I received a phone call over 2 weeks from a mate that I have known for over 20 years, in fact he was the first person that I made friends with at my footy club when we moved over to Australia! He called me to confirm that I would be attending his 4oth birthday on the weekend of 27th March and we agreed that we would spend the day with one eye on the tv watching the Formula 1 highlights and the other chatting to various people! We laughed about it and that was that.
Then, Wednesday last week he rang me back. There was the usual banter and a brief chat about the first round of the F1. This was then followed up with “Hey mate, you know how my party was locked in for the 27th?”. “Yes”. “Well, we are going to have to postpone it for a later date”. “Oh! Ok. Is everything alright?”.
What followed was him informing me that he had been feeling a bit crook in the last week and so he had been to the Doc’s on the Monday and after a couple of tests that day, then a HEAP of tests on the Tuesday, they had decided to rush him in for an emergency procedure to remove a cancerous tumour from his right kidney. They would need to break a couple of ribs to do so, make an incision about 30cm+ long and he would be under for 4 hours or so!
He was (as always) pretty philosophical about the whole thing and said that it was great that they had found it and that the surgery was the cure and that in 95% of cases, that is the end of it!
So, last week he went in to hospital and had the operation and I spoke with his wife on the Thursday and then with him on the Sunday. He said that he was in massive pain, but that the op had gone really well and that they were talking about releasing him “soon”. The VERY NEXT day, I got a text from him to say that he was in the car on his way home! I was shocked, but told him that I would be over to visit the next day (yesterday)!
I was even more shocked when I saw the state of him yesterday when I got to his place! He could hardly move he was in so much pain and the poor bloke looked a lot older than his (almost) 40 years! I said to him, “What the hell are you doing back at home in this state?” (the terminology has been cleaned up for the purposes of the blog)!!! His response was along the lines of the hospital needed the bed and they offered to give him some strong medication to handle the pain and as he was ‘young and fit’ (young – defintely. fit – not so sure!!!) he should recover well .
Now, I am obviously NOT a Doctor, but there is no way my mate should have been let out of the hospital. I won’t go in to the gory details, but let me just say that he had not even cleared his system since the operation so they should have at least have kept him until that milestone had been successfully achieved! It should also be noted that he was released against the protestations of both his wife and sister AND that he was paying TOP DOLLAR in a private hostpital with a VERY good name!!!
I am gob-smacked that anyone would be released after such major surgery! And to let someone go home where there was not going to be any care for the first two days that he was back there is beyond me and quite frankly bordering on culpable in my limited opinion!!!
However, from all of this there have been some real positives:
- Primarily that my friend is better and should be fine from here!
- It has woken him up to his unhealthy lifestyle
- And has woken myself and a couple of our other close friends up to theirs (unhealthy lifestyles). We have all agreed to getting a bit fitter and being healthier and to making some wiser decisions when it comes to our lifestyles (work vs play vs late nights vs parties vs etc, etc)!
Life is so precious, particularly when we all have kids involved! We should therefore hold on tight to it and take the time to look at what is important us and make the decisions required to ensure that we are around and about to enjoy each and every moment that we have to spend with those that we love and cherish as ultimately we are all mortal, which for (relatively) young Australian blokes to admit is a MAJOR milestone!!! 🙂