Thirteen Years Ago

Where does the time go? Some of you will know that I've had several operations for a slipped disc in my back and have blogged about two of the operations. Well, I had my first operation thirteen years ago today. It's an anniversary of sorts. And this is what my slipped disc looked like in 2007 - yes, that is a real picture of my insides after getting an MRI scan. Its squeezing out between the vertebrae and pressing on the nerves that run up the spine.

I was admitted to Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon (yes, where they do the tennis) thirteen years ago yesterday with a view to having the operation first thing the next morning. I vaguely recall that it wasn't first thing since an emergency operation took precedence, and I was done in the afternoon. I was dosed up with morphine afterwards so don't remember much after I woke up.

Something I do remember is trying to get up at some point during the night to go to the toilet and feeling absolute agony when I'd managed to sit up and my weight pressed down on where I'd been opened up in the small of my back.  At that point a nurse brought a 'bottle' so I didn't have to move away from the bed. I'll never forget that moment, it felt like the weight of the world was pressing down on me.

Atkinson Morley Hospital was a small hospital based inside an old country house from the early 1800s when Wimbledon was in the countryside rather than the suburbs around London. The hospital closed years ago but is remembered in the name of the building that makes up a new wing at St George's Hospital in Tooting. And I remember it too.