Birvidik

....or the continuing saga of the double hernia.

The last blog entry prompted a flurry of responses, most gloatingly sarcastic, one sympathetic and one useful. The useful one was from Chris Sutton. Having read our blog prompted a synaptic flash of recognition when he saw an advert for the British Hernia Centre and he passed on the contact details.

I had an electronic consultation, during which they asked for a measure of the size of the hernia. They used an interestingly idiosyncratic system of measurement, asking me to choose from pea, egg, plum, lemon, orange, grapefruit, melon and football.

A football?!!!

I expressed my admiration for their ingenious measurement scale, but suggested that it required more discrimination, especially at the lower end. I proposed that they insert 'marrowfat pea' and 'quail's egg' between pea and egg. I also offered to further refine the entire scale for them for a very reasonable fee, but they declined. In the end they confirmed our existing feeling that going down the laparoscopic route was not the wisest course of action. They also said that they could do the op in London for �'£2700 compared with the �'£4000 the Turkish hospital was asking.

We put them on hold while I contacted our GP in Jersey and got a referral to Jim Allardice. We'd still have to go private but at least we had inside gen on the quality of care and surgery. Within days Jim had 'phoned and we discussed the case. He suggested that he did one side and looked at the other to decide if bilateral repair was indicated. He also quoted a price of �'£1900 all in. Bargain - under half the price quoted in Turkey for an inferior procedure.

So, we are off to Jersey via Istanbul and London on the 18th January and I go under the knife on the 27th, once I've stopped the warfarin for a week so I don't squirt all over the table.

In the interim I managed to acquire a cracking cold which went to my chest, causing a hacking cough which went on for days. This is not something you want when you have a double hernia. Every time I cough my hand shoots down to my groin in an attempt to stop the bulges running the gamut of egg, through plum, lemon, orange, grapefruit, to melon and even (God forbid) football. The effect is to make me look like a consumptive rapper.

The worst is when it waits until I have both hands full and am, for example, halfway down the companionway steps. I look around frantically and see that there is no way I can put the things down in time. In desperation I raise both hands, bend forward, slightly bend my left knee and bring my right knee up to my chest in a passable impression of Bruce Forsyth. This never fails to reduce Liz to tears of laughter.

If all goes well I should be hobbling around for a few days as if I've been kicked in the balls by a donkey and then be back to my usual morose self. We intend to return to Istanbul for the boat show on the 10th February and then back to Marmaris on the 16th when we shall bail out Einstein from her month's incarceration at the cattery.

That'll teach the little bastard to keep circumventing our Alcatraz-like defences and going off clubbing with the local ferals.