December 18th: Torture

So we almost moved. Yep that's correct, we almost moved. We had been looking for a new adventure for a while now and suddenly an opportunity presented itself. Nienke wanted to downsize a bit. Well this property was almost twice the size of ours, but the house was half the size. Nicely located in a remote valley, but still in Kapiti. Only problem was, there was quite a bit of interest in the property as you can see from all the cars in this picture.

The owners, of course on advise of the real estate agent, had chosen to go for a tender process. That means that if you want to have the house, you send a letter with your offer before a certain date and the highest bidder wins. Awful process for buyers. Anyway, the house sold for more than 60% above the rateable value. Crazy market here. Poor Nienke very disappointed. It looked so lovely with 10 hectares of pine forest, several nice paddocks and multiple sheds and a genuine 1919 old farmhouse. Ah well, something new will pop up one day. With a tennis court, I hope.

So for now we're stuck with this view from our beach.

Or just from the deck.

Or not at all. We've had some strange weather around here. Summer does not want to start. We've had lot's of rain. This came in handy as Andre (of Dutch descent) came over to clean our water tanks. He managed to save a bit from the second tank after filtering it, but I estimate we donated about 50.000 liter back to nature. The southerlies made it a bit cold as well.

Because of this we had to decide to only make hay in our front paddocks as the grass is so green and lush, our cows just can't eat all of it. And because we still had quite some hay left, we can't store the lot. The other reason was that hay makers turn up when it suits them and usually without warning. And because I can't help lifting the bales after my operation Nienke would have to do all of it by herself.

It's not that we were just not doing anything. A while ago I bought a scaffolding and recently some paint. So when 2 Work-away-ers came over to stay with us for two weeks it seemed like a perfect moment to do some interior redecorating.

Well, redecorating is maybe n ot the right word. After ample discussion with Nienke 'we' decided to go for, wait for it ...., exactly the same colours. Basically we were going to cover ten years of fly and spider poop. It only turned out I was right about the green wall in the living room. I said it was green and Nienke said it was blue. Turned out it once was blue, but it had faded into a green colour which was quite clear when we removed our big cabinet. The new layer shows that Nienke was right.

We had a few really productive days, managed to paint the whole upper floor. No we did not paint the sky, nature did that all by herself as a reward for Alex and Jennifer's efforts.

And then of course something had to go wrong. When we dismantled the scaffolding I wanted to do things too fast (meaning: on my own) and one part tumbled over, causing a nice big scratch on our just painted wall. Luckily the window did not shatter. That's all repaired by now and not visible anymore. No other problems. Well, one small one. When the house was painted they painted the flu of our fire in an off white colour. As the flu gets really hot it needs to be a high temperature resistant paint. They do have one here, but only in black. So for now the flu is the only thing that still needs to be done.

Even painted the walls around our staircase. It was clear that I made the correct decision to go for a 70 cm deep scaffolding. This fitted perfectly between the wall and the hand rails.

Piece of cake.

Alex and Jennifer love food. Not only the eating part of it, but also the creating part of it. No objections from our side. They made us some delicious miso soup and another complicated vegetarian dish.

And then that dreaded day was there all of a sudden. The sky cried for me. We got up really early as we had to be in hospital at 9 am. Left at 6.45 am and only just made it. 2 1/2 hours over 60 km. It took so long because of the daily traffic jams on a weekly day, the horrible weather with some spontaneous waterfalls over the highway and the usual idiot drivers.

It was clear that Wakefield hospital is a private hospital. So different from the stories I hear from my patients. Staff was friendly and efficient. In fact, I was moved to theater so fast that Nienke missed this shot. 

Poor Nienke, she was told the operation was going to last 3 hours and than an hour in recovery, so I would be back in my room at 4 pm. At 6.30 pm she started to get a bit worried as nobody had come to tell her something yet. Recovery took quite long. I did tell the anesthetist about my previous experience with the low heart rate. "Well, that's not happening here, this is Wakefield hospital". OK, so my heart rate did not drop to 25, but only to 29. With a low blood-pressure (because of more blood-loss than expected) and excessive sweating I was quite a concern for the nurses in recovery. I can only remember vague bits of it. Nurses running around, putting a wet towel on my head,worried faces swaying over my head, "Hans are you awake (I could hear them but not answer), etc. Afterwards one of the nurses asked me about Brasil. Apparently I had been mumbling about Brasil during recovery. I still do not see the relevance of it.

When they finally got me stable again they wheeled me back to a relieved Nienke. And as my blood-pressure was still on the lower side I attacked the bag with licorice Nienke had brought along straight away.

After a good meal my natural colour started to re-emerge again. And for the insiders, you can see the readings on the monitor are acceptable. The smile on my face is because at that point I had not fully realised the implications of having a catheter.

Because of my adventure in recovery they kept me a day longer. On Saturday they kicked me out. I was to further recover at home. At home the work-away-ers surprised me with this. A selfmade Dutch "boterkoek" and some presents from friends.

Jennifer is an expert on poached-eggs. Nienke and I have finally given up on that after many attempts ended in egg soup or a burned device in the microwave. She made us delicious eggs benedict for breakfast. I can so get used to being pampered like this.

So, operation successful. Now it is down to recuperation. Like lock-down in NZ, not the worst place to be.

In the beginning is just a bit of getting used to the fiddling around with a catheter and the bags. It does have it's advantages: 1. you can drink what you want without having to go to the toilet (it actually comes with 2 l. extension bags), 2. it's very hard to miss the bowl which, many women can vouch for, is a huge improvement!, 3. you do not have to get up anymore at night which many men can vouch for is a huge improvement!, 4. you can smuggle whisky into an event (as my colleague said he once did). That's about it, no more advantages. As the days passed it became more apparent how awful that thing is. My little friend was really suffering, like it got caught in one of those horrible rat traps. Not sure why the Americans used waterboarding in Irak, give a man a catheter for a few days and he'll confess to anything. The last few days of this ordeal I was walking around half naked as I could not tolerate any pressure on my friend. Today was the day to remove that torture device (they'd given me an appointment in hospital to do that, but by doing that myself I saved 3 hours in traffic). There I was in the garden admiring the sun and the fact that I could pee again. Now it is just a matter of training the pelvic floor in order to stay continent. Sorry to bother you with all these details, but for me farting without losing urine is the accomplishment of the day! 

You know what the difference is between god and a surgeon? God doesn't think he is a surgeon. In 1991 I saw the movie "The doctor" in which William Hunt plays the role of a typical surgeon, a narcissistic and arrogant extremely self-content creature. Until he becomes a patient himself which changes his life quite a bit. Of course there are exceptions, like my father-in-law. A very good movie which should be mandatory education stuff for medical students. I do not think I am anywhere near the character William Hunt played, but it is eye-opening to experience the implications of something like this prostatectomy yourself. I realise I am very lucky, being operated in a private hospital and having such a great caring wife.

I wish you all o good christmas and a happy New Year. The last one can't be very difficult1