Yet another operation

Yesterday’s schedule:
11:15 Leave home
12:00 Arrive at hospital
12:15 Finally find an accessible parking space around the back
12:30 Check in
wait, wait, wait…
2:30 get ushered into the day surgery suite, get changed and onto trolley
wait, wait, wait…
5:15 surgeon appears and addresses me and the patient next to me who is also waiting. She explains that the list had taken longer than expected and the anaesthetist has now closed the list and so (as she turns to face my neighbour “your operation scheduled for today has been cancelled and will need to be rescheduled. So you can go home”. Then turning to me she says “but as you do not require anaesthetic [because of my paralysis]  you will be the last patient we see”.

So at 5:20 I get taken to surgery. It doesn’t take long and I get home sometime after 6pm.

However as I write this I am in agony. Not from the surgery but from lying on a tiny trolley from 2.30 until 6pm! My back has totally seized up.

The visual record
There were a few constraints and considerations I needed to consider in recording yesterday: I wanted to create a visual interesting picture as well as record the event so the image needed to be graphic, with strong shape as well as indicate an operation. But I needed to be sensitive to the context and so decided not to include people in the frame. Time wasn’t a problem, but opportunity and discretion were. What do you think?

 

I know its not a photo essay and so, as a single photo is open to lots of interpretation, but I am happy with it as a record of the day – not least because the image reminds me of just how long I was on the trolley for and the resulting bad back!

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