OPERATION DAY

By Kathleen Long
Contact the uathor by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

Despite over thirty years as a GP I've always been a bit worried about ending up in the clutches of my colleagues. No harm to any of them as the ones I have come across have always been highly skilled and very professional. It's just me. I'm an introverted thinker, in Myers Briggs personality profile speak, and just like to keep myself to myself! I'm also a hypnotherapist of some twenty five years experience who is into things like hypno-healing and who dabbles in homeopathy as well as acupuncture.

Imagine my horror when three years after my much looked forward to menopause I suddenly had a post menopausal bleed. I blamed it on my ovaries having a last fling after a visit to the cinema to see Brad Pitt in some meaningless orgy of Brad Pittness. Still three months down the line I thought I'd tell the GP in the hope that she'd had a similar hormonal surge after a cinematic encounter. No such luck! Before I could say I'm a doctor you don't get your hands on me buster I was duly referred to the Gyn department of the local hospital.

I was far too busy to go I thought. I'd recently been elected to the higher echelons of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis Scotland and for my sins was the Honorary Secretary and Academic Chair. You might well wonder what I'd done to deserve such recognition. It was simple really. No one else wanted to do it. Yes it's true some do have greatness thrust upon them.I was busy organising the three training modules for doctors and dentists as well as the two weekend symposia which involved international speakers. This on top of fulltime working and a new granddaughter left me far too pressurised to deal with a silly hormonal blip! Still off I went.

First stop was a trans-vaginal ultrasound which was an experience not to be missed by a celibate fifty something year old and I was told that I had a little polyp in my uterus. The doctor also told me that I had really tight pelvic floor muscles. I wryly replied that I'd been waiting for someone to say that to me for years but didn't suspect for a moment it would be a female doctor with a stick! After this rather intimate exchange of information I realised that I recognised the doctor's unusual surname. Apparently her cousin, lets call her Sarah, had been in my year at university. I took my leave of the ultrasound department and I said to tell Sarah I was asking for her. On second thoughts I said let her know I have really tight pelvic floor muscles and tell her to eat her heart out.

Half an hour later I had a visit from one of the junior doctors who confirmed what I'd already seen in the ultrasound department. I had a stupid (my words) little polyp swinging in the breeze mid uterus. I'd need a general anaesthetic and if I was okay I'd only be in one day. Well that was it! The last time I'd had an anaesthetic the dentist had been found lying on the floor clutching his nether regions howling his head off. To cap that, the delivery of my first daughter had nearly killed the two of us when the anaesthetist topped up the epidural before my emergency caesarean section.

The only thing I remember about that experience was feeling like the saloon girl who always gets shot in the old cowboy movies. The consultant anaesthetist called to resuscitate me was incidentally someone I used to fancy at university. Well I suppose the kiss of life is something to treasure.

Just for good measure I developed a severe height and flying phobia after this experience which made me have the screaming abdabs if I was more than ten stairs form the ground floor. Not too clever when you're in a general practice where most of the population lived in high rises or flats. Just to add insult to injury I come from a family where three out of four of us have a pseudocholinest-erase deficiency. I'm also, as one patient so eloquently put it, 'no exactly a fairy yerself hen.' I had loads more reasons as to why I didn't want a GA but I felt to go through them would merely over egg the omelette.

After much debate about why there was no way I was having a general for a procedure that seemed to me a non life threatening poxy polyp I was introduced to the consultant in charge. He, thank goodness, either decided to go along with me or teach me a lesson for being so awkward. He agreed that I could have a bit of local into the cervix and if I could put up with the discomfort (which as all good doctors know is a euphemism for pain), of a hysteroscopy while he yanked the offending appendage off, then so be it.

I'd just finished teaching at the third hypnotherapy module when I realised that the dreaded day had come. The next morning I was to take myself off to the hospital day surgery unit. I prepared for it like I was going out on a special date. The herbal bath, the depilatory cream, the foot spa and pedicure, the mango body butter and finally the toe nail polish, all got a rare outing. Okay I knew there was a small chance of my toes catching fire if they used cautery but I had no choice. The false tan I'd had on the week before had stained my toe nails a rather nasty shade of brown which bleach had failed to shift.

I felt a bit like Mary Queen of Scots preparing for her execution. The next day clad in a hospital gown and disposable slippers I did a little preparation. I put myself into trance using self hypnosis and transferred anaesthesia from my hand to my pelvis and abdomen. I also gave myself some positive mental suggestions about controlling my blood loss and blood pressure and pulse. Fifteen minutes later I was up on the operating table with legs in stirrups wishing my pelvic floor would collapse. However I put myself into trance and went off to my happy place. I think the staff found it a bit difficult to deal with a silent patient who was smiling as the consultant bravely tried to yank the pesky polyp off. In fact I was glad there was a partition between the two of us or he could have got the wrong idea. I was in theatre about an hour and a half and although I felt a little bit of pulling it was no great shakes. It was perfectly explicable in terms of my happy place which was paragliding in Turkey 2,500 feet up in the air.

You see when you jump off the mountain the harness which attaches you to the chute yanks your pelvis up giving you quite a jolt. Why was I smiling? Well two reasons. First of all I'd cured my height phobia with self hypnosis many years ago and paragliding is a great experience and secondly I was remembering the handsome Turkish chap who jumped with me.

Hypnotherapy skills have not only helped my family and me but many hundreds of my patients over the years. That's why I and some of my hypnotherapy colleagues are so keen to pass on our skills. I left the hospital fifteen minutes after my op and went back to work, followed by shopping and a very nice meal. I also wrote this article and walked the dogs.

For the sceptics out there my blood pressure remained constant throughout the operation and my pulse rate fell from 78 to 67 during the operation. I had minimal bleeding. I am of course happy to pull on your dangly bits and check your vital signs before and after if you doubt my story. No masochists need apply! By the end of the day I had had another positive experience and anchored it for future reference.

For those of you interested in adding a very important string to your medical or dental bow then contact the BSMDH(S) on www.bsmdh-scot.com or 01412290222

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.