Muff Monday

It’s all luck, luck, luck this week for Lady V. First, my appearance on the shelves of all good bookshops; next, a hospital cancellation, offering me the chance to skip the 6 months’ waiting list.

Naturally, I jumped at the chance. And so it was, dear readers, that I found myself waking at 5.30 yesterday morning, starved of food and water, facing a journey through the worst snow for 20 years to UCH.

It was actually rather beautiful, making my way through the dark, deserted streets. Even Camden was pristine. I trudged on, wrapped up like a Russian babushka, listening to The Smiths. Girlfriend in a Coma. I thought of John Malkovitch in Dangerous Liaisons after the duel, and imagined a trail of blood in the snow.

Luckily I soon arrived at the hospital, where I was met by the lovely S, my chaperone for the day, who cheered me up by talking me through his outfit (3 layers, one cashmere, one merino wool and one merino-cashmere mix) topped off by a Harris Tweed jacket which, according to Vivienne Westwood, is the very best thing for keeping out cold.

I talked him through my outfit: a vest, a Top Shop t-shirt and an over-sized hoodie. Unchic, but comfy.

Eventually a nurse arrives to let the day patients in, telling us that it was her first day and she doesn’t know anything and there are no other nurses because of the weather. As the morning wears on, some patients decide to go home. Others are sent home because their surgeons hadn’t turned up. I dig in my heels and refuse to go anywhere.

The surgeon arrives and does a double take.

‘Yes, it’s me again. You saw me on Friday with my friend. My turn today.’

We christened that day Fanny Friday. Today, we’ve decided, is Muff Monday. But I don’t tell the surgeon that. She tells me that they’re going to do three operations, all fairly routine but there is the risk of bursting the bowel, lifelong infertility and that they might need to cut all my stomach muscles. I nod and sign everything.

She leaves. I feel sick. Put on gown with sense of doom. Pull on hideous thigh-length surgical stockings.

The Guardian phones to tell me they want to publish my article on Saturday and can they do a photo-shoot. I tell them I’m in hospital but out by the evening. They suggest sending a photographer to my house tomorrow afternoon. I say yes, hoping that I’ll still look pale, and resolving to recline on the sofa like La Dame Aux Camelias.

I do a little dance of satisfaction. Swap scurrilous stories with S, fondly believing that the closed curtains around my bed mean that no-one can hear us. We are just in the middle of doing a mini photo-shoot of our own, me trying to look sexy in said stockings and gown, when the nurse comes and sternly tells us that I can go for my anaesthetic. I follow her along the corridors, not realising until I get to the room that I am flashing my ass through the back of my gown.


There is no anaesthetist available so I read National Geographic for an hour or so. By the time I am wheeled in, I am ready for an hour or two of oblivion.

I wake up and ask where A. is. The nurse says he is probably in my head, since I was mumbling about him, plus somebody called Tots, another called Maude and another called, er, Marcella, when I was coming round from the anesthetic. Apparently I also rambled on about an oak tree, a dog bone, a party, a patient and a library….

‘Are you in pain?’
‘Yes’
‘Would you like some painkillers? I must warn you, they’re opiates.’
‘Mmmm, well, that's ok’ (coughs piteously)
‘On a scale of 1-3 how much pain do you have?’
‘Er, 3?’

I drift off into a highly enjoyable state. Next thing I know, I’m in the ward and awake, feeling appalling. The doctor comes in and talks me through what happened and what they found. She tells me that my stomach will be bloated for a few days because they blew it up full of gas, I will bleed profusely and the blue dye they squirted through my fallopian tubes will come out too.

I can’t think of anything to say. It all sounds vile.

S strokes my arm.

‘Cheer up. Think of Picasso. We shall call it Lady V’s Blue Period.’

I snort and immediately feel somewhat better.

Today I am walking like an old lady and porking down painkillers in profusion. Soon I shall get up and wash my hair in preparation for the Guardian photographer. But before then I have seasons 1-3 of The L Word to watch. Bliss.