I think the NHS might have something against me

I shouldn't be able to write anything today. I should be sat in a chair feeling miserable with a hugely swollen face and four fewer teeth. However, I am sat here at my computer writing away with just the usual level of tooth and wrist pain, periodically staring outside at the snow and wondering if I should go and build our snowwoman a friend. So far I have managed to resist the temptation; after all my wrists are still feeling rather weak from yesterday's construction efforts, and somehow I get the impression that 'Luella' isn't all that sociable.

Since June last year my wisdom teeth have been giving me grief. The little darlings have decided that instead of just coming straight up and slotting in neatly at the back of my mouth it would be far more fun to burrow at funny angles into neighbouring teeth. Not surprisingly, this isn't all that pleasant for me. The resulting compression causes pain in all the other teeth, and whole areas of gum become tender. The mouth is a rather bacteria-rich environment and partially-protruding wisdom teeth are places in which they flourish, meaning things get nasty and infected to boot. Clearly, these teeth are far more trouble than they are worth, and so my dentist referred me to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon to get them removed as a matter of urgency.

Someone else's mouth, featuring wisdom teeth at silly angles. Think this looks bad? Mine are worse!

I am well aware from numerous wrist-related appointments that 'urgent' is often interpreted as meaning anything but. The referral was sent in August, I got an appointment for November, which I duly attended, at which x-rays were taken. A couple of forms were tortuously filled out by a student nurse (I had to help her with spelling and remind her that she had to take my blood pressure and weigh me), and that was that. I would be sent a letter with a time for an operation at some unknown point in the future which was likely to be at least twelve weeks away. By December the pain was so agonising that my dentist sent off another letter to the hospital to hurry things along. The result? An operation scheduled for January 6. Fantastic!

Yesterday duly arrived, and with it came snow, a good 20 cm deep. Nervous that this would result in a cancellation, I contacted the hospital admissions clerk who happily confirmed that the operation would go ahead as planned, no problems. Feeling relieved we set off, well-stocked with warm clothes and chocolate in case the roads became impassable. In fact, the roads were fine. A bit slippery in places, but nothing unmanageable providing you drove slowly and sensibly. It took us a whole hour to make the 17 mile trip from Fairford to the hospital, but we made it. And we weren't even in a Land Rover, but a humble Nissan Micra.

We arrived at the hospital half an hour before I needed to be there. It turned out that I was the only patient who'd bothered to turn up - great, we thought, I get to be done first and get to go home as quickly as possible. My entire team had made it to the hospital, I saw the nurse, got the wristband, saw the consultant who explained all the horrible things he was going to do to me (lots of chopping out bits of bone, sawing teeth in half before pulling them out - details I'd rather not know, to be honest). All that was left was to wait for the anaesthetist, who was overseeing another operation until two o'clock. We therefore sat down and waited.

After we'd been in the hospital for going on two hours, the two nurses sheepishly entered the room with faces bearing expressions of embarrassment and anger. My operation had been cancelled, they said. They'd only found out because they'd phoned around to see if they could get me through sooner, what with me being the only person there. Instead of an affirmation they were told that their list had been cancelled half an hour previously; a trivial fact that no one had bothered to inform them of. To their credit, they then frantically tried to see if there was any alternative, begged and pleaded with the people in charge, but to no avail.

Essentially, one anaesthetist in the whole hospital hadn't turned up and so mine had been pulled in to cover him. My operation was deemed to be 'elective' (although why I would choose to have for awkward wisdom teeth removed unless it was strictly necessary is beyond me), and therefore eminently cancellable. There was a possibility of having the operation done under a local anaesthetic with sedation, but as my teeth are in such bad positions the only option was a full-on general; not something that could be done without the proper anaesthetist. All we could do was trundle back to Fairford and hope that it won't take another five months to get a replacement slot.

I wasn't best pleased.

On the plus side, I got to help build the snowwoman. She is greater-than-human sized, in a kneeling position, and quite frankly terrifiying: I have never seen a snow creation look so menacing, we have truly created a monster. And she's still out there now, resplendent in the sunshine.

The lovely Luella.