14th April 2021 ‘Unexpected item in the bagging Area’

 14th April 2021 ‘Unexpected item in the bagging Area’

It’s 11.30am, so Alexander and I set up the Lady Chapel in preparation for a Requiem Mass for HRH Philip. As the requisites were laid out a peculiar and very specific pain started.

Over the decades there have many discussions regarding the merits of Ad orientem (celebrating the Mass facing East) or Ad populum (celebrating the Mass facing West). For this Mass I was glad that Edward Maufe ensured that any such discussions were purely academic, as his design ensures you only have two choices East Facing or Facing East.

Every solemn bow was met with a grimace and the marking of the incarnatus with gurning. The camera was blissfully unaware of what was increasingly gripping my stomach.

On returning home, my discomfort was clear to Sarah, and calls to the doctors were swiftly made. Alas, since Lockdown had ended, people were ill again, and thus, demanding of a physician’s actual ministrations. The GP had returned to actual community outings. So, our cries which went forth were met with silence; ‘my doc, my doc, why hast thou forsaken me?’

Once through to the surgery, we were told to do what no one wants to do, “Go to A and E”. Oh joy!

On arrival, the COVID customs officer stopped me at the entrance, “You’ve got a temperature”. Looking quizzically back at him I replied, “Possibly. I’m unwell.” Aware of his paradoxical responsibility to keep A and E free of illness, he said, “Not sure you can come in.” Bewildered I begged meekly, “But I do really need to see a doctor”. “Hummm, come on then, you’d better wear one of these”. A disposable mask was handed to me gingerly via small tweezers.

For three hours, in a post-apocalyptic scene reminiscent of an 80’s Public Information Film, I witnessed the halt, the lame and the dying insisting that, unless they were seen soon, they would discharge themselves. For the final hour I sat there clutching my side watching a teenage girl swinging her leg to and fro telling all her mates how rubbish the NHS was as they hadn’t “sorted out” her broken leg, and if she had to wait any longer she would be, “walking out!”.

Priests are sometimes referred to as alter Christus, but never could I have imaged that  I would witness so many people brought back from the jaws of death: sniffles were healed, ear-aches were cured, in-growing toe-nails no longer problematic; truly the days of the Apostles are manifesting in London.

Eventually, my name was called and I was poked and prodded and told I needed to see the surgical registrar immediately. Looks like the self-diagnosis was right after all; the appendix. Before being sent on my way, I was told how sorry they were for keeping me waiting given the pain I was in, but “you didn’t make much fuss”. It appears that even years of Panto had not equipped me for the levels of over acting required to be seen with alacrity in A and E.

Moving along the NHS conveyor-belt, I was seen by a quiet, focussed surgical registrar who enquired about family history and recent weight loss. Spotting a cancerous juggernaut heading in my direction, I was able to wax lyrical like a Z-lister talking to Hello magazine. I shared how my ‘struggles’ with weight had been addressed with a weight-loss app which had, since the 3^rd of August, enabled me to ‘journey’ to being, ‘beach-body ready’. Notes were taken, and I was told that I would have a scan and be in overnight.

The CT scan was duly taken and I ascended to the heavenly heights of a London Hospital’s seventh floor. At 2am I was tucked in and given ‘something for the pain’ and woken at... 2.30am, 3am, 4am, and 5.30am; The ward’s Dawn Chorus of ripping Velcro (now assigned to my Room 101) and, in the words of Monty Python, ‘machines that go bing!’ began at 6am.

The new day was heralded by a hearty “Would you like a cup of tea, Robert?” I realised then that there is breakfast in bed, and there is breakfast in bed.

8am. Since COVID, has been Morning Prayer livestreamed on Facebook. This morning I lay in bed wondering when my appendix would be removed. Alexander livestreamed the Morning Office; I shed a tear.