Tag Archives: dad

Back in the day…

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… I wasn’t always the upstanding IT professional that you find today.   No no no, I was quite the tearaway says I…says my mum…my dad…and pretty much anyone that knew me back then.

I can’t remember exactly how old I was, I think I was around 14 or 15.  Much too old to go on a camping holiday with my parents and kid brothers.  So, somehow, I managed to persuade my mum and dad that they should leave me behind, where I would stay at a friends place whilst they were away.

I would of course require the house keys..you know, in case I needed anything.

Oh christ….what was I thinking.

Well, obviously I was thinking party.  It would be the best party in the history of best parties anywhere, featuring girls, beer, more girls and possibly sex…given any kind of opportunity.

I was left at a friends and the plan was hatched.  We told his mum that there we would be staying at someone elses place on the Saturday night (yeah I know, classic – but it worked..go figure), everyone did likewise.  If any of us had been kidnapped, the combined might of the 3 CSI teams and that bloke from Numb3rs couldn’t have worked out who was supposed to be where, let alone where we all actually were.

Come to think of it, if anyone could have gotten hold of my Dad, he could have sussed it in about 2 minutes.

Anyway.  The groundwork was laid, beer was organised, food laid on, people invited.  That really hard kid from school that noone likes, but always gets invited to the party to keep away the “unwanted guests”.  And like any other hot blooded teenager, unwanted was defined as anyone that could have potentially pulled whichever girl I fancied my chances with…it was a thorough tactical analysis and invitation scheme.  If I could remember the formula it could well be used to solve many crimes….

So the party begins, and everything is going well.  Then someone found the Beer Steins.  For those of you that don’t know a Beer Stein holds around a liter of liquid.  I say liquid, as beer was only a very temporary option.

My parents had quite a substantial booze cabinet with a wide and varied collection.  Of course at the tender age that I was, you don’t fully appreciate the rapid effect that alcohol has on you and those around you.  The Steins were rapidly filled (and then refilled) with what can loosely be described as “Cocktails”, insofar as the literal definition of a “mixed drink” goes.  Generally, cocktails have names like “Fuzzy Duck”, “Pan Galactic Gargleblaster”, “Screwdriver”, “Screaming Orgasm” and the like.  If I were forced to name our attempts, I would have to go with something appropriate..like “Stomach Pump”.  It was only our tender age that meant the pump would not be called out, as within minutes of drinking the massive quantity of alcohol in the Stein, most of us were sick pretty quickly.

So the party progressed, around an hour after it started most of us were “somewhat merry”.  I definately recall gatecrashers getting their arse kicked by the hard kid.  I have a vague recollection of trying to fit around 15 of us into a normal sized double bed.  At least 2 people were asleep in the bath and another on the bathroom floor.  I forget where I slept.

I do remember waking up, kicking everyone out and then looking at the mammoth task of the clean up.  A task that was made all the bigger when I realised that my mum had turned the boiler off to go away on holiday…and I had no idea whatsoever as to how to get the feckin thing back on.

So now I am cleaning everything using cold water and no small amount of panic.  Honestly, I thought I had done a good job.  I was pretty happy with the place when I headed back to my friends for some sleep.

My next memory is being dragged (literally) from my bed by a somewhat annoyed Dad.  Turns out that they had all gotten sick on the camping trip and got back almost a week early.  A day earlier and they would have turned up mid-party.  As it turned out, my “superb” clean up effort had not been the best and they had realised what had happened within about half a second of their arrival home.

I was grounded until after we moved back to the UK…in fact, there is a chance that I am still grounded.

Good times.

Near death experience…..

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…. ok, maybe not – But it could have been.

A couple of years ago, a few weeks into a new job, I started getting a real nasty pain across my back. This got worse as the day went on, culminating in me having to stop driving on the way home until it eased off.

That night, the pain got more and more intense and I was keeping Sarah awake. So, being ever chivalrous I told her to sod off downstairs and sleep on the couch…..OK, ok, so that would have caused me considerably more pain. What I actually did was head downstairs onto the couch for the worst nights sleep I had ever had (at that point).

The next morning, still in massive pain, I decide that it would be a really good idea to go to work. I still to this day have no idea what I was thinking, but try I did. It was at the point of pulling my trousers on that I collapsed backwards (and rather fortuitously) onto the couch. Pain the likes of which I had never felt before reduced me to tears, whereupon Zak comes sauntering downstairs and finds me.

“Whats up daddy?”

“Go and get your mum please son”

Off runs Zak back upstairs and tells Sarah that and I quote “Daddy is crying mummy, come and help him”. Now, you might all be thinking “awww, bless him”, you forget the male ego – All I was thinking was “Traitor, I will have my revenge when you decide to bring a girl home to meet the parents….”

Nah, just kidding – I was really pleased that the sight of his dad crying didn’t freak him out, and, at just under 3 years old, he was able to process the information and go get his mum.

Sarah arrives, notices (in this order) Dave on couch, trousers halfway up legs, Dave crying.

Once the laughter died down she decided to call the docs.

Now, it should be pointed out at this time that I hate hospitals. A lot. No really, I detest them. I will go great lengths to avoid doctors and especially hospitals. I am not a great believer in faith healing or anything hippy and new agey, I just believe that me and hospitals do NOT belong anywhere near each other.

The doctor arrives and I am now determined to show that there is in fact nothing wrong with me. I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for that pesky pain. Just as the doc has duly prescribed a day off to rest, the traitorous back pain flares up. I am now rocking backwards and forwards like a pregnant woman in the beginnings of labour.

Doc procedes to exam me again, only this time managing to find the exact series of spots that cause me to yelp, like a dog, a naughty dog that has just been hit on the nose with a rolled up paper for so much pee on the carpet. She made me yelp. Doctors. Are. Bastards.

I am then admitted to hospital immediately with gallstones.

Genius, morphine drip, TFT television I can pull just in front of my face and watch shite TV at the bargain basement price of £10 per day. Oh, and a built in telephone that charges more than your average 0898 sex chat line (apparently). Did I say morphine drip? Possibly one of the best inventions of the modern world. Ahh, blessed relief. I don’t recall phone conversations with family, but apparently people were phoning just to hear my random blitherings for a laugh, such was the effect of the Morphine.

Anyhoo, they keep me in for a few days and I get the miracle recovery. No amount of radioactive toxic poisoning from various scans reveals even the smallest gallpebble, let alone stone, and they let me go home.

Sarah collects me and we head home. About halfway home (15 minutes), I start to get a headache and feel a bit sick. No problem, I will ignore it, that method has served me so well just recently…

About 2 hours later I have one hell of a migraine (just a headache, it will pass) and another hour after I start being sick.

This continues through the very worst nights sleep I have ever had.

By the next morning I was really struggling, to the point of being unable to even keep a glass of water down for more than about 15 minutes. The headache now felt like I was being forced to listen to Steps and the Fast Food Rockers on repeat in my own personal hell. Sarahs wonderful boss told her she could stay home and look after me, providing she did the first two calls of the day (she was a care worker).

She got home an hour or so later and by now I literally cannot keep a sip of water down, but I am hella dehydrated, so I keep drinking anyway (Catch 22 anyone?).

As I am not an emergency apparently, the ambulance says it could be 3-4 hours to come get me. I am now so badly dehydrated that I am starting to hallucinate. I have vague recollections of the next few hours. I remember my mum and dad turning up, a small fight when someone tried to take my water away from me. The car ride from hell to the hospital (every bump was like a million smurfs pounding on my head with their little hammers of doom…they have those right?) and being put in a private ward so that…and I quote “He doesn’t freak the other patients out”. Did I mention that patients are bastards. I will tell you about my wonderful neighbour patients in a future post….

It is at this point that I am relying on information provided by Sarah after I left the hospital. Apparently the following happened:

  • I was carried into the bed (no small feat, way to go strong nurses and dad)
  • Someone tried to take my water away from me
  • I freaked
  • Seriously freaked, like a small child when having his favourite toy taken away from him. I was hanging onto my water so hard they thought I was going to break the glass.
  • I had no idea where I was, and apparently who I was
  • I still wouldn’t give up the water..Sarah says I was literally screaming “You can’t have it, you won’t give it back” over and over
  • Oh yeah, the sink was less than a foot away from my bed, water aplenty

Eventually I relented apparently, some time around the time that my new best friend, the lovely morphine drip, came to visit.  Unfortunately, morphine drip clearly had far better things to do than take my pain away.  So I basically stayed awake, rocking like those people that normally get given crash helmets on “special wards”, until my body could literally take now more and I collapsed with exhaustion.

Now those of you with any experience of British hospitals can vouch for this:

The number of doctors, nurses, ward assistants and orderlies available at any given time to assist in the treatment of patients is in direct contrast to the amount of sleep a patient has managed.

Basically each time my body gave in and I fell into fitful sleep, in they came to wake me up by turning on 1000w halogen lights, examining me, changing drips and taking blood samples.  They managed to achieve all of this work in, probably, 1 minute over the time where I could have fallen back to sleep.  Meaning I am now awake and in pain.  Have I mentioned that doctors are bastards yet?  Yes?  Good.

In addition to the lack of sleep, the bloodwork comes back and with no small amount of joy, the doctor tells Sarah that I am not suffering from Meningitis.  After the joy subsided, I was stricken by the realisation that noone had previously mentioned this as a possibility.  Again, doctors..bastards…am I getting through?

So, in the absence of knowledge, they do what anyone would…they start giving me random cocktails of drugs in an effort to ease the pain.  Nothing works, generally I throw up within about 10 minutes of recieving said drug cocktail…this means that they can’t give me anymore for four hours due to not knowing how much I had digested… repeat ad infinitum

I think I was like this for 4 days

  • Rock with pain until around 2am
  • Fall asleep as body can’t take anymore
  • 2.10am, wake up to bright light and various proddings/exams.
  • 2.25am, feel like I could go back to sleep
  • 2.26am, proddings and exams finish..me now wide awake (albeit still exhausted)
  • 2.36am, throw up tablets…call nurse
  • 2.40am, nurse makes notes, recommends different drugs…which will be administered in 4 hours
  • Rock with pain until around 6am
  • Repeat throughout day…..

Good eh?  I liked it.

Now, whilst I maintain that doctors are bastards…Ward Sisters, now they are goddamn angels or something else totally genius and amazing..

After 4 days of hell, I am at the 2am rocking with pain stage when I get visited by an absolute vision….the Ward Sister.  She arrives in a blur of blue cotton…straightening, checking temperatures etc.  I assume I am in for the usual nightmare cycle.  Then it happens, and I remember this vividly, she stares at me rocking like a lunatic for a few minutes and says “Still no better eh?  Right, it ends tonight”.

“What do you mean?” says I, at this point glad of the bedpan as I am thinking mercy killing quite frankly.

“Give me 10 minutes” says she, and leaves….

I then hear, what can only be described as, raised voices and “heated” discussion.  I don’t know what is being said, only that this Ward Sister may be about to kill me.  Sure enough, 10 minutes later she arrives back in the room with a tray containing a syringe….cue another bedpan change.

While focussing on the syringe, it dawns on me that she is talking to me..

“Now Dave, I am going to inject this into your dripfeed pipe and I need you not to panic.  It is going to feel very strange and is important that you remain as calm as possible”

“What is it?”

“Morphine.  I am going to deliver it directly into your bloodstream, are you ready?”

Now, when she pushed the syringe, I literally felt the morphine rush around my system and punch (what felt like through the top of my head.  I lifted off the bed with the force of it and I immediately panicked (sorry Sister) and started hypervenilating.  The Ward Sister quickly ran round the other side of the bed and started calming me down with very soothing speech and stroking my head.  Within a minute I simply had a nasty headache – No more, no less.

Doctors may be bastards, Ward Sisters are genius – It’s that simple.

A day later I am on the phone to my nan, who is persuading me to have a lumbar puncture.  A lumbar puncture, for those that don’t know, is where a doctor inserts a large needle right next to your spine.  The purpose of this is to extract spinal fluid for testing.  I of course was happy to do this without even the slightest argument…Hence the call from nan.  Dammit nan, you were supposed to be on my side.

So eventually I get told that the procedure will take place at around 1am..the doctor arrives, looking like he really needs more coffee, and starts prodding my back.  When asked why he was doing this, I am told that he needs to feel for where the needle goes in, oh and I shouldn’t move.

Thats right ladies and gentlemen, unbeknownst to me, this is a blind procedure, BLIND….as in CAN’T BE SURE ABOUT LOCATION

Cue bedpan

Sing it with me, “Doctors are bastards”

A short while later I am diagnosed with Meningitis (Yep, after they said it wasn’t already).  Fortunately it was Viral and not Bacterial they say.  Phew says I, caught a break there*

Everyone smiles and a days later I go home.

* I checked wikipedia for Meningitis some days later.  Whilst Bacterial Meningitis is a really quick killer and I was definately lucky not to have that one…here is what it says about viral:

“Viral meningitis
Patients diagnosed with mild viral meningitis may improve quickly enough to not require admission to a hospital, while others may be hospitalized for many more days for observation and supportive care. Overall, the illness is usually much less severe than bacterial meningitis.”

USUALLY???

Doctors. Are. Bastards 

I love the smell of napalm…

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…although perhaps not the taste.

It was long ago, a simpler time when men were men and New Years Eve BBQ street parties were brought together by the contents of what looked like a dark green varnish tin, but in fact contained a purple jelly like substance known as Napalm.

The thing about Napalm, the important thing to remember about Napalm, is that it is not listed on very many outdoor cooking sites as a suitable BBQ lighter fuel.  The reasons for this should be relatively apparent….toxic sausage* anyone?

So the scene is set:

  • Grassed area usually used by kids for football, taken over for party - Check
  • 4 giant oil drum BBQs – Check
  • 3 12×12 RAF tents to store….stuff – Check
  • Enough food to supply an estate of people with around 600 houses – Maybe not, but some people won’t come – so… Check
  • 1 x Organiser with serious shortcomings in the sense of humour area – Check
  • Oh… and booze – Lots of booze – Check

The party starts getting underway, is in full swing some might say.  I, at approximately age 14, and along with my friends, have found the backup booze stash and started “experimenting” with different concoctions in a Stein.  This does cloud my actual memory somewhat, so some of the specifics of the night escape me.  I do know that this was my first experience of a beer induced pavement pizza…

Things that may or may not have definitely possibly happened:

  • Napalm smoked BBQ food scattered everywhere after taste #1
  • Organiser type person completely unable to put out the Napalm induced BBQs….as this is the way Napalm works – FFS**
  • 200 people decided that they would follow my Mum and Dad*** to their cellar bar for a “Proper Party”
  • “Argumentative Couple” have their weekly argument, things get broken and the Military Police show up
  • My Mum decides that the best use for Napalm flambe sausages is to plug the police cars exhaust pipe like in the movies****
  • Police car makes a decidedly unhealthy noise, some would call it a bang, I called it an explosion and the engine breaks
  • My Mum and her cohorts try to sneak back to the party unseen and fail…miserably
  • Some stupid 14 year old kid, whose name escapes me*****, walks right up to his parents and announces that he is not drunk and has not just been sick.
  • Same 14 year old kid throws up in front of parents
  • Then falls in pavement pizza
  • Parents respond by laughing uncontrollably
  • Organiser type person begins shovelling mud/grass from field into BBQ to try and quell heat/flames
  • Rest of street party attempt to squeeze into my Mum and Dads cellar bar – Most end up in my bedroom (in cellar at my request btw)
  • Topfer Strasse collective party hard and almost nothing gets destroyed in either the cellar bar or my bedroom – Result!
  • Organiser person refuses to recognise that his party died hours ago and stays resolutely at his post, seemingly cooking the field now
  • Organiser persons wife and kids are forced to stay with him whilst the rest of the estate are in our cellar
  • New Year comes and goes
  • Nobody notices
  • Last person leaves our cellar at approximately 8am

That was the night that was – I do not recommend napalm smoked sausages – But I can recommend parents like mine that managed to save an entire estates New Years Eve party….even if it did annoy organiser type person…. yey!

* Oh come on, there has to be a band called Toxic Sausage…”Please put your hands together for Toxic Sausage, and their number 1 hit single…Napalm BBQ”

** Seriously, someone from the RAF that has access to stores of Napalm MUST have even the most basic understanding of how it works

*** Now, I know other people claim to have the coolest parents in the world OK Seriously for example - I just want to go on record to say that actually mine are at the top.

**** See!!!!

***** Me Confused