"Eeeeeeeeee, AAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhh."

Today is a day full of words I fear, ADMISSION. PATIENT. WAITING ROOM. I think most of us do living in a world Greys and ER and all the rest, these days we know too much before we're wheeled between the echoing walls. The familiarity of clashing wheelchairs, pastel walls and solicitous voices, the knowledge that this isn't going to end entirely well for one if us and it's unlikely to be the doctor. 

Dubai Saudi/German hospital is excellent. It's the neatest, tidiest, emptiest ER in the whole world. Either everyone is in cupboards or there's something odd going on. Maybe there's an emergency and they've shipped everyone away.

Two minutes of form filling, 30 seconds later I get an SMS welcoming me to the hospital and confirming my doctors name and time of appointment. On the way there they weigh me and take my blood pressure, it becomes obvious they're very big on blood pressure here.

The German doctor who is busy performing to spooky stereotypes with a small blond mustache and glinting spectacles, is well, efficient. He prods and pokes then decides I should make an appointment to see his specialist colleague, this is sounding more like the health service runaround I'm used to and I foresee the endless queues of medical normality stretching off in my mind. Ten minutes to see the top specialist? Maybe there just aren't any sick people here? Except me.

INFECTION. GANGRENE. AMPUTATION. More words to make a grown man shiver down to his now evidently, ruinous toes. The specialist is defiant in his clinical hypothesis, cut the toe off, save the foot. A sort of Tory medical theory, spare the rod and spoil the child in reverse.

Limping back to the hotel I realise I should tell someone, well the long suffering wife really, who is currently on the last few days of a 24 day shoot in SA. I could call her mobile phone but it seems it has gone and got itself stolen in Cape Town, all its own fault, nothing to do with SA being crammed with opportunistic thieving bastards at all.

True to her spectacular form she immediately walks off the worldwide shoot, throws everything in two big cases and jumps on a plane. Ten hours later she's through the front door and in control, overflowing with good will, bravery and love. What a gel.

Saturday and we are wheeled through doctors and specialists and battalions of nurses brimming with super efficiency and friendliness. The surgeon, who has to go on holiday tomorrow, has clearly put aside enough time to do the op for no reason other than he sees my foot as an affront to all he lives for. And I think he likes Ali too. 

In the dark no one can hear you fart. Which is about as much fun as you’re going to get in ICU, unless you count raising and lowering the bed a couple of hundred times.

The Orc screams again, "shhhhheeeeeeyaaaaaaashhaaaaaggggggg" it rants, then exhales heavily, I'm no longer scared by it, not in the daylight anyway, when the shadows have withdrawn and fears are more easily tamed. And since it turned out to be a wheezing aircon. 

4.30am and I’m leaning out of my bed which has a stranglehold on my genitals, giving me a bit of a Freddy Mercury voice, not the most convincing tone to use to apologise.

17 years in Johannesburg doesn't really prepare you for large figures looming over your bed in the dark but it does lead to several lively encounters with nurses and piss bottles both of which have landed in a heap after flying through the air. That’s the last I’ll see of the lime jelly and chocolate cake treat.

The operation, which was done under local anesthetic so the doc could ask me questions…”Does that hurt?” “How about that...?” casual dentist-type banter along those lines, oh and the more memorable, “I need to take the other toe off as well, can you sign the form please…” is mostly a scene from Zorro with flashing blades, funny accents and loud exclamations, mostly from me.

There are three nurses, an seemingly unemployed anaesthetist and a neuro-surgeon in the room, individually they all offer me the chance to see, keep or wave goodbye to my digits. I respond with the finger, at least that’s still working. One of the nurses suggests I could make a nice paperweight with them in a jar. I really hope this is some kind of a LSD type painkiller finally kicking in, but I doubt it.

The surgeon is on the phone telling someone it all went well and the amputee can be collected and returned to ICU. Lucky him I think, then realise I’m now the amputee. Limbless. Dis-abled. Hop a long, put your best foot forward, toe the line… nope, that wasn’t as much fun as I hoped.

I think I’ll ring the bell for a little attention. More later I think.