OP
cooperscuba
Contributor
A Bum Deal (Queens Medical College (Q.M.C.), Nottingham, England, 1997)
The news was good.
Sort of.
Weve had a look at your x-rays, Mr. Cooper, and theres no breakage, just some heavy bruising, a nurse intoned with cool professionalism.
From where I was sitting, metaphorically speaking, I was inclined to disagree with the given analysis. Are you sure? It really hurts.
What do you expect, Mr. Cooper? You jumped out a airplane and landed on your arse; of course it will hurt.
Ah, the stoic wisdom of a British nurse.
From West Germany to Singapore (1969 - 1971)
My father served in the British Forces, nine years as a Royal Engineer, and he was stationed in Germany when I was born at Hanovers main hospital. I should have had dual nationality but my dad declared that no son of mine is going to be a Kraut; despite him not being born until shortly after the Second World War, my father had inherited from my Grandfather a rather strong dislike of Germany and her people.
My residence in the Rhineland was short, four months later we were shipped off to Singapore where my fathers battalion were assisting with building work and the occasional patrols around the Strait of Burma. The Royal Engineers were the last battalion to be stationed in Singapore after she had taken her independence and, two years later, my fathers unit would be the very last British force to leave the island. Not that I knew anything about this at the time, I was still in diapers and my interest lay mainly in eating the large tropical snails found in our family garden, where I was routinely dumped for some fresh air after breakfast. The snails turned my poo a startlingly bright green, apparently, and the color of my movements was a worrying mystery for my mother. The mystery persisted for a couple of weeks before she caught me winkling a snail out of its shell and dropping it down my throat.
The downside to being busted for taking illegal dietary supplements came in the form of a parent or guardian, supposedly of a responsible nature (although, considering I would soon have the opportunity to bite through my fathers aquariums power cable and receive 60% burns, you must wonder about certain peoples interpretations of responsible) who swept the garden for any snail infestation and removed them to another location i.e. they lobbed them over a neighbors fence.
It isnt surprising that I have no real memories of any of this, being less than three years old when we left Singapore. Theres just tales from my mother and grainy Kodak photos of my very youthful looking parents, taking my sister (who was born in Singapore) & I for baby strolls around Tiger Balm Park (with its many and varied statues of dragons, Buddhas, and the 7 Hells), Jurong Bird Park, and Sentosa Island. Life appeared to have been good.
Shatterpoint (Christmas, England, 1977)
Shortly after leaving the army, my father died at a terribly young age and the chance to revisit Singapore as a family was lost, amongst a great many things, but our mother always promised my sister and I that, one day, she would take us back to see Singapore.
The Bargain (Nottingham, UK - 1995)
In 1995 I convinced mother, who at the time was a keen skydiver, to sign on with me to a BS-AC Club Diver course. Mother agreed but on the proviso that once we were both qualified as divers, I would then make a jump. Like a fool, I agreed.
To this end we started the course together only for me to discover my right ear would not equalize. I couldnt equalize on the surface, let alone under one meter of water. To have said my first experience of scuba was disappointing, would have been an understatement.
Mother, on the other hand, had no such issues, thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing and completed levels 1 & 2 over the next few months.
Despite the setback, I decided I would go diving yet and visited my local GP ... who referred me to another doctor ... who referred me to a specialist ... who referred me to another specialist ... who referred me to the ENT department at Queen Medical College in Nottingham, where they prodded and poked me, told me that my right eustachian tube was blocked by bone, and referred me back to my GP. My GP then informed me that there was an operation that could free the right side of my hooter to breathe freely, but it only had a 50-50 chance of success. In for a penny, in for a pound; I decided it would be better to try the operation in the hope that I would then be able to dive and, should it become apparent that I was destined to never dive, I would deal with that if it came up. Besides, Id never been under a general anesthetic before and someone had told me there was morphine and cocaine involved. It sounded promising.
Under the Knife (Q.M.C., Nottingham, England, February 1997)
Due to work and a yellow-belly it wasnt until early 1997 that I found myself back at the Q.M.C. for a SMR (sub-mucous resection) and an overnight stopover. My hooter has a right-sided tilt and it was because of this tilt that my septum, the bone that runs down the middle of a nose, was blocking one of my Eustachian tubes; the SMR would involve the removal of a small portion of the septum. Since signing up for the operation a friend had informed me that going under a general anesthetic was the closest to death you can get without dying. My friend informed me of this every time we met and we met a considerable amount as we were renting neighboring rooms at the same address. My initial enthusiasm for the operation waned somewhat.
Id also learnt (from the medical staff) that there would be a lot of yucky gunk such as dried blood, mucous, bits of flesh in the nasal cavity. And that it will feel like you have a small ball up your nostril. Youll have the urge to blow your nose - dont! Youll need to wait 2 weeks after the operation before clearing your nose. Great! It would be 2 more weeks before I even discovered if the operation was a success. On the plus side, I would have to miss all the hospital meals for the day.
Two weeks later I finally got to blow my nose, and it was better than sex. Sheer ecstasy!
I could breathe freely and, more importantly, make my ears go pop!
The news was good.
Sort of.
Weve had a look at your x-rays, Mr. Cooper, and theres no breakage, just some heavy bruising, a nurse intoned with cool professionalism.
From where I was sitting, metaphorically speaking, I was inclined to disagree with the given analysis. Are you sure? It really hurts.
What do you expect, Mr. Cooper? You jumped out a airplane and landed on your arse; of course it will hurt.
Ah, the stoic wisdom of a British nurse.
From West Germany to Singapore (1969 - 1971)
My father served in the British Forces, nine years as a Royal Engineer, and he was stationed in Germany when I was born at Hanovers main hospital. I should have had dual nationality but my dad declared that no son of mine is going to be a Kraut; despite him not being born until shortly after the Second World War, my father had inherited from my Grandfather a rather strong dislike of Germany and her people.
My residence in the Rhineland was short, four months later we were shipped off to Singapore where my fathers battalion were assisting with building work and the occasional patrols around the Strait of Burma. The Royal Engineers were the last battalion to be stationed in Singapore after she had taken her independence and, two years later, my fathers unit would be the very last British force to leave the island. Not that I knew anything about this at the time, I was still in diapers and my interest lay mainly in eating the large tropical snails found in our family garden, where I was routinely dumped for some fresh air after breakfast. The snails turned my poo a startlingly bright green, apparently, and the color of my movements was a worrying mystery for my mother. The mystery persisted for a couple of weeks before she caught me winkling a snail out of its shell and dropping it down my throat.
The downside to being busted for taking illegal dietary supplements came in the form of a parent or guardian, supposedly of a responsible nature (although, considering I would soon have the opportunity to bite through my fathers aquariums power cable and receive 60% burns, you must wonder about certain peoples interpretations of responsible) who swept the garden for any snail infestation and removed them to another location i.e. they lobbed them over a neighbors fence.
It isnt surprising that I have no real memories of any of this, being less than three years old when we left Singapore. Theres just tales from my mother and grainy Kodak photos of my very youthful looking parents, taking my sister (who was born in Singapore) & I for baby strolls around Tiger Balm Park (with its many and varied statues of dragons, Buddhas, and the 7 Hells), Jurong Bird Park, and Sentosa Island. Life appeared to have been good.
Shatterpoint (Christmas, England, 1977)
Shortly after leaving the army, my father died at a terribly young age and the chance to revisit Singapore as a family was lost, amongst a great many things, but our mother always promised my sister and I that, one day, she would take us back to see Singapore.
The Bargain (Nottingham, UK - 1995)
In 1995 I convinced mother, who at the time was a keen skydiver, to sign on with me to a BS-AC Club Diver course. Mother agreed but on the proviso that once we were both qualified as divers, I would then make a jump. Like a fool, I agreed.
To this end we started the course together only for me to discover my right ear would not equalize. I couldnt equalize on the surface, let alone under one meter of water. To have said my first experience of scuba was disappointing, would have been an understatement.
Mother, on the other hand, had no such issues, thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing and completed levels 1 & 2 over the next few months.
Despite the setback, I decided I would go diving yet and visited my local GP ... who referred me to another doctor ... who referred me to a specialist ... who referred me to another specialist ... who referred me to the ENT department at Queen Medical College in Nottingham, where they prodded and poked me, told me that my right eustachian tube was blocked by bone, and referred me back to my GP. My GP then informed me that there was an operation that could free the right side of my hooter to breathe freely, but it only had a 50-50 chance of success. In for a penny, in for a pound; I decided it would be better to try the operation in the hope that I would then be able to dive and, should it become apparent that I was destined to never dive, I would deal with that if it came up. Besides, Id never been under a general anesthetic before and someone had told me there was morphine and cocaine involved. It sounded promising.
Under the Knife (Q.M.C., Nottingham, England, February 1997)
Due to work and a yellow-belly it wasnt until early 1997 that I found myself back at the Q.M.C. for a SMR (sub-mucous resection) and an overnight stopover. My hooter has a right-sided tilt and it was because of this tilt that my septum, the bone that runs down the middle of a nose, was blocking one of my Eustachian tubes; the SMR would involve the removal of a small portion of the septum. Since signing up for the operation a friend had informed me that going under a general anesthetic was the closest to death you can get without dying. My friend informed me of this every time we met and we met a considerable amount as we were renting neighboring rooms at the same address. My initial enthusiasm for the operation waned somewhat.
Id also learnt (from the medical staff) that there would be a lot of yucky gunk such as dried blood, mucous, bits of flesh in the nasal cavity. And that it will feel like you have a small ball up your nostril. Youll have the urge to blow your nose - dont! Youll need to wait 2 weeks after the operation before clearing your nose. Great! It would be 2 more weeks before I even discovered if the operation was a success. On the plus side, I would have to miss all the hospital meals for the day.
Two weeks later I finally got to blow my nose, and it was better than sex. Sheer ecstasy!
I could breathe freely and, more importantly, make my ears go pop!
