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Wednesday 10 August 2011

On chicks

Chicks dig scars. This means that were it not for my odious personality, I'd be completely snowed under. My head looks like a dog's had a go at Kryten from Red Dwarf.

Obviously, I've been through the majority of the reasons for this here before. However, I just looked at the date when I was struck with the dazzling realisation that! It's been 5 years to the day since I had the operation to screw my neck back together.

Five years of being bionic, almost to the hour that I'm writing this. They've been exciting times. Actually, they haven't really. But considering the exciting times that led me into that situation that's probably for the best.

It was an exciting operation, mind you. It lasted about 3 or 4 hours, I think. Two neurosurgeons went in through the front of my neck and screwed my spine back together (for those experts amongst you, it was my odontoid process, I had a type 2 fracture of C2). All the while I was being CT scanned, so a live-action 3D model of my head and neck was available to make sure they didn't do anything really daft, like accidentally drive the screw into the bottom of my brain. I blanche to think how expensive this must have all been. All hail Great Britain! A country where, at the moment at least, you can really seriously injure yourself without financial ruin!

The mark of a good surgeon, the saying goes, is that they leave no mark. And so it proved to be. The sum total of the outward physical evidence of what I sincerely hope is the coolest operation I will ever have: a 2½-inch long scar, almost invisible to the naked eye. Perhaps this is why chicks don't dig me so much. Perhaps chicks should carry portable x-ray machines and metal detectors.

The good people responsible were Hurstwood Park Neurosciences Centre in Haywards Heath. A magnificent bunch. Such was their efficiency that, having checked in to the hospital on the 9th and been operated on on the 10th, by teatime on Saturday 12th I was at home again. I can't recommend them highly enough. I would also recommend you do your best to avoid having to use their services in the first place, mind you.

I am cool.

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