There's always a small part of me that will remain in Saudi Arabia.... my appendix!
When Mummy was young, Appacha got a job in Saudi Arabia so we moved to a village in the East of Saudi called Al-Hofuf. It couldn't have been more different from the life we had lived in Edinburgh till then.
We were housed in a villa on the huge staff accomodation complex. There were streets and streets of villas with ready made gardens and play areas; all lying empty and waiting to be occupied. We lived on a side street which was the only street with people living in it.
Next to us was a British Indian doctor and his Irish nurse wife. Next to them was an Egyptian surgeon with his English nurse wife. Opposite us lived two doctors; a Sri Lankan and an Indian.
The villas were huge and made of marble; it was the first time we had lived in a house so grand. Around the campus there was little but desert. We were vaguely aware that there was a town somewhere nearby but any shopping would be done by the men and in all my time there, I perhaps saw the town once.
The biggest difference of course was that there was no school! My mother had bought books before leaving Scotland which my sister and I were expected to work our way through.
It was exciting, and new, and we were never bored. We had scarcely been there a month when one day I got a tummy ache. The pain got worse and worse and then I suddenly threw up my dinner. I remember the brown vomit staining the beautiful white marble floor in the kitchen.
In the night my father realised I wasn't getting any better. He went and knocked on our next door neighbour's door but there was no answer. Then he went to the Egyptian's house and, this time, the door was opened.
The big Egyptian surgeon Dr Ramadan arrived with his huge hands and decided I had appendicitis and needed an operation. I was ever so slightly excited!
I can only imagine how my poor parents must have felt. My mum had to look after my little one year old brother and 7 year old sister so of course she couldn't come with me. So it was my dad who took me to the hospital in the ambulance and saw me walk into the operation theatre.
I don't remember feeling any anxiety then. Hospitals were my second home. They never seemed like places where bad things happened.
My jolly anaesthetist got me off to sleep with jokes and a good dose of something in my arm and the next thing I remember is being spoken to, in Malayalam, by a nurse with a mask on, as I was being shifted from trolley to bed. I could hear myself groaning but I don't remember feeling pain.
Later on that night, on the ward, a horrible nurse made me get up and walk to the toilet. The memory of this is so clear to me. When I think of how that woman made an 11 year old get up within hours of having surgery with no thought of the pain, my blood still boils. She was rough and brusque and I was completely on my own on that adult ward.
It was no wonder then that when I felt desperate for a wee later on, I just lay there and wet the bed rather than ring for the witch-nurse.
In the morning, a different nurse arrived on shift; this one was kind, gentle. She made me sit up so she could comb my hair. She changed my sodden and stinking sheets with never a scold and made me comfortable in bed with my book which, of all things, happened to be Pygmalion!
When Dr Ramadan arrived for rounds, he couldn't get over the fact that I was reading and he kept exclaiming to his colleagues that it was the first time he had seen a patient read in Saudi Arabia.
Across the aisle from me, there was a severely disabled woman who was completely dependent on the nurses. They would draw the curtains to change her soiled clothes and an almighty stink would fill the room.
I was glad I didn't have to stay in hospital long. I remember my dad carrying me up the stairs once we got home and for the next week or so, I stayed in the bedroom. I could just about see my operation wound and the big ugly stitches that held it together; it looked ugly then but it has since healed into an almost invisible scar.
Daniel
said,” But it’s too dark to go outside!”
