House!

What a week or two of medical madness and jolly japes.  It's been so bad that I stumbled into Theatres yesterday and begged a passing anaesthetist for a quick drag of nitrous oxide.  To his credit, he declined saying there were much better and freely available cures for working-in-a-mad-house than 'laughing gas.'  NHS time-served and customer service hardened, he also suggested a  new approach to my role on the Wards; basically give less of a damn.  Like the wonderful TV doctor, Gregory House, as performed by Mr Hugh Laurie, I am becoming more irascible by the day.  The bits I liked the best were when Cuddy ordered him downstairs to work his magic with less demanding cases, and so it has been with me and a certain student nurse I've called Hesperus.  She sidled up to me on Monday morning saying,
"I've got this thing and it really hurts."  One of those days.
"Where is this thing?"
"Between my cheeks."
"That's your nasal region."
"No, my bum."  Latin is so wasted on the young.  And they're so easily wound up.
"Oh.  Little thing is it?  Feels like a golf ball when you walk kind of thing?"  She brightened visibly at my vast medical knowledge and then the darkness crept back.
"Will I have to have a colonoscopy?"
"For hemorrhoids?  Unlikely but if Theatres are game and you've got the cash, we could do one anyway."  Her face was a picture until I explained there are creams available and where to get them.  Except not from Pharmacy unless you want it broadcast on hospital radio.
"Are they serious?"
"Only if you tango without applying ointment first."  Overhearing our conversation, Nurse Indira tried to cheer us up with tales of her nursing training in India at a Catholic institution run by Sisters of Mercy. Our jaws dropped when she told us,
"We weren't allowed to go out with boys or get married until our training was finished."  Hesperus's remained agog.
"What did you do about ...?  Well, you know?"
"This was a strict nursing academy, not a knocking shop" came the rebuke from Indira. "And we had to pray every day before each shift started."
"Why?"
"To stop impure thoughts."  Well I think that's what she said before muttering something about being confined to the house if they so much as smiled at a boy.  Herperus hissed in a loud stage whisper,
"I wouldn't get through the first week let alone four years!!"
I have to stop worrying about her, I really do.

Although worrying seems to part of Job 2.1.   So to lighten the load a little, me and my partner in healthcare crime Raven Jasmintha, decided to have a bingo night out at the local Mecca.  You'd have thought we'd asked for volunteers for varicose vein surgery because everyone said "Yes" initially, then support evaporated the second it was discovered there's an entrance fee.  At one point, we were surrounded by a gaggle of excuses,
"Can't we go on a free night?"  No, because we all work the same late shifts and there's be no staff.
"I can't get back in time after my dancing class" piped up Stephanotis. She can but she doesn't want to.
"I'm against gambling."  Another valid reason from Kuckleberry but considering she'd just come back from Las Vegas having lost her shirt, I think it's understandable.
So Jasmintha and me ... well we went anyway and had a riot, although I'm really sad I didn't get to shout "House!".  Well, not in the right place anyway.

Tip of the Blog:  Short and sweet this time. I've almost finished the donkey work of pulling my e-book together and yet, like the summit of Mount Everest; the higher you climb the further away it gets.  Keep you posted.

Raven