NHS Again

In spite of all my careful planning I still had to rush up the road to the local wee hospital for the blood test.  Rushing, moving fater than slow, is not my thing.  However I made it with one minute to spare.

No Stasi here, instead a notice board proclaimed 'BLOOD TEST'  'Take a seat and you will be called!'

However, there was one man sitting at a desk, a nurse waiting beside him, and me.

The board ordered me to use the sanitiser and as I did so he demanded the form.  I struggled to produce this and the nurse took me into a cubicle and placed me on a well set up seat.

Puffing like a steam train pulling 40 coal wagons heading into Cowdenbeath I sat awaiting the needle.

After clenching my fist at the very nice capable nurse she produced sufficient blood to send to the lab.  I now await the result next week sometime.  All this for statins.

Another successful NHS story.  Once past the Stasi all goes well.

Now, somewhere in Essex, a young woman, and path labs are stuffed full of women who apparently find that sort of work interesting.  So many women in path labs as there was back in the 70's.  

The head of our path lab was a doctor based at the main hospital in Queens Square, she often spent much time sitting in the front hall with us awaiting her staff doing whatever she has asked for.

The 'Doctor on call' sign on her car was a bit of a lie really but nevertheless very useful for her.  No feminists then whining about top jobs, just women doing the job.  That doctor used to drive a small blue renault I think it was.  The matron, when she came fro Queen Square, arrived in her 1926 Sunbeam!  Here, while warning the wards she was about, I would admire the car for a moment with nher, allowing the wards to hide things, before she stormed off upstairs to ensure all went well.  The deputy matron, who had been a young nurse on a hospital ship at Dunkirk, and one of those was sunk, not hers, lived in a flat round the corner.  Her phone was connected to the switchboard and when she had a holiday another senior retired nurse would take her place.  The assistant matron never went away, both sat in the flat drinking sherry.  One night the call came from the flat.  

"Can you tell me the time?" 

"It is just after 12," I replied.

"Twelve noon or twelve midnight?" came the question.

"Midnight," said I.

"Thank you," and the line went dead.

Thanks were then offered that these two never did any real nursing any more...

 

Afternoon Duty

Having foolishly offered my services to the museum if the regulars were missing, the lassie foolishly took me up on this.  This meant I sauntered, without a care in the world, to the museum this afternoon, expecting a chat with a visitor or two, a cup of tea or two, and a browse of a book, or two.  

I should have realised that the lassie was a woman.  A delivery for the shop arrived yesterday and she had planned an afternoon of putting Victorian school slates (imitation I mean) in a paper bag, along with the 'pencil' that is used as a writing implement.  Over two hundred later, and same to do, I decided to cut my finger with the scissors and bleed over everything instead.  It brought that job to a halt.  

With help fixing a plaster over a small cut but profusely bleeding cut is easy.  I needed no help, until I discovered the blood dripping over the floor, the sink, the plasters, when I found them, and then realised that opening the blasted plasters was difficult.  Blood going everywhere, and the plaster protection untearable!  In the end I used my teeth, and with great difficulty finished the job.  Foolish me tore a bit of skin right off and now this throbs so bad I can hardly type, and this was my best typing finger.  Sympathy?  No I got no sympathy!  And I had to clear up the mess, and then return to 'work.'

Apart from the cut, the second one actually, this was a pleasant afternoon.  How nice to be doing something!  How nice to be 'working' again.  How nice to feel useful, especially when the blood was removed.  Chatting to a variety of visitors, and scrubbing the kids cheeky comments of the school blackboard, was interesting and fun.  I learned much, although information regarding the 'Ice Age' and its relevance was missing.  Enjoyable in every way.

However this adds to my new exercise regime.  This included actually getting out on the bike this morning for half an hour, and combined with the afternoons work, setting out a room for a meeting was also involved, it means I am now worn out.  Ruined my routine of course,  and it's a good job the Heart of Midlothian play tomorrow so I don't miss the football.  How lucky you folks are to have a life!  That's all I can say.

Braintree Museum

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How to be an Idiot, and repeat it.

So there I was the other day cutting the bread. It was a three day old loaf, and beginning to get a little stale. Having bought it because it was going cheap I tolerated its somewhat hard exterior quite happily. However while slicing away I inadvertently cut into my thumb. This I thought to myself was a mistake. I was right. There then followed an interesting experience of searching for an Elastoplast to stick over it. In the cupboard, the one with those red marks all over it, I found a box with a few ageing plasters there. With the cut being on my thumb as I attempted to open the paper in which the plaster was enclosed I discovered what disability means. These things cannot be opened with one hand, and the lack of a thumb makes life impossible! If you wonder if God exists or whether we evolved from monkeys question the thumb. Without a thumb we could do nothing, how lucky one evolved! After a short fight I won because my teeth are better than the paper and soon I was placing the plaster in such a manner as to keep my thumb together. Relief all round!

The next day I had been using a lot of water, in spite of the cost, for the monthly wash, and in the course of this the plaster went AWOL. However I found this could be beneficial as air is good for minor emergencies. (I know it is minor as that woman at the ambulance station would not send paramedics, and indeed could be said to have been somewhat rude about it!) During the day I had occasion to slice one of the onions I found after the market was closing the other day. Would you believe I caught the knife on the previous wound! Once again, but clearly practiced, I bled onto everything and reached for the plasters. However this time I had replaced the ageing plasters with a box of new ones from Tesco! This proved even harder to open! Bleeding profusely, it seemed to me, I used one hand, half a hand, and several teeth to attempt to prise the plaster free but it stuck to the paper! I thought maybe the paper was meant to be there, but no, it was mere spite on behalf of the (probably Chinese) maker!

I am reminded of this now as that plaster has just walked away from me and I am also reminded as to the reason I never made the attempt to become a nurse. I wonder if I can convince the NHS to send a nurse round to check me out? If they did this could be useful as she can do the ironing that has lain there for yonks at the same time. Well, she is a woman isn't she?