Homage to Samuel Pepys
By Andrew Grant-Adamson • Jan 14th, 2009 • Category: PersonalIn the past few weeks I have been reassured by the 17th century diarist Samuel Pepys. Reading accounts of the removal of his bladder stone in 1658 made me realise how lucky I was that anaesthetics have been discovered.
My stone, like Pepys’s, was a large one and I was not certain when I went into the theatre at Ipswich Hospital if I would have to have an open operation. But the surgeon managed to break-up the stone using a laser. I imagined him playing a computer game, which I called Alien Asteroid 3, and it took him an hour-and-a-half to win.
Pepys designated the date of his operation, March 26, as a personal feast day. As March 26 is also my birthday I am going to adopt it and drink to the surgeons through the ages who have advanced their craft.
Andrew Grant-Adamson is Andrew Grant-Adamson is a journalist who now teaches a new generation of writers, subs and editors at the University of Westminster.
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