8.45 am, I am in the surgeon's rooms. Forms to fill out, name, address, age, phone number, etc etc, I am to give people these details many times during the day. Next time I'll print them out on slips of paper and hand them round.

The surgeon pokes and prods me, tells me to stick out my tongue, looks deeply into my eyes, asks a few questions, reads the letter from my doctor and gives my ultra-sound photos a cursory look. He then tells me what I already know, that I have stones in my gall bladder and that one is blocking the bile duct. He tells me I have to have an ERCP to take the stones out. I tell him that this is good as I came in expecting to have my gall bladder out that day. He says it has to come out anyway, but the stones must be removed by the ERCP beforehand. I wonder why the gall bladder has to come out if the stones are removed. Isn't that the problem with the gall bladder? He tells me I'll be better off without it and that it's no earthly use to me. I file that one away to think about later.

The surgeon is a well-connected man. He puts in a call to the chief surgeon at a hospital some considerable distance away because they can't do an ERCP in the hospital we are at. The surgeon is unavailable, so he asks for an urgent call back when he is free. I am sent to the emergency department of the other hospital to wait until this dude can see me.

The receptionist relieves me of $95, which she assures me is the cash discount price for the consultation. Hmmm…95 bucks for around four minutes is a reasonable rate of pay. Perhaps the phone call was expensive.

My lovely wife Sandy is sharing this part of the journey with me and I muse on a few things as she zooms down the expressway. I remember the great tonsils' massacres of the 1950s. Every kid who got so much as a slightly sore throat was rushed into one of the special hospitals surgeons set up at the time and had their tonsils ripped out. I survived until I was almost 10 and I was the oldest kid in my ward by far. Ward is stretching it a bit. This was an old house converted into a tonsil removal factory. I am also reminded of the great womb rip-out (off) of the 1970s and 80s. I wonder if all doctors' kids in the 50s had their tonsils removed and all doctors wives in the 70s and 80s had their wombs out? After all, they were not needed, just lying around cluttering up the body really. Did doctors disembowel their own wives? Did female surgeons rush in to go under their colleagues knives? Did female surgeons perhaps do the job on themselves at home? The questions multiply. Does this particular surgeon need a third Porsche to stop the kids from borrowing his Porsche or that of his missus? I mustn't be cynical. People involved in the medical profession would never recommend unnecessary operations for the mere gathering of a bit of filthy lucre. Doctors are above such things and exist to heal the suffering of the sick. Why are their fees so high?

Sandy drives me to the other hospital and we arrive there around 10. I fill out some more forms with my name, address, age, phone number, etc etc on them. We wait in the waiting room until 11 ish. I'm not in any great pain, so we observe the passing parade of human misery. I realise that I'm not so badly off; it's just that my case could be life-threatening if infection set in. My doctor had been seriously pissed off this morning when I told him the hospital had sent me home the previous Friday instead of having me operated on over the weekend.

We are shown into a cubicle and a nurse gets me to fill out some forms to let them know my name, address, age, phone number, etc etc. The nurse puts a cardboard bracelet around my left wrist with these details on it. I ask if this is to identify the body. She smirks but doesn't reply. A 12 year-old Indian intern comes in (everyone looks about 12 when you get to my age). The intern asks me a million questions including name, address, age, phone number, etc etc. He is also very detailed and thorough in his questioning about my past history of illness and my present symptoms. I'd answered all these questions several times the previous week to various medical practitioners. Why don't they write things down? He tells me the chief surgeon is busy, so he has sent him down to deal with me. Suits me, he seems competent. The intern arranges for a blood sample to be taken and puts a shunt in my arm. He tells me that they will put me on a drip soon so that I don't get dehydrated. I wonder why I can't just drink water, but hey, I'm the layman here. The intern asks for a urine sample and I agree he can have one. He leaves promising to be back soon.

The vampire lady comes and takes a sample and says it will be analysed very soon. Sandy and I are left to our own devices for an hour or so during which several medical personnel, including the cheerful chappie who seems to be in charge of this part of ship (I nickname him the floor-manager) poke their heads in and ask questions: "Do you know what they are going to do?" "Are they admitting you?" "Are you leaving the space soon?" "Have they said you can go home?" I begin to wonder who 'they' are. The penultimate questioner asks if I have a nurse hiding under the bed. Sandy is out shifting the car at this time.

My 12 year-old intern friend returns after an hour or so to say that the blood has yet to be analysed and that the gastro-enterologist is too busy to see me. Perhaps he is 'they'? I ask about the drip and he says it won't be needed if I'm admitted. This sounds suspiciously like a non-sequitur, but I let it through to the keeper. He suggests a urine sample and leaves for an hour and a half.

Sandy goes out to shift the car again during this time. I lie down on the bed and try to snooze, but there's too much activity. Next door someone is told that they have bladder cancer. I figure this maybe should be done in an office somewhere as there is a pretty big reaction and who can blame the poor sod. I get up and pace the three paces possible from one side of the cubicle to the other. Sandy returns and says it's hot outside and we muse on how things must have been in hospitals before the miracle of air-conditioning.
More people poke their heads into the cubicle and ask the same questions as before.

The intern returns to give us the non-news that the blood still hasn't been analysed and nothing else has happened. I ask about the drip again and he agrees it's a good idea. He suggests a urine sample and I agree. He leaves for an hour. Sandy goes out for some lunch. I'm fasting in case they operate; I haven't been hungry for more than a week anyway.

The floor manager comes in with a urine sample jar a few minutes later and I head for the heads and oblige. My urine looks the colour of the sump oil when you change your own engine oil. I am pleased that it has improved since the weekend. I return to the cubicle and wave the jar at the floor manager several times as he passes, but he either doesn't see me or ignores me. Perhaps I have to give it to the intern?

The intern comes back and tells me that the gastro-enterologist has looked at the blood analysis and that because several enzymes are showing chronic levels—not the first time in my life this has happened--he has decided to admit me to the hospital. The urine sample jar is sitting on the table. He picks it up idly as he speaks, then puts it down. He says I will have the operation on Thursday.

I've been here before. All they do is put you on a drip and check your vital signs every four hours. I say that there seems little point as I'll be more comfortable at home and can come back in on the Wednesday night or Thursday morning for the operation. What can 'they' do here that I can't do at home? He replies that the surgeon referred me to the hospital as an in-patient not an out-patient, and that 'they' may need to re-hydrate me. I ask if I'm dehydrated and he tells me I'm not. He suggests I talk to Basil, the gastro chap and tell him I don't want to stay. I am about to do that when Sandy arrives back, so we go through it all again for her benefit. When we get to the part about me being admitted, she reckons it's a great idea. I realise I'll be putting her under a strain if I go home as she'll be worried I'm going to get crook. I capitulate. The intern leaves without taking my urine sample with him. A nurse is due any time to book me in so Sandy goes out to the car to get my bag.

The intern returns with a nurse and asks her to book me in. She asks in an overly loud voice dripping with icy scorn if he's a medical student. He replies with wounded dignity that he's an intern—that means a 6th year medical student attached to a hospital for a year if I remember correctly, but I'm staying out of this one—she tells him to book me in himself and departs in high dudgeon. This is my first example of the hospital hierarchy. He goes out and returns somewhat chastened with the admittance form and asks me my name, address, age, phone number, etc etc, but this time he writes them down. I ask about the drip shunt in my arm. He tells me that when the nurse comes to take me to the ward I should remind her to take it out. He leaves, dignity restored, having proven to me that he can instruct nurses just like any other doctor.

Sandy returns with my bag, and now that my fate is sealed, we are hustled out of the cubicle we have occupied for half a day. We sit on plastic chairs in a little clear area outside the cubicles. I take my urine sample with me and sit it on top of my bag hoping the floor-manager or someone else will notice it, scoop it up and deposit it where it's supposed to go. No one acknowledges it.

We sit for some time then Sandy says she will have to go as she has things to do and a rehearsal that night. Sandy is a classical singer with the best mezzo-soprano voice I have ever heard. She sings soprano roles sometimes, but she's a better mezzo. I love the richness and colour of her voice and I miss her bursting into song when she's not around.

She stays on for some time after saying she is going as neither of us wants the parting. We are a close couple, rarely apart, fight like magpies, but love one another. She suggests I read my book when she's gone. It is Kate Grenville's 'Secret River'—a great novel. I agree and eventually she departs. Sandy, not Kate Grenville.

I move the urine sample to the chair Sandy vacates and get the book out of my case. I try to read, but concentration is difficult. There is constant coming and going, toing and froing as patients are wheeled into cubicles, treated and wheeled out again. The place is full of frantic activity and it is obvious that there are too few cubicles and too few staff for the tide of misery pouring through the place.

When the curtains of one of the central cubicles are pulled shut to allow some procedure or other to take place, a bloke comes out and asks if he can use the chair. I move the urine sample back onto the case. When the curtains are pulled back and the bloke returns to his partner, I realise it's a bloke. I hope that it's nothing to do with the virus.

I figure I should get my head out of my book and analyse the human colour around me. There is an aboriginal woman, alone and frightened sitting on a chair to the side of the bed in one cubicle. She's in with a suspected heart attack. She is being examined before being admitted. In the end cubicle where Sandy and I spent so much time a frail old woman followed our tenure. She arrived in the waiting room at the same time as us around 10 am. My guilt is immense.

It strikes me that if my blood sample could have been analysed as soon as it was taken, the decision to admit me could have been taken within about 10 minutes, let's say half an hour tops. The old lady, who was brought in by ambulance on a bed, could have been seen so much earlier. It's not the fault of the staff, they are saints. The hospital is seriously under-resourced.

A nurse comes in and says she is there to take me to the ward. She says she has to make sure she has everything necessary with her and off she goes. I never saw her again. Another arrived a short time later and said she was checking to see if they were ready for me on the ward. Someone called from one of the cubicles and she said, "Don't worry, I haven't gone away", not to me, the other person. She then went into the cubicle with the aboriginal woman and began treating her. I begin to wonder if the inmates are in charge of the asylum; perhaps these are impostors dressed up as nurses paid to keep patients on edge for some reason. I banish such unworthy thoughts as a nurse somewhat more senior than the last two arrives to take me to the ward. She says she just needs to check that she has everything she needs. I offer to accompany her; she smiles and tells me to relax and off she goes. I abandon hope of ever seeing her again and put my urine sample on the floor manager's table figuring that he'll deal with it. It is marked with details of my name, address, age, phone number, etc etc, so he can't really go wrong, can he? He can always ring me if it's a problem.

Surprisingly the nurse returns. I ask her if she can take the drip shunt out of my arm, but she replies that I'll need it later in the day. I tell her that a doctor said to take it out, she replies, "Yes, a very junior doctor". Again the scorn drips like molten contempt from her lips.

Off we trundle, me wheeling my bag behind me, she carrying my ultra-sound pictures. She remarks that it is rare to walk someone up to a ward and at first I misunderstand, thinking that others find their own ways and I'm obviously considered too dim. It's my great underlying inferiority complex rising to the surface. In fact, I'm a reasonably competent human being. Honest! When we hit the rabbit warren of a ward on the second floor, I realise why she is with me. You'd need a compass and pretty good orienteering skills to find the place.

I arrive at the ward at 10 past 4 after entering the hospital at 10 am. It is a comfortable two-bed unit with en-suite, spanking new and squeaky clean. This comes as a pleasant surprise because I've been picturing a ward with many beds and one bathroom down the corridor. The only bed is by the window and at first I think I have a room to myself. I work out pretty quickly that the other bed will soon return as its occupant is no doubt in surgery.

The nurse in charge of my room is a happy, efficient, bubbling sort of person. She clips a tag around my wrist to identify the body. I detach the tag that had been put on previously, downstairs.

She reads out the details of my name, age, address, phone number etc. etc. and gets me to confirm. She takes my pulse, checks temperature and blood pressure and asks for a urine sample. I tell her I've left one downstairs and she says she'll check it out. She removes the drip shunt from my arm.

My roomie—Tug--is wheeled in from the recovery unit about 5.20 pm. He's had his gall bladder removed. He lay there for awhile, very unconscious, and then they pulled the curtains closed around him as he began showing signs of returning to the land of the living. A number of people came in over an hour or so and asked if he knew where he was. He said 'Croydon' and as I gathered he was a Brit, I wondered if he meant there or here. He gradually got better, although the drugs were still scrambling his brain. The nurse asked if he wanted dinner, but he mumbled something unintelligible. She then asked if he'd like a sandwich kept for later instead. He said that sounded like a good idea, but she thought he meant dinner while I knew he meant the sandwich. This was the only mistake I saw this cheerful, highly competent nurse make in the two days she was in my unit. His family came to see him. It was a bit early really, he was still drugged out and not making much sense. Mercifully they didn't stay too long.

I put off getting changed into my pyjamas as this will be the moment I really enter hospital. I feel a bit crook, but not so bad that I need to spend lots of time in bed. I read my novel for some of the time and ask permission to walk around the unit. I do a number of circuits of the extended ward.

Dinner arrives, pasta and vegetables with fruit to follow. It is OK. I wonder at the lack of protein for a vegetarian. I read a lot over the next few hours. I stay in my clothes until 9 p.m. then put on my pyjamas and really enter hospital. From time to time people come and take my blood pressure, temperature and pulse. No one suggests a urine sample.

They kept the curtains closed around Tug's bed all night, and the lights on. There were a lot of groans and other noises and every hour or so two separate electronic beeping alarms went off. This was followed by several staff entering the cubicle, and a trolley with an amazingly loud squeaky wheel arriving. The same trolley went up and down the corridor outside the ward from time to time. There were many strange noises evident. Something that sounded like it a pump that went boom scuttle scuttle boom softly in the near distance. There is much electronic beeping. I get off to sleep a few times, but am jerked back into consciousness each time.

Eventually, I give up and sit by the window. I see the first flush of dawn over the mountains and reflect on how few dawns I have seen in recent years. The beauty of the light creeping over the hills is some compensation for my tired spirit.

Breakfast arrives around 8.30, brought in by a woman dressed as though she is involved in chemical warfare. I wasn't sure if the defensive clothing was to prevent her from catching germs from me or transferring them to me. I reflect that there is much about hospitals that is a mystery to me.

I shower and get dressed as I don't plan to sit around in my pyjamas all day. I ask if I can go for a walk and get an affirmative answer. I do a million circuits of the extended ward, finding my way back my own pad with difficulty the first couple of times. The nurses and doctors in the other parts of the ward start waving each time I charge past. I decide to roam further afield and wander the labyrinth corridors on each floor. I find a beautiful herb garden outside the maternity and cancer wings on the ground floor. The legend over the maternity ward says 'You expect: We deliver'. Cute!

I sit and walk in this garden with its little bridges over fish ponds. Whoever laid it out certainly has the touch of creating a beautiful environment. I chat to a few other patients who are getting fresh air.

I return to the ward in time for lunch and no one seems to have missed me except perhaps Tug, my roomie. He says he wishes he could go out into the garden and I offer to push him in a chair, but he declines. Most people are shy to some extent or other.

In the afternoon, Basil, the gastro-enterologist comes to see me about what is going to happen the following day. He explains about the procedure, which I already know about and asks if I have any questions. I ask if I'll be able to return to my lap-swimming the following Monday and he says that it won't be a problem. He reinforces that I must have my gall bladder removed as soon as possible. I ask why as the stones are the problem and they are coming out. He replies that I will develop more stones with the consequent risk of another blockage to my bile duct. Also, that the gall bladder is absolutely useless to me. It has no crucial function in the body and I'll be better off without it. I ask if he still has his and he replies that he does. I suggest he should have it removed as it's no earthly use to him. He laughs thinking I'm joking.

I start to feel a bit stir crazy in the afternoon. Kate Grenville is one of those writers you have to compulsively read, which is a good thing. I get through lots of chapters in the afternoon and marry this with more ward walking. The herb garden beckons again later in the afternoon, so I wander down there again and read for awhile. 'I beg your pardon I never promised you a herb garden', sounds like a great song waiting to be written.

After dinner Sandy comes to see me. It is so good to see her, but she looks tired. Sandy is one of those people who is never idle for more than a second at a time. I realise the last week or so of me being crook and travelling a fair distance to see me is taking its toll. I tell her not to come and visit on the Thursday as I'll probably be discharged Friday morning and she doesn't want two trips in 12 hours or less (ho ho, how little I knew).

We buy a forbidden munchy bar from a machine, wander the ward and I take her to see the herb garden. As we return to the ward, we find Tug waiting to go down in the elevator with his missus; both being wheelchaired down to the cafeteria on the ground floor by the grandkids. There's nothing wrong with his wife's legs, I mean in the ambulatory sense, so they must have conned the nurses into letting them use the extra chair. I feel a bit sorry for Tug. He'd managed to get out of bed in the morning, although he wasn't feeling all that flash, and had called the nurse to arrange his bed shortly before Sandy and I left the ward. All he wanted to do was sleep. Grandkids are wonderful if sometimes intrusive little beings.

After Sandy leaves the room is very empty. I head for the shower. I think how easy it would have been for Sandy and self to have slipped into the bathroom for a quickie. I wonder how often that's been done? I realise that I've left my towel behind and go to get it, still idly wondering how you might manage it in the bathroom. When I get into the room, I forget what I've come for; it's like that at my age. I think I'm looking for my bathroom holdall with my toothbrush, shaving stuff etc in it. It's not on the shelf. Has someone moved it? Stolen it? Don't be paranoid. Through the open door of the bathroom, I espy the case sitting on the vanity unit. I tell myself that I really am losing it and return to the bathroom and take my shower. As I turn the water off, I hear the noise of Tug's grandkids playing around his bed. I remember what was I was really looking for when I went back into the room. How to get past Tug and his grandchildren? I have to get my towel. Should I put on my PJ's, while I'm still wet, and charge past. Nah, I'll spend the night in wet PJs if I do. My dressing gown is thick, absorbent material. I dry myself on it and solve yet another problem.

My 12-year-old Indian intern comes in to put a drip shunt in my arm. He has a go at the left one first. I have complete confidence in him after his sterling, if slightly painful, effort yesterday morning. He has a lot of trouble as I start to bleed copiously. We staunch the blood with many tissues, and when it looks like we've won, he goes to leave, as he does I feel blood running down my arm. We staunch it again, and he says that maybe the thingy isn't in right. He wiggles it around a bit, and the blood starts up. The intern who is about to relieve him comes in. He pulls rank as he won't see 12 again and says this isn't going to work. We take that one out and many tissues later, we again staunch the blood. We try the other arm. No dice. After a lot of wiggling, the fluid won't go in and no blood is visible. After a time, senior intern comes back and they consult. The consensus is to leave it for now and try again in the morning. It's not needed until the morning so why would put it in overnight with the ensuing discomfort? Never mind, what would I know? I'm the layman around here.

Unfortunately Tug has another bad night and it's much the same as the night before with people in and out and lots of light, noise and activity, not to mention that damned trolley with the squeaky wheel. Once again, I'm in position at my window well before dawn and watch another day as it unfolds over the beautiful hills. I make a note that I must go down to the cliffs near my home and watch the sun rise from time to time. I see a lot of suns sinking into the sea, but rarely see one come up over the purple and black hills in the morning.

I'm feeling a bit sleep deprived, but get dressed and walk for a bit after my very light breakfast. I buy the paper at the shop downstairs and read it in the herb garden. I don't spend too long away as I realise people will be looking for me soon.

An Asian nurse comes in and puts the drip shunt in my forearm, which goes in quite well. I hardly feel what she does. She is obviously, an expert. When she first comes in she clucks and shakes her head while looking at the bruises from the abortive attempts on my elbow joints the night before. She examines the veins in my hands and arms and says, 'Good veins. Why they not put in here'? Beats me.

Tug has been agitating to go home since Wednesday night. He was told that he must remain until at least Sunday. This was upsetting him somewhat as he wants to go home and walk his dog who he knows will be pining for him. We chat for awhile and he tells me about his dog, a cross German Shepherd and Rottweiller. Sounds like a lethal combination to me, but I don't say so. He reckons it's a big sook. They often are...to their owners. I describe Princess, my German Shepherd from another lifetime. Tug goes on to tell me a few hair-raising stories about his time in Belfast as a young man during the 1950s and early 60s episode of 'The Troubles'. He is an interesting bloke and I wish I'd brought a tape recorder with me. Everyone has a story to tell.

Not long after we finish our conversation, a couple of doctors come in and they tell him that he is allowed to go home that morning. He gets in a bit of a tizzy because his wife and daughter have taken the children to school and are then going shopping and so can't be contacted to come and get him. However, he is very pleased to be going home, and I say goodbye as he'll probably be off by the time I get back from surgery. Around 11.50 I put on the surgical gown that was delivered early in the morning. I go into the bathroom and at first put on the wrong way around. I work it out and return to bed and doze for awhile. After awhile a ministering angel arrives to hook me up to a saline drip to hydrate me. It goes boom scuttle scuttle boom softly, so now I know what that is.

I read for awhile. I'm now reading Christina Stead's 'Cotter's England'. Nowhere near as good as the Kate Grenville. At 1.29 a nurse I haven't seen before sticks her head in and says, 'they're ready for you downstairs'. 'Beauty', I riposte. She comes back with, 'don't run away'. As if!

The drip is removed and a 12-year-old boy comes up to push me a half mile to the operating theatre. He is cheerful and asks if I'm a fisherman. I tell him no and we discuss what the weather will be like tomorrow. He is going to Broken Bay to murder some fish. Not for the first time, I wonder if hospital staff are chosen for their sunny personalities, or if they are trained to affable good humour after they are employed.

We arrive outside the cubby-hole of an operating theatre. It is a small room with a narrow bed and lots of equipment, computer and other. The sister or nurse asks if I can walk. I reply that I learned when I was very young. She laughs, but takes my arm as I dismount and assists me into the theatre. I wonder if the strong grip on my arm is in case I really am infirm, or to stop me from fleeing. I wont, I won't!

I climb some steps and sit on the bed as directed. An Asian girl removes the steps. I reflect on the racially diverse nature of the staff and wonder how many countries are represented in this hospital. It seems that the healing arts engender a non-racist environment. Well, I hope that is correct, I'm just a blow-in for a few days.

The surgical team have all missed careers in stand-up comedy. They are funnier than me, and that's a worry for someone who has made a living mostly in comedy for many years. Maybe they get together before they come on duty and rehearse the lines for the day. Whatever, they have the knack of putting the patient at ease.

I sit on the bed while they do their best to entertain me while making preparations. I'm given something sweetish to drink, followed by a tiny amount of something nasty. Drugs are injected into my hand. They are to make me woozy, but not to put me completely under as I'm to be semi-conscious during the procedure. I'm warned several times to be careful because the bed is narrow and wonder what might have happened earlier in the day. Did they lose one over the side?

Now we get serious. I'm instructed to roll half onto my stomach on my left side with my left arm behind my back. I must look something like a turkey about to be put into the oven. I ask the surgeon if he is a chiropractor. He replies with a resounding crack. A mouth guard with a hole in it is inserted, the tubes go in and I hardly notice them going down. I'm drowsy now, and feel a bit annoyed that I'm the only one who can't see the monitor to look at what's going on.

It feels like a game of pacman is taking place in my gallbladder. The pain when they get the stone blocking my bile duct comes like a lightning bolt. How can they hurt? They're not alive or connected to anything are they? It must be the electric charge that zaps the stone bouncing along the walls of my gall bladder. I hear the slightly panicky voice of the surgeon telling me not to move and try my best to be still for the next few that they zap. I move again on the third and get the same admonition. I try to apologize, but no one can make sense of what I'm saying through the combination of mouth guard and drugs, which have me in a state of temporary insanity. I am as still as a mouse as they zap the rest of them.

It's over. The surgeon is looking at me and he needs to get more fresh air or something. He's awfully fuzzy around the edges. 'We got them all. We got them all'. He repeats this. And even through the drugs I realise that there is a sense of celebration in the room; that feeling of pride in a job well done. If I didn't feel it tubes going down, I certainly feel them coming up. This is the worst part of the procedure. I expect to see my intestines and several vital organs on the end of the tubes. My bed arrives and I'm asked to roll from the theatre bed onto my own. I try to say thanks to the staff, but realise I'm making no sense whatever.

I wake in the recovery room sometime later, and have a discussion with the nurse there. I think I'm making sense by this time, but who knows? She gives me the bad news that I am on a liquid diet until breakfast time tomorrow. I am wheeled back to my room by a large aboriginal bloke who has also done the charm school course. Maybe you wouldn't apply to work in a hospital unless you had qualities that included sympathy for the sick? I don't know as I haven't much experience of being hospital before this.

When I am wheeled into the room, I find the other bed occupied by an aboriginal bloke, very black with a huge beard. His name is Grant and he's pretty crook with pancreatis.

I get straight out of bed as soon as everyone is out of the room. I realise later that this is a mistake. I should have stayed a'bed for a few hours and let my body recover, but I'm ten-tenths impulsive, maybe I need to prove I'm tough, I don't know. Anyway, I get out of bed and head for the kitchen to make a cup of tea, introducing myself to Grant on the way. I ask if he can get out of bed and he replies in the negative. I ask if he wants a cup of tea and he says he'd kill for one. I reply that this won't be necessary and head for the kitchen with his order of white with two.

I seem to be okay and after a short period sitting by the window gazing at the hills and the lights of the stadium in the near distance where my favourite football team is training ready for an encounter the following night with our cross-town rivals, I get up and put on my clothes and ask if I can go for a walk. The staff encourages this so I do a few circuits of the ward, then go down to the herb garden and ring Sandy on my cell phone.

My dinner consists of soup with jelly to follow. Not to worry, my appetite is non-existent.

It is a ghastly night. Grant has medi-emergencies throughout the night with the consequent flashing on and off of lights in the room, much toing and froing and that f****** trolley with the squeaky wheel. I feel sorry for Grant who is a very sick boy, but I need sleep desperately. I watch my third sunrise over the hills. This one seems more beautiful than the last 2. The light appears so faintly at first, then gradually grows and descends down the hillsides as if it is taking possession on its march to the plains. The first peep of sun over hills is something I'd like to catch on camera and keep for ever. Not for the first time I wish I could paint. My grand-uncle was one of Australia's most famous painters. How come it didn't rub off onto me? I still draw stick figures when I doodle.

I watch the traffic reporting blimp as it dawdles over the freeway to the east. Two blokes have been working on the roof of a nearby house. I suspect they are being paid by the hour as nothing much seems to have happened in 4 days. Grant's T.V is blaring with a mindless morning program.

Breakfast is welcome as my appetite has retuned by now. For the first time I get what I've ordered, muesli, soy milk, scrambled egg, toast, tea. I wonder if this might be a bit much after what was done to me yesterday, but figure the hospital wouldn't allow it if it wasn't okay.

I shower and dress after breakfast as I'm sure I'm going home today. Sandy has commitments at university until 1 pm and will come to the hospital after this to pick me up. My friend the intern who first dealt with me down at emergency comes up to discuss matters. He tells me I have to have a final blood test to make sure all is well before they can discharge me. The morning passes noisily. Grant is both a television and rock music freak. He's laying there doped to the eyeballs on morphine watching 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. This movie is people screaming from start to finish. I try to read, but concentration through the wall of noise is mega-difficult. When the film ends after an eternity, Grant switches to a hard rock radio station. I don't want to be difficult, so say nothing, but wonder why the staff doesn't control volume levels. I'm waiting for the vampire lady, so I'm trapped in this cocoon of insane noise. Anyone for Brahms? Mozart? Beethoven? No.

It's pushing on for 11 am. I ask my friendly nurse, Zoe, if she knows when my blood will be taken. She goes and makes a phone call and the vampire attends not long after this. I ask VL when the results will be back and she says later this afternoon. I point out that I'm to be discharged as soon as the results are known, so she slaps an 'urgent' sticker on the phials before she leaves.

Now at least I'm free to wander. I go downstairs, buy the paper and sit in the herb garden for awhile. It is a hot day with a northerly wind bringing dust and dirt in from the farmlands. I last out there for half an hour and then return to the ward. The concert continues in my room. I find an unused interview room and settle down there for awhile, until I see the lunch trolley go past about half past 12. I return to the ward and have lunch, a salad sandwich with ice cream for dessert. Sandy rings to see how things are going and says she has other things to do at uni if I'm not ready to be discharged. I tell her that I'll sign myself out if they decide not to discharge me and she says she'll be there as soon as she can.

She arrives about 1.45 and we wait for someone to tell us what's going on. Around 2.15 my friend the Indian intern returns with the bad news that the chief surgeon had decided to keep me in for the weekend because the enzymes in my blood indicating pancreatis are way out of whack. The gastro-enterologist had warned me the day before that pancreatis was a possibility after this operation as it occurs in roughly 5 % of cases. I tell the intern to get me the form to allow me to sign myself out. "Oh, you know about the form?" He looks accusingly at Zoe. I explain that it's common knowledge that hospitals have no rights of detention over citizens. The intern leaves to consult and comes back with the news that the gastro reckons these enzymes always go high after this procedure. He still wants me to remain in hospital for the weekend, possibly in solidarity with his boss, possibly because occupancy rates are down and it will look better for the hospital. I remember Tug's arguing for release the previous day. It is at times difficult to hear what the intern is saying over the level of noise coming from Grant's television.

I point out that I need a night's sleep and that this might be an important part of the healing process. I also say that I can check myself into the local hospital if I do happen to get crook over the weekend. The intern tells me that the pain from pancreatis is extreme, but my mind is made up and I sign the form. If I do have to check into the local hospital, at least I'll be close to home and Sandy won't need a cut lunch and waterbag to come to visit me.

I'm fine all weekend. A little twinge of pain, but nothing worth so much as a painkiller.

Every member of staff I came into contact with at the hospital reminded me that I had to make an appointment to see the surgeon as soon as I left hospital. This was repeated several times each day I was there, and culminated in the Indian intern telling me that the surgeon wanted to see me in his rooms the following Monday to make arrangements for the gall bladder removal operation. He offered to make the appointment for me right then. I declined.

Over the weekend I start reading about gall bladder on the net. I find out that gall bladder removal in the most common operation performed in the United States of America. There are no statistics for Australia, but I bet it is the same here. There are Chinese herbalists that claim to have remedies to remove stones. I download a book that tells me that a combination of foods in certain quantities combined with herbs and vitamins can stop the formation of stones. I learn about the different ways stones are formed, cholesterol balls and the ways an aging body begins to form them for other reasons. I read that there are two drugs known to medical science that can dissolve gall stones and obviate the need for the operation. They are expensive and take time, which seems to be the reason they are not recommended. I also read that there is little research going on to find alternatives to surgery.

Surgeons exist to cut things out of human bodies. That is how they make their living. My rusty brain seems to remember that part of the Hippocratic Oath reads "above all do no harm". I wonder if an unnecessary gall bladder operation resulting in death could see a surgeon charged with manslaughter. Probably not. Doctors bury their mistakes, lawyers put theirs in gaol.

My step daughter had her gall bladder removed several months ago. She still has the same symptoms she had before the removal and I now find the reasons for this—a common occurrence. The gall bladder acts as a repository or storehouse for bile when it is produced by the liver. It does this for the specific reason of being able to squirt this bile out after a person has a heavy meal, especially one containing fat or oil. The bile neutralises the fat and this means that the person doesn't suffer from wind, bloating or the stomach cramps that are often attendant if the bile is unavailable, as it was in my case with a stone blocking the bile duct. When the gall bladder is removed, bile cannot be stored. The liver goes on producing it, but it passes immediately through the system. The digestive system has problems coping with any fats because the liver does not increase its production. The gall bladder is an essential organ in the body, and surgeons' cavalier cries of, "have it out, it's of no use to you", should be treated with the contempt such utterances deserve. Anyone having this operation—20 million Americans and counting—will suffer a lifetime of discomfort and dietary restrictions.

This should not be read as an anti-surgeon or anti-doctor diatribe. Conventional medicine is an important part of our lives and most medical practitioners are dedicated, serious healers determined to do good and to heal people. The doctors and nurses I came into contact with during my few days in hospital could not have been nicer or kinder to me. I salute them. But it seems that medical science is partially blind to the benefits of more natural ways of healing the body. The blind adherence to drugs and surgery needs to be challenged. Yes, there are charlatans out there in the world of herbal medicine. There is also a great preponderance of practitioners who are equally as dedicated to healing the sick as there are in the medical profession. The two things, medical science and herbal healing, should be complimentary, not mutually exclusive.

Our present system where drug companies spend billions each year creating new drugs and then spend billions more promoting and advertising them also needs challenging. Doctors are bombarded by drug information each year. Busy medicos have little time to read, they have to take at face value what is presented to them.

In Australia we are fortunate in our free public hospital system. Unlike the system in the United States where you have to sell your children to afford the operation, we have a wonderful universal health system. Yes, it could be better. It needs much more money invested and our conservative governments in this country have had the system under attack for many years. There has been a concerted effort to get everyone to subscribe to monstrously expensive private health insurance. Unnecessary operations such as gall bladder removal tie up resources and precious hospital beds. We are an over-medicated society. Because doctors bulk bill, a lot of people head for the surgery for a consultation if they develop a slight headache. Free health care is a two-edged sword. Given that that is so, I think there is a good case to nationalise health care and take the profit motive out of it. As it stands, doctors must see as many patients in as short a time as possible to maximise the profits from their practice. Surgeons have a vested interest in sawing bits off people to make money.

"Two legs? Extravagance. You can hop can't you?"

It's five years since I wrote what's above.  I still have my gall bladder.  I have no problems with digestion, in fact, it's better than it's been for years.

The next time I saw my doctor after my hospital experience he was seriously pissed off that I hadn't had my gall bladder out.  When I asked why I should when the stones had been removed, he replied that only the stone blocking the bile duct had been removed and another could easily repeat the blocking process.

This was in contradiction to what I'd been told by the surgeon that did the op, but maybe I got it wrong.

I got hold of a Chinese herbal remedy.  Took many months of taking pills twice a day, but apparently it worked.  I won't put it up here, as I don't want anyone to think I have a vested interest, but if anyone wants details, email me.

My diet has changed to one that will inhibit the growth of gall stones in the future.  Sandy knows a fair bit about herbal stuff.  I drink fresh juice daily.  You can find juice books that give combinations of fruit and vegetables that will do various things to the human system.  I highly recommend you check out diet and juices.

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