and out of my nostrils when I am left lateral decubitus than right lateral decubitus. Thought you might be interested in that icicle of key info. No? Pretend you didn't read it.

You're not interested in any of this?

Piss off then, I'm having a well deserved nap.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Results next week.

E@L