I'm still alive

to which I responded

God here. How do you know?

When I spoke to him, he was pretty spaced out on morphine having just had a chunk of bowel removed. This was the aftermath of an appendectomy over a year ago, followed by a major abscess and the wound then healing open.

He's had a test for Crohn's disease etc (which they suspect but could not confirm) but they won't really know until they do a biopsy on the bowel segment removed.

I had my appendix out on the day that England won the World Cup in 1966, and thanks to penicillin the peritonitis I also had didn't kill me. They left the wound to drain, and after a month it healed.

Firstly, I can't help thinking they could and should have let youngster's initial wound drain (which they are now doing) instead of sewing him up and relying on antibiotics, which was then followed by the serious abscess referred to.

Secondly, I can't help thinking that with the sort of key-hole surgery my other youngster had for his appendix in Oslo a couple of winters ago (and it was not a straighforward operation) then he would never have had the problem in the first place.

Oh well.

Gotta leave it to the professionals, and apparently they've had the A Team on it this time....

Fingers crossed. The last thing the poor devil needs is a stoma bag for the rest of his life.

"Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky