Author Archives: TheOrganGrinder

Mar 04 2020
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Things Are Different Here

Better Red than Dead

photo of man and woman looking at the sky

For crying out loud, put your helmets back on

Sorry, it’s been a while. But the good news is that I’m not dead yet and after all, what’s a couple of years amongst friends? Well, it’s about the same amount of time that it takes Mars to orbit the sun and depending on your chosen propulsion method, pretty much the same time it would take to get to the red planet. And back again. But why on earth – or Mars – would anyone contemplate returning?

Against all odds, Mars has so far returned an ideal zero number of Coronavirus cases and it looks set to stay that way, so let’s just move there. OK, there are a few downsides; instead of oxygen, you’ll be breathing mostly carbon dioxide. But vomiting, convulsions and death aside, symptoms of breathing elevated levels of Co2 include fatigue, emotional upset and clumsiness; so at least that will be like any other day on Earth.

And at around 30 million miles (or a-just-above-average mileage for a 1980’s Volvo) further away from the sun than Earth, it’s colder too. We’re lucky here to have a ‘thermal blanket’ comprised of water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide to keep us toasty. Without this, life couldn’t have existed and we wouldn’t have evolved into the wonderful species we are, created unbelievably beautiful art, developed phenomenal understanding of science and technology and grown our caring knowledge of the world… before going on to spectacularly fuck it all up.

With a temperature somewhere between -50 and -125 degrees, this isn’t going to be a summer holiday, so be sure to pack an extra cardigan or two and leave your fingerless gloves at home. And at just 1%, the atmospheric pressure on Mars is much thinner than Earth’s, leading to other fashion challenges; if you want to avoid the inconvenience of instant death, you’re going to have to wear a pressurised suit, otherwise much like a can of coke, the gasses in your blood will dissolve into bubbles and boil you rapidly to a fizzy end. Just like Coca Cola, it’s the real thing.

The toxic dust storms could get tiresome too. Blowing a gritty wind of micro-particles that travel at speeds of up to 60mph, they can last for weeks and cover the entire planet. So drying your freshly-laundered pressure suit on a line in the garden is definitely out.

The good news is that there is water, although frustratingly either frozen beneath the surface or vaporising above it; various multi-billion dollar NASA missions have confirmed this and in the process also confirmed that huge amounts of money are much better spent on exploring other planets than addressing healthcare, welfare and environmental issues nearer to home.

So all things considered, life on Mars is going to be a challenge. But then so are the next few weeks, months or maybe years on earth, so why not get packing? Well, ‘super-villain’ Elon Musk, the man who dumped a car into orbit might just be your neighbour. Musk has a lot of interest in the planet. He’s suggested ‘nuking’ Mars to make it habitable and he’s building a fleet of space craft to ultimately transport at least one million people to the planet by 2050. This is a mistake. I’ve seen enough films to know that it won’t go to plan and be it unknown pathogens, grumpy alien mothers or psychotic murderous colleagues, it’s not going to end well.

So I’ve decided to take my chances and stay on Earth after all. And I’ve told Covid-19 to join the back of the line of all the other things trying to kill me.

 

 

 

 

 

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Jan 22 2018
2 Comments
Death is the end.

YOU’RE DAMNED IF YOU DO AND YOU’LL DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH IF YOU DON’T

 

vieus (2)

Not a fun squeaky dog toy

A recent viral infection took me to A&E (I said I’d walk but it insisted on driving). It’s been quite some time since I was last admitted, and I was reminded of how scary hospitals must be to the uninitiated and previously well. That said, is anyone really ever well? Or are we all just in a blissfully unsuspecting stasis of pre-diagnosis? In my occasional moments of ‘why me’ melancholy – “why did I have terrible acne, why did I get sick, why do I have to put my plate in the dishwasher?” – I can draw cheer from looking at the general public as I pass them in the street and with a wry nod and a smile, know that thanks to the ‘big 5’, around 0.3% of them will die from a horrible illness. And whilst that doesn’t sound like a lot, its approximately 200,000 of you, or about 199,999 more people than read this blog. If you’re the judicious number ‘1’, then get yourself checked out immediately; should something nasty be ‘caught’ early and successfully treated, then at least reading this drivel will have had a positive outcome. And as for the other 199,999 of you, well it serves you all right.

Should you be diagnosed with one of the ‘big 5’, you can lighten the mood in the consulting room by comparing your illness to one of the similarly categorised ‘Big 5’ Game animals, sometimes seen majestically striding the Savannah or heroically displayed on the wall of a Dentist’s waiting room. Of course, instead of catching a Lion, Leopard, Rhinoceros, Elephant or Cape Buffalo on your camera and taking home precious Safari memories, you’re having a Stroke, or you’ve ‘caught’ Heart Disease, Cancer, Lung Disease or Liver Disease and you’ll be taking home an A5 leaflet called ‘Coping with Illness’ written in comic sans, a big green bag of drugs and an all-encompassing feeling of doom.

And whilst you’re probably taking comfort from thinking you can’t actually catch any of these, I’d like to add a little extra seed of concern to your list of daily worries about missing the bus, downloading malware and that spreading damp patch on the bedroom ceiling; you can become medically obese from catching the ADV36 cold virus, there IS a bacterial infection that can cause diabetes and there are ongoing studies into the probable link between specific viruses and their triggering of cancers. Suddenly that damp patch isn’t worrying you anymore? Well it should because the moulds associated with damp conditions produce irritants and toxic allergens, that can cause respiratory complications and Asthma, a condition effecting over 5 million people in the UK and causing over 1000 deaths annually. You can put that on your list too.

Now get out there and enjoy yourselves, whilst you still can.

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Mar 22 2017
4 Comments
Patients, The Good Ol' Days

Live to Ride, Ride to Hospital

Patients. They’re a rich collapsed vein of bio-hazardous material, never failing to delight, horrify and amuse me…particularly those residing in ‘Basement Ward 1’ although technically, as cadavers they’re no longer referred to as patients. If you’re considering a medical career but you’re not a fan of litigation, it’s unquestionably the best department to work in. Nobody’s going to take you to court for miss-diagnosis or administering incorrect doses and as long as those selfies of ‘everyone’ wearing funny hats are just for personal use, then where’s the harm? Just don’t take it any further than the hats. You know what I’m talking about, don’t make me google it and post a slideshow of hi-resolution images, accompanied by the Benny Hill theme tune.

When I was a young boy, full of naïve charm and sparkly-eyed innocence, I wanted to break into the Hospital Mortuary and look at dead people; I told myself I’d stop short of poking them but I’d take my green biro along, just in case the urge was too great. I’d already pretended to be visiting fictitious relatives in various departments, with the Burns Unit being of specific interest. There was something about all the swaddled gauze and petroleum jelly that intrigued me, not to mention the high-doses of IV pain medication rendering the patients incoherent and unable to announce ‘Hang on, that’s not my nephew! Get out of here! But leave the grapes’.

In those days, it was easy to wander around hospitals without being challenged as to why you were there or why one boy’s extended family could be so frequently involved in fires. It was the 80’s and nurses were more interested in comparing their giant hair and scrunchies than apprehending weirdoes, not to mention I looked so super fly in my Hi-Tec Hi-Tops and ‘Frankie says Relax’ t-shirt, they just left me alone. In hindsight, if only I’d taken Frankie’s advice, my blood pressure might not have soared skyward, destroying my kidneys in the process. ‘Relax, don’t do it’ however was confusing and contradictory for a stupid 14-year-old who thought t-shirt slogans were important and meaningful. Should I relax, or shouldn’t I? Which one is it Frankie!? And actually, are you even a qualified medic with cardiology experience? After watching the video for ‘Relax’, I was starting to think maybe not.

I persuaded myself that an interest in looking at patients was just indicative of a healthy interest in biology and medical care; ‘who knows?’, I thought, all the early experience could pave the way for a pioneering career in medicine. Looking back, it was disturbing and peculiar but thankfully one day, I was challenged and I never did it again. It was on a high-dependency unit, where my questionable roaming came to an end. After initially striding confidently along the ward, I was apprehended by a senior nurse.

‘Hi, can I help?’

‘Er, yes, I’m visiting a relative, they’ve had an accident. They’re in…Bed 9?’ (Stupid…)

‘Ok…what sort of accident?

‘Um…. motorcycle?’ (Also stupid…)

‘Right, a motorcycle. I’d say your Aunt is a bit of a daredevil’

‘Ha. Yes. She sure lives life to the full!’

‘I’d say! She’s 100 isn’t she?

‘Er..yes, I know! Crazy. I hope she’s OK?’

‘Yes. But she’s not 100 she’s 89 and she’s recovering from her cardiovascular surgery. She’ll be fine but she’ll never be your aunt. What are you doing here?’

‘I’m lost, I’m looking for the loo’

‘Right. There’s one in the reception, on the ground floor’

‘OK, sorry, I’ll go there now’.

‘Yes, you do that. Goodbye and don’t come back or I’ll call the police. Weirdo’

I ran away very fast, feeling very silly and very ashamed. But I think of dear fake Aunty sometimes, the crazy old bird. I imagine she was a lot of fun, told a good story and could put away quad measures of gin before 9 in the morning, although my residing memory of her will always be that she sure did love her Japanese Superbikes.

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Mar 22 2017
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Patients, The Good Ol' Days

Live to Ride, Ride to Hospital

Patients. They’re a rich collapsed vein of bio-hazardous material, never failing to delight, horrify and amuse me…particularly those residing in ‘Basement Ward 1’ although technically, as cadavers they’re no longer referred to as patients. If you’re considering a medical career but you’re not a fan of litigation, it’s unquestionably the best department to work in. Nobody’s going to take you to court for miss-diagnosis or administering incorrect doses and as long as those selfies of ‘everyone’ wearing funny hats are just for personal use, then where’s the harm? Just don’t take it any further than the hats. You know what I’m talking about, don’t make me google it and post a slideshow of hi-resolution images, accompanied by the Benny Hill theme tune.

The Glamour of the Mortuary is undisputed

When I was a young boy, full of naïve charm and sparkly-eyed innocence, I wanted to break into the Hospital Mortuary and look at dead people; I told myself I’d stop short of poking them but I’d take my green biro along, just in case the urge was too great. I’d already pretended to be visiting fictitious relatives in various departments, with the Burns Unit being of specific interest. There was something about all the swaddled gauze and petroleum jelly that intrigued me, not to mention the high-doses of IV pain medication rendering the patients incoherent and unable to announce ‘Hang on, that’s not my nephew! Get out of here! But leave the grapes’.

In those days, it was easy to wander around hospitals without being challenged as to why you were there or why one boy’s extended family could be so frequently involved in fires. It was the 80’s and nurses were more interested in comparing their giant hair and scrunchies than apprehending weirdoes, not to mention I looked so super fly in my Hi-Tec Hi-Tops and ‘Frankie says Relax’ t-shirt, they just left me alone. In hindsight, if only I’d taken Frankie’s advice, my blood pressure might not have soared skyward, destroying my kidneys in the process. ‘Relax, don’t do it’ however was confusing and contradictory for a stupid 14-year-old who thought t-shirt slogans were important and meaningful. Should I relax, or shouldn’t I? Which one is it Frankie!? And actually, are you even a qualified medic with cardiology experience? After watching the video for ‘Relax’, I was starting to think maybe not.

I persuaded myself that an interest in looking at patients was just indicative of a healthy interest in biology and medical care; ‘who knows?’, I thought, all the early experience could pave the way for a pioneering career in medicine. Looking back, it was disturbing and peculiar but thankfully one day, I was challenged and I never did it again. It was on a high-dependency unit, where my questionable roaming came to an end. After initially striding confidently along the ward, I was apprehended by a senior nurse.

‘Hi, can I help?’
‘Er, yes, I’m visiting a relative, they’ve had an accident. They’re in…Bed 9?’ (Stupid…)
‘Ok…what sort of accident?
‘Um…. motorcycle?’ (Also stupid…)
‘Right, a motorcycle. I’d say your Aunt is a bit of a daredevil’
‘Ha. Yes. She sure lives life to the full!’
‘I’d say! She’s 100 isn’t she?
‘Er..yes, I know! Crazy. I hope she’s OK?’
‘Yes. But she’s not 100 she’s 89 and she’s recovering from her cardiovascular surgery. She’ll be fine but she’ll never be your aunt. What are you doing here?’
‘I’m lost, I’m looking for the loo’
‘Right. There’s one in the reception, on the ground floor’
‘OK, sorry, I’ll go there now’.
‘Yes, you do that. Goodbye and don’t come back or I’ll call the police. Weirdo’

I ran away very fast, feeling very silly and very ashamed. But I think of dear fake Aunty sometimes, the crazy old bird. I imagine she was a lot of fun, told a good story and could put away quad measures of gin before 9 in the morning, although my residing memory of her will always be that she sure did love her Japanese Superbikes.

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Jan 09 2017
2 Comments
Things Are Different Here

IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE AUGUST

christmas

Thank God. Christmas is over. And the festive highlights of indigestion, Norovirus and new socks are just precious memories. But spare a thought for justifiably miserable in-patients, who due to staff training cuts, continue to exist in a nightmarish festive New Year; with nobody sufficiently qualified to pack away baubles, Christmas just limps depressingly onwards in hospital… a lot like the man in the dressing gown, who’s always in front of me at the cafeteria servery. Seriously, just how long does it take to choose between the scrambled eggs or omelette? They’re both grey, chewy and terrifyingly un-egg-like, just close your eyes and point randomly in their direction. It’s fun.

 

 

Christmas in hospital is an extra special time, when the general level of despair is as elevated as the giant plastic bells pinned inexplicably to the ceiling tiles. So what makes Christmas in hospital so terrible? Really, you’re asking that? For fuck’s sake, everything makes it terrible; the decorations, the food, the lighting, the attempt at festivities, the elevated chances of death, the being surrounded by sick people and the tinsel. It was for all the same reasons of course that Jesus’ parents chose a stable over Bethlehem General, a world-renowned Birthing Center. The hospital had even made provisions for the livestock and relaxed their ‘No Myrrh’ policy, after one wise man made a scene in the waiting room and gesticulated inappropriately at nurses. But as Joseph later stated ‘it’s the bloody tinsel, I hate it, all blue and spiky, and always dropping bits. And it sounds like ‘tonsil’. I had to have mine out as a kid and it bloody hurt I can tell you’.

Like Joseph, I also find the tinsel upsetting, particularly its attraction towards any available ledge, lip or light-fitting, seemingly just dropping there from some height.

 

Dropped from a height
Uplighter, Downtinsel

I’m not suggesting of course that the NHS spend frivolously on new decorations but if they must have tinsel, perhaps they could stretch to a few new lengths with a full complement of bouncy bits. And to justify the cost, it could be shared with the blood room and used as a spiky, uncomfortable tourniquet. Blood tests would be like Christmas Day every day, just like Elvis dreamily imagined in between frequent bites of cheeseburger. Singing ‘Why can’t every day be like Christmas?’, little did he know that if he’d been lucky enough to live long enough to develop kidney failure, he could have discovered that The Day Room really is a place where it’s Christmas every day; thanks to the little plastic tree with twinkly lights – three of which still work – the festivities never end. There it remains on the corner table, propped up (one of the legs has snapped off) against the wall year ‘round.

tree

There’s also the soft perpetual hum of the vending machine, which sounds remarkably like a never-ending first bar of Silent Night and sometimes a fat bloke slumped in a wheelchair who looks a bit like Father Christmas, if Father Christmas was a diabetic amputee.

There’ll be at least one forgotten card too, stuck jauntily to the glass with increasingly yellowing tape –  ‘Merry Christmas and thank you Nurse, you brought dignity to the task of changing my giant man-nappy’ – and in the corner, a stacked pile of empty chocolate tubs. Patients are under the impression that Cadbury’s Heroes are still a thoughtful gift, predictably making reference to the name being ‘like what you have been to me, you know, a hero’ in the accompanying card. It’s all very moving, even if all nurses really want are Lambert & Butler, 2 liter bottles of cider and 20 minutes off to hide in the drug cupboard and consume both.

Merry Christmas. You choose which one.

 

 

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Sep 29 2016
6 Comments
Patient Stupidity

STANDBY FOR LUNCH

 

defib1Hospitals and machines, they go together like six cans of coke a day and diabetes. There are ones that monitor you, ones that diagnose you and ones that dispense chicken soup, although hopefully not for you because it’s nasty and there’s always a clump of undissolved powder stuck to the bottom. Some machines keep you alive and some try to bring you back to alive from dead. If unsuccessful, the next stop could well be the mighty Duotronic 3000 embalming machine, a true King among corpses.

Without machines a patient’s chance of survival would in many cases be greatly reduced and hospitals would be little more than a collection of horribly brightly lit spaces with filthy floors, populated by the shuffling undead. A lot like shopping at Tesco at 2AM. And whilst these machines are currently extremely helpful, last night I dreamt of a terrifyingly dark, robotic future when they won’t be; they were still doing what they were built to do – supplying oxygen, administering drugs, displaying heart rhythms etc. – but they complained a lot about it and were really grumpy. And whilst the dream was not as nerve-shredding as the premise of The Terminator, at one point I did have a particularly challenging run-in with a sandwich toaster, and a Betamax video player I laughed at in the 80’s stamped on my toe.

One glorious Opioid en-robed day, I was awaiting the arrival of my lunch with elevated, if drowsy, anticipation after becoming trapped in the loo earlier and missing out on breakfast. Lunch time is a big deal in hospital, breaking the fascinating routine of ‘Eat Grape, Read May 2004 Grazia, Eat Grape. Repeat’. With the tell-tale sound of lunch getting closer – the Kitchen Porter swearing as the trolley got stuck in the lift – I manoeuvred myself and my table into an optimum bed-dining position, far enough away that I could stretch out my arms a little to eat but near enough so that I wouldn’t drop chicken into my surgical drain. As the door opened, the familiar sight of the plastic tray with the plastic dome over the plate appeared, although the lack of visible condensation on the underside of the cover was worrying; a sign that the food beneath had never been very warm.

Sure enough, my ‘fricassee’ was cold, ‘as cold as death’ I slurred aloud, unnecessarily. This was the fourth day in a row that my lunch had turned up devoid of heat, even though I had repeatedly and incoherently scrawled ‘Cold Cold Cold!’ in the ‘We value your feedback’ section of the menu. As I reluctantly picked up my fork, I thought to myself that the most sensible thing to do would be to reheat the chicken myself, by using the ward Defibrillator located in the corridor.

Andi Reiss

andireiss.com

Not usually associated with food preparation, a Defibrillator delivers an electrical counter-shock to the heart, disrupting the abnormal rhythm associated with a cardiac arrest and allowing the heart function to hopefully return to normal. With the clarity of mind that comes from no longer being on IV Tramadol, this would have been a ridiculous and no doubt fatal way to attempt to make my lunch more palatable. At the time I thought it was brilliant. And even if it didn’t work, it would at least be immeasurably more entertaining than watching Heartbeat…the show, not the reassuring muscle contraction.

Struggling out of bed, I was promptly apprehended by a nurse who asked me what I was doing. And with the crystal clarity of a drunk person explaining to a police officer that they’re not drunk, I answered. Carefully helping me back into bed, she kindly suggested that in the case of my cold, dry chicken chunks and 900 volts, successful re-heating would be unlikely and instead, a messy, savory death entirely probable.

The following day, my lunch was hot. Steamy hot. I think the nurse had something to do with that, perhaps suggesting to the kitchen that warm food might limit some patient’s stupid ideas and help keep them alive. So for that I’m grateful, although as it was a Cottage Cheese Salad, in this instance it might have benefited from being cold.

 

 

Thanks to Andi Reiss for the sketch.

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Jul 14 2016
1 Comment
Death is the end.

I’M RUNNING OUT OF PATIENTS

 

Hospitals would be shit without patients and not just because doctors and nurses would be left shuffling along the corridors, bumping into things, bumming (does that still mean what it used to mean?) endless cigarettes off each other and wondering what on earth they could strike about now…’We’re working too many hours!’ Well piss off home, I keep telling you there’s nobody else here.

feet

‘I’m sorry to say, it’s a little worse than we first thought’

On a high dependency ward, other patients offer so much entertainment to distract you from the unspeakable horrors of hospital, like the person in the bed next to you dying in the night and the next morning the person sitting in the chair visiting the corpse – still undiagnosed as dead – also dying. Irish Keith, still tragically alive and well, was in the bed opposite and offered a wide-range of inappropriate comments to anyone close enough to hear them through his never ending rasping death rattle. ‘Ooh, she was dying to get out of here’ and ‘I told you the food was bad’, followed by ‘She bloody deserved it!’ and ‘Makes you think doesn’t it’, the last of which was by far the most offensive.

Irish Keith (there was another Keith but he was just ‘Keith’) was desperately unwell and his prognosis was poor; the doctors had implied he would be ‘leaving’ any day now. But sadly, that day kept not coming. One ward round, I’m pretty sure I heard the exasperated consultant quietly ask the nurse ‘when’s he going to die?’ but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he actually asked ‘when’s he growing two pies?’, a common question in hospital after all.

In my more-accepting, less-disgusted-by-everybody-else moments (occasionally  experienced after 30 mg of Temazepam, when I momentarily forget where and who I am) I felt sorry for Irish Keith. Thanks to his offensive opinions, nobody ever came to see him and nobody stopped to chat as they shuffled quickly past, heading towards the thoroughly appalling Day Room, tugging their wheeled posts of dangling, bulging bags of piss behind them; lots of urine at least meant their kidney was making the stuff, it’s the patients slumped in the corner, with split, brittle bags now home to a family of lovable Dormice that you need to worry about, although those patients are long dead so you may as well find something else to worry about. Worry about the Dormice for Christ’s sake, that’s no kind of place to raise children.

For the week I was on that ward, Irish Keith remained jolly in his obnoxious trying to engage with people way; calling out, waving, beckoning, gesticulating, he seemed oblivious to the fact that nobody wanted anything to do with him and he happily carried on insulting everybody. My turn came following a worryingly elevated potassium result and an erratic heart-rate, which resulted in my bed and me being wheeled rapidly away in case I needed a spin on the defibrillator – I didn’t mind, there wasn’t much on TV.  Upon my return, Irish Keith piped up.
‘You’re still alive then? Shame. I wanted your bed by the window. Bastard’.
‘Ah, thanks Keith, that’s makes all the difference’
‘Fuck off, you’ll die before me, even if I have to put a pillow over your face in the night. You bastard”.

It was an idle threat, he was too sick to get out of bed unaided and I was pretty sure that even the grumpy nurse wouldn’t have helped him asphyxiate me in my sleep but I did wonder whether with his last dying breath he’d give it a go.

As it happens, he did nothing as energetic as getting out of bed with his final inhalation. Two days later, with a rattling coughing fit that sounded a lot like ‘you wanker’, he was dead.

Irish Keith died as he lived; offensively.

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Jan 25 2016
2 Comments
Life, Death & Dignity

GOWN & OUT AGAIN

The NHS is broken. Snapped. Crushed. Mangled. It’s so broken, that if it were a patient in A&E, it would be fast tracked onto a gurney, rolled down the Intensive Care corridor, out the double doors and into that sink hole that’s opened up in the car park; another free bed and another target met. Personally, I would also choose the sink hole over waiting 4 hours to be seen by a doctor, sitting next to a potty-mouthed bleach blond reeking of cider, bellowing at the top of her voice and demanding surgery for a wrist she sprained punching her son in the face. You’re a class act mum.

The NHS spends around 300 million pounds every day. That’s a lot of money but I simply can’t believe all that just goes on replacing the soap, surgical gloves and pillows I steal? And although I know that those Surgical Theater Lamps are very expensive, if they could just see how great it looks in my sitting room, illuminating my Cole & Son accent wall and highlighting my pointless collection of sticks in a jar…well, I’m pretty sure they’d think it was money well spent. Not to mention (although I am about to) that as surgery costs about £15 a minute and 25% of that time is spent adjusting the lights, by stealing their lamp I’ve saved them the £225 they would have spent fiddling around with it during a 60 minute operation and freed them up to get on with losing the patient. How do I know these fascinating hospital facts? Well, I spend a lot of time on Google and even more time stealing study reports from my doctor’s desk, although that is of course another saving – with the extra time he’s saved by not being able to read them, he can now concentrate on getting his nose hair to rapidly appear and then disappear, with every derisory snort.

surgical

‘Do you really need to take them both?’ ‘I have two sitting rooms, don’t I?’

So with an estimated shortfall of £22 billion over the next 4 years, what can be done to cut some of these spiraling costs? Obviously, I could stop nicking stuff but that’s just not feasible; it’s an illness dammit. And one that if only the NHS recognised as such, they could treat me and I’d stop pilfering their supplies. It’s complicated I know, a sort of chicken and egg thing. Much like the sandwich I stole from the café.

Instead, I implore the NHS to stop investing any more money and time into the grotesque chimera that is the ‘Pyjown’. As if patients’ lives are not miserable enough, the proposal to replace existing bedwear with this abhorrent monstrosity is terrifying; malformed spawn of hideous green pyjamas and shrunken back-less gown that had dirty, misshapen sex in the store room, the brilliantly named Pyjown is a pathetic combination of the two, although based on the name, it could also be created from a Pygmy and a Jewish Clown. In fact, I’d be a lot happier wearing that, along with a nightcap made from a placenta.

This ‘revolutionary’ garment, placed over the patient from the front and tied with cords around the neck, reassuringly resembles the peeled skin of another patient – yes, you can put other people’s organs inside me, but I will NOT ever wear their skin and most certainly not their gloves.

scared

‘We’re just going to peel you now Mr. Johnson’

And revolutionary as it is, the Pyjown is basically a short sleeve shirt that has been miss-sewn by hopeless children in Asia and has a back opening, as well as one at the front. Offensively, it’s also the most beige I’ve ever seen in one place and although I’d like to say I wouldn’t be caught dead in one, such opinion can so often prove ironic for a hospital patient. Although, with my last gasping breath for life, my priority would certainly be to have a good go at wriggling out of it.

Thankfully, although being rolled out soon for trials in some UK hospitals, mine isn’t one of them. So I may still get lucky and die in existing misshapen NHS nylons after all.

And please, if that is the case, I’d like my epitaph to read ‘He died as he lived, in a backless gown, two sizes too small’.

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Jan 08 2016
10 Comments
Uncategorized

WHISTLE DOWN THE WARD

staff

Hospitals can be confusing places for patients, especially if you’re a bit stupid. To alleviate one of the often sited reasons for SPC (stupid-person-confusion) the NHS produced a poster to identify the different members of staff you may encounter whilst on the ward. Alternatively, the bins behind the staff car park are a great place to play eye spy, as you may spot a group of oncology nurses smoking Woodbine or a lone surgeon looking for body parts in the bags marked ‘FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, INCINERATE THIS STUFF NOW’.

So who are those shuffling women in Tabards, who deliver your rapidly congealing lunch, before taking away your cardboard poo potty? And even more revolting than that, what is a Tabard? Well, because I asked my iPhone I can tell you; a Tabard is a wild duck that is common in Europe, although Siri may have misheard me. And regarding the women in Tabards, I have no idea who they are. They didn’t make it onto the poster.

Anyway you can trust me, I’m a doctor. I’m not of course but it’s amazing how many people thought I was just because I was wearing a white coat. And a stethoscope. Thankfully, these days you don’t even need the white coat to pretend you’re a doctor; just a shirt from Hackett, a mismatched tie, cold fingers and handwriting that suggests you’ve had a Stroke. Surgeons can be identified by their Pringle Polo shirts or Theatre Scrubs with bloody hand prints on the front, depending on whether they’re on their way to a golf tournament or lunch, also at the golf club. If you’re a sick person and you don’t play golf, I suggest you start playing immediately; there’s a good chance that when you have a coronary on the 3rd tee, you’ll be within 20 feet of a cardiologist, although I can’t promise he’ll have a defibrillator with him. Let me know if he does will you? If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume he didn’t.  There are of course many other people who keep hospitals running, from cleaners to nurses to specialists but let’s ignore most of them and their boring jobs and instead applaud the role of the Porter, the undisputed kings of hospital glamour. These everyday heroes of pushing patients around in beds and wheelchairs, perform a wide range of tasks, although specifically, they push patients around in beds and wheelchairs.

Not long enough ago I was waiting for porter ‘Dave’ (just Dave, porters don’t have surnames) to come and roll me to X-Ray. I could have walked on my own but that would have left a porter without a patient to push and instead he would have just gone up and down in the lift, over and over again, until his shift ended. I heard Dave’s operatic, chirping whistle about 3 minutes before he appeared in the door way, pushing a small-family sized wheelchair ahead of him that he’d liberated from the Obesity Unit or the Small Family Ward.
‘Did they not have one of the big ones?’ I asked. Dave briefly stopped whistling.
‘They do do bigger’. I wanted to laugh because he’d said ‘do do’ but then I remembered I was 41.
‘I’ll just have to try and squeeze in then. Phew, made it!’ I exaggerated, although without the visual clue of just how small I looked in the enormous chair, the absurdity is somewhat lost.
Dave said ‘Off we go’ and I said ‘Wheeeeeee…’

fatchair

It was bigger than this.

With every corner navigated, I slid from one side of the chair to the other, accompanied by Dave’s excruciatingly lighthearted whistling. He said nothing, until about corner 5, when he spoke.
‘So, you like fishing?’
‘No, I’ve never been’
‘Yeah, it’s great. Sea or river?
‘Err, neither?’
‘Yeah, it just gets in your veins doesn’t it?’
‘Not yet, no. I don’t think it would be my thing’
‘What rod do you use?’ At this point I was thinking Dave is either deaf or insane but it’s a long series of corridors, sliding lefts & sliding rights and a couple of lifts that smell of embalming fluid before we get to X-Ray, I’d better join in.
‘A long one’ I said and hoped it sounded like something a fishing man might say.
‘Yeah, Greys Prowler Platinum’s my weapon of choice. And it is a weapon…deadly’
‘If you’re a trout’
‘I hear that!?’ he barked but I wondered if he did.

fatter chair

But not this big.

What seemed like months later and a life’s worth of fishing anecdotes, we arrived at X-Ray.
‘Here we go’ Dave sort of whistled and then shuffled away up the corridor before looking back and barking ‘Keep casting!’. He reinforced this sign-off with a rapid movement of his hands that I assume was intended to resemble winding in a fishing reel, although it was so uncoordinated that he could also have been having some sort of seizure. As he waited for the lift, he punctuated his trill whistle with wet, meaty coughs that sounded like they came from a part of his lung that had died sometime ago.

The following day I was scheduled for an ultrasound, to check that I still actually had a kidney. Waiting for a porter with a wheelchair again, for some reason I excitedly hoped I’d get Dave. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before the whistle that drove dogs crazy within half a mile radius, floated menacingly down the ward in my direction.
‘Hey! Catch anything since yesterday?’ I asked with far too much enthusiasm.
‘Eh?’
‘You know, fishing?
‘Oh, yeah. OK. I’m not Dave’
‘What? Yes you are!’
‘No, not me’ he said, helpfully adding ‘you’re thinking of Dave’
‘Really? But you look…’
‘Yeah, I know. We look similar. People say that. Often’
‘No not similar, you look identical. Seriously, how are you not Dave?’. If we’d been down the pub, he would have punched me at this point.
‘Look, I’m not alright? I’m Paul, not Dave. And I don’t fish. C’mon, geezer, can we go…’
I was perplexed and just kept staring at Not Dave, or Paul as he apparently liked to be called. This guy was Dave but somehow was not Dave. On the way to the lift, I did detect a slightly different shuffling amble to Dave’s and although Paul’s whistle was similar, it had a lighthearted wheeziness to it and none of Dave’s accompanying phlegm rattle. I was intrigued as to how two people could look so alike, shuffle almost identically and whistle in a similarly awful fashion and yet not both fish. How could that be? Really, how? They must both fish?! Surely!

On the way to the lift, Not Dave took a deep breath, stopped his high-pitched wheeze for a moment and asked ‘Do you play darts then?’.

And I thought, ‘close enough’.

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Sep 22 2015
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Gown and Out (Part 1)

Simon Cowell

Simon Cowell

For reasons unknown, I have never been asked why this lighthearted, damning expose of the NHS is called Disposable Pyjamas. Never, not once. So, for those of you who couldn’t care less and have never shown any interest whatsoever, here’s the explanation you’ve all been eagerly waiting for. After all, it’s only fair that you, the disinterested masses, finally get to put your nonexistent curiosity to rest.

Unlike some independent hospitals, the NHS doesn’t in fact offer patients disposable bed-wear, although I really do wish it would. Instead, we get to wear a range of misshapen, one-size-fits-nobody reusable pyjamas. Luckily they’re brilliant, by which I mean awful and they come in a wide range of green; let’s be generous and call it spearmint. Thanks to washing temperatures greater than those at the center-of-the earth, the once uniformly bile-tinged bed-wear is now offered in a selection of varying fades, with some extra special pairs even exhibiting the tell-tale signs of the previous occupant’s ailments. Sometimes though, depending on whether or not a doctor, nurse or another patient wants to look at your genitals, you’ll be given a backless gown instead. These simple pieces of fraying patterned fabric are just dressing gowns that you put on backwards, with cords that are impossible to tie unless you have an assistant standing uncomfortably close to your naked bottom.  But simple as they seem, they still cause enormous confusion as to how to actually wear.

Around six weeks after the transplant, I had arrived at Day Case to have my Stent removed. The stent – basically a plastic tube – is placed in the ureter during the transplant, holding it open to maintain drainage of urine until the surgical connection between the transplanted ureter and the bladder heals. And there’s only one way for it to come out.

There were five of us waiting for the uncomfortable procedure, each getting undressed behind individual curtains before sitting on our beds. One of these patients had the sort of cough that wasn’t really a cough, just a sort of persistent throat cleaning, second only in annoyance to the persistent sniff, frequently heard in cinemas and usually from the person in the seat next to you.

Eventually, the coughing man appeared from behind his curtain, having dutifully undressed and put on the gown. Standing in the middle of the ward, with his hands on his hips, he looked around. His initial confidence turned to a look of confusion as he noticed the other patients on the ward, all similarly gowned but wearing their garments the right way around. Looking down at his gaping front, he nervously fiddled with the untied cords, hanging at the side and said ‘This can’t be right? Why does yours look like that?’

‘I don’t know, why does YOURS look like that?’ I replied, not specifically referring to his gown.

Looking at his very clearly visible genitals, the distressing thought of a Cadbury’s mini egg, nestled on an orange scourer came to mind. Lifting up the cords with a look of foolish realisation, he shook his head and tied the two loose ends together, which frankly did little to improve the view. I offered him the internationally recognisable ‘turn around’ symbol by rotating my index finger in the air. He looked at my gown, then the other patient’s gowns and then nodded, knowingly. As he turned around to go back into his cubicle, he said ‘you’d think they’d make them more obvious’.  And I wondered just how much more obvious they could be.

As he complained to the nurse at the desk, about the unnecessary complications of putting on a clearly one-way only garment, she picked up a pen and wrote ‘THIS IS NOT THE BACK’ in capital letters on the gown, although ‘Front’ may have also sufficed.

I look forward to some years down the line, putting on a gown and noticing those faded, boil-wash instructional words are still there.

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