When I was a kid, I hurt my finger. I can't even recall how, now, but I howled the way kids do, blowing a small pain way out of proportion. To downplay the drama, my father started to mock my cry, turning it into a theatrical 'a woo woo woo woo woo', until I started to laugh. That became a running joke for years. Forty bloody years, no less. Perhaps more. I can't recall how old I was. To this day, if one of us starts to complain unnecessarily, there will be a chorus of 'a woo woo woo woo woo'. It's a reminder that what ever we are complaining about needs a little perspective.

Today, I visited my Dad in hospital where he was having his lung reattached to the wall in his chest because he had a helluva lot of excess fluid and pain. Since the operation, he's been hallucinating on ketamine, but by the time I saw him, he had come down a little and had hit that miserable time in hospital where you get no sleep are are in constant hell. The food, he said, excusing his french, was 'fucking awful', the night nurses had terrible bed side manners, and when they said they'd be five minutes, they'd take five hours. His dinner came an hour late, and then he had no cutlery, so by the time the utensils got to him, it was cold.

Then he started saying he wished he'd never started the cancer treatment that started six years ago. After chemo, a drug trial, and finally Car-T, he was cured of cancer but had a whole host of other issues that were, most likely, a direct result of that. After that, he started reminiscing about his childhood, particularly his older brother who had always been a bit of a prick (that's a whole other story) and Dad hadn't been able to stop going over a few events that led to him almost having a nervous breakdown. He had thought long and hard about it, he said, but wouldn't even go to his funeral.

There was a lot to listen to, and a lot to lend a sympathetic ear and jolly him on with a bit of well-person positivity. It's unusual for Dad to be like this. It's just his defences are down because of the pain, and being bloody fed up with how bad things have got.

^{Dad in healthier times, in his favourite plant jungle.}

Plus, he was pissed off that he heard the nurses call him elderly in the corridor. He believed that 80 was elderly.

'Dad' I said gently. 'That's only four years away'.

He looked at me, clearly recognising he was in a rabbit hole of complaining (even though he was probably justified) and suddenly said the words.

'A woo woo woo woo woo'.

Clearly, he still had his sense of humour.