Celtic Illumination, part 405, He who laughs last, laughs longest.

They tell me that ‘blogging,’ I still don’t like that term, anyway they tell me that blogging is a two way affair.  So protocol demands that I mention the fact that Colonialist has been trying to be funny.  Normally it’s just barbed comments, meant to hurt and annoy me, that he posts, but this time it’s actually humour he’s attempted.  Despite the fact that I’ve been pouring my little heart out, recounting the nightmare situation I’ve just been through, Colonialist has decided that my near death experience, for isn’t that what Man Flu is, would be a fair subject for humour.  His approach was quite decent, as in, he not only used humour but he set it up with a little smattering of timing.   Perhaps one day I’ll give him a real lesson in timing.  He started off by trying to wrong foot me, which is always a great precept for a joke, by saying that the medics were taking so much blood out of me that my poor little body didn’t have time to restore the blood so cruelly taken. 

So you think, “Ah!  How nice, and perhaps there’s some truth in it?”  then you read on and realise that he wrong footed me because now he states, “Searching for veins in vain doesn’t help.”  What a clot.  This is a very serious subject and you won’t find me making fun of it.  I simply want to tell my tale so that any other person, male of course, who suffers Man Flu, will know what to expect.  So let’s just skip over this unfortunate incident and hope no one was too badly insulted.  I had all sorts of interesting stuff to tell you about instead of having to deal with this literary hooligan, for whom I shall have to apologise, for as the old saying goes, you can’t choose your family, but you can choose who joins The Illuminati, or was that Ghandi?

Many people think that the grandest time of day for the patient, like me, near death in the hospital bed, is visiting time.  On this ward there were two periods of visiting time per day; one was three to four o clock in the afternoon.  The second period was in the evening between seven and eight o clock.  I have always been a great believer in the saying that rules were meant to be broken so every morning at half past nine my son James, that’s number two son, would stroll on to the ward beaming his infectious smile.   You could see all the nursing staff go weak at the knees, even the female ones, for James was just like his father at that age and is exceptionally beautiful.  He really is a gentle giant and all six foot six of him would stroll down the ward and grab me and give me a huge bear hug.   He would sit on the floor beside the bed, so that no would could really see him and try to get me to agree get into a wheel chair so that he could take me for a whizz around the hospital grounds.

James, of course is a man’s man, and doesn’t really know what to talk about in hospital.  We couldn’t really talk about much anyway as there was a constant stream, of nurses coming to the bottom of my bed, ‘reading my notes,’ which when James was about seemed to become very interesting reading.  Irene and sons number one and three would visit during the prescribed times and bring sweets and fruit which they would then sit and work their way through.  I knew if I attempted to eat any of them I would immediately start throwing up so I opted for the choice of lying back and listening to descriptions of them eating the goodies for me.  The one person who didn’t visit me in hospital was my daughter Jane.  No excuse really, although she seems to think that by living over four hundred miles away gives her some sort of legitimate excuse. She also seems to think that I should mention her more in this blog as she claims to read it every day and says that she finds it exceptionally funny.

I don’t believe her for one moment, I mean yes, it is exceptionally funny, well; according to Ken Clare, but as for reading it every day, we’ll soon see.    She’s home this Friday and I’ve prepared a written test for her; we will soon see who’s telling the truth.  I meanwhile, being battered by the staff and mal-treated by my family, kept my spirits up by continuing my social experiments on the ward.  I noticed that the day staff and the night staff seemed to be somewhat permanent.  The same faces kept popping up.   The staff seemed to be as bored with the routine as we did.  Despite this they went through each procedure in their professional way, but that didn’t mean that I had to.  The ward was always quiet, ish.   So you would have a nurse stood standing at the end of your bed, perhaps pushing a huge medical cabinet full of pills, tablets and lotions, with probably the odd unction or two.

It was the same situation when you are in a room of people and something ‘funny’ is on the television.  You watch the programme and suddenly everyone is laughing, while you are sat sitting there wondering what just happened.  I especially hate the American programmes where they tell you when to laugh.  I will laugh when something funny happens or is said, not when some fecker pushes a button, like feeding fecking monkeys at the zoo.   So the ward is quiet, ish.  I have a nurse, female, stood standing at the end of the bed.  She opens my file and begins to flick through the pages.  She then sets the file down, with the appropriate page open, and begins to drop pills and tablets in to a small paper cup.  Now and again they would ask if we wanted a sleeping pill, an offer which I would immediately accept, although I felt asking for some Prozac and a small single malt might be pushing it.

Then came the question, every night, the same fecking question, which surprisingly I found rather embarrassing and, for me, unnecessary.  “Have your bowels opened today?”   I know it’s not a social situation and wouldn’t exactly fall into a chat up line, even of the worst variety, unless of course you went to one of them specialist clubs.  It wasn’t the old, “Did you hurt yourself much?”, “Pardon?”,  “Did you hurt yourself much when you fell from Heaven?”   I know it was medical and perhaps relevant, or appropriate, but really I could have been handed a piece of paper and asked to tick a box.  So, on reflection, I suppose when she would move on to the other bed I would do the equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and humming as she ran through the motions, if you get my drift.   So, as I was suggesting, different people react in different ways to various situations.  Many sheeple simply follow the crowd, and good for them, not everyone can be a world leading go getter, like myself.

It had been a long day, drifting in and out of sleep, watching family eat my sweets and fruit, simply wonderful having the grand children bounce on the bed and trying to get to know my new neighbour in the bed on my left.  The fellow who had been great friends with the chief executive of the hospital had been released and he didn’t know if he should go home or not.  He I found very interesting for I had gathered that he was a sixty ish year old male who lived on his own.  We were having great craic on the ward and there was no power in his flat.  It was apparent that he didn’t want to leave, strange how you can feel sorry for people when you realise there isn’t a pill you can take to combat loneliness.  We encouraged him to go home and waited to see who would take his place.  Again, the most interesting thing was to sit back and listen and watch how a person introduced themselves.

One of the guys opposite was mid-seventies and an old truck and crane driver.  He was great fun and told excellent stories; he had no pretence about himself or airs and graces and was a lovely man.  The new fellow was wheeled in and I drifted off to sleep.  I wasn’t being ignorant I just didn’t want to be the one who would have to tell him that he had his hospital gown on back to front.  He wasn’t friends with the chief executive of the hospital but had ran a pub somewhere in Spain for ten years.   I have never wanted to visit Spain, which is a lie.  I want to visit Spain and pay homage at Salvador Dali’s house, all of them, and I want to experience a bull fight.  I am a huge fan of Dali’s work but more importantly  loved the fact that he bought his wife a castle where she could live, while he lived in cottages and shacks, but that she would write to him once a week, asking him to visit her at a specified time to perform his marital duties.

Every time someone would attend to the new fellow in the bed next door he would, by the third sentence, or response, have told them that he used to run a pub in Spain.  You can’t help it when you are lying there on your bed with nothing to do but listen to what’s going on all around you.   I was even tuning in to The Scouser who was showing people how to march and stand still which he had been taught to do in 42 Commando, although he didn’t quite finish basic training as there was something wrong with him.  I didn’t wish to make any suggestion as to what might have been wrong with him as I am sure the doctors and consultants who were encouraged to watch his marching and standing still skills had their own prognosis at hand.   So it was now my turn to be listened to.   She asked the question and then looked at me.  “Have your bowels opened today?”  “Opened?” I asked, loud enough for the ward next door to hear.  “They broke the feckin world land speed record.”

Celtic Illumination, part 404, Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Hello all.  Sorry that yesterday didn’t really happen, but it was just one of those days.  Usually, especially these days, I find myself taking a wee forty wink nap, on the big seaty thing in the next room, normally during the afternoon, whereas yesterday I was there for about six hours’ worth of forty winks, which was more like a very long game of hide and seek.  Don’t worry, I won.  And there was so much to talk about yesterday, no point now as it’s only the same as today’s fish and chip wrapper, whatever the electronic equivalent of that is.  Despite the fact that there were reports which stated the NHS provided the best health care in the world there were the little niggling stories about doctors receptionists refusing to call for ambulances when people were having heart attacks in front of them.  But doctor’s receptionists are not medics, harridans, hags, bullies even, but not medics.

I would then use that point to leap in to the statement that I wouldn’t have a bad word said about any of the NHS staff I met, or received care from, in the hospital.  It was the best care possible delivered in a friendly and professional manner. I might have one or two slight grumbles, most of which are being dealt with by my legal team at the moment, but nothing sensational.  I had hoped that my third ward move would be my last, but I was wrong.  I didn’t mind my next move, as two of the fellows sleeping in my ward could have been dead, but I didn’t want to say anything.  I was taken to another six bed ward where this time I was settled in to a corner spot.  I was surrounded by sick people and medics.

This would appear to be the room where I was to be treated as they descended on me again and took even more blood.  Myself and the staff reached an unwritten sort of schedule, or routine, when it came to taking blood from my arms.  Three nurses would each try twice to find a vein and then they would give up, now, their rules stated that a doctor would have to take the blood.  The first doctor was a young female trainee doctor or junior doctor.  She was very careful, very gentle and managed to extract three vials of blood with no commotion or bruising.  There was a very simple and straightforward solution which I didn’t know if I should point out to the staff but every morning at half past nine a phlebotomist would pitch up and take blood from me.  Again, no fuss, no pain, no bruising, why couldn’t they be employed to take it during the rest of the day? 

My arms were black and blue and I mean black and blue.  First thing people would say when they say me was, “You look awful!” but then their eyes would fall to my arms and all sorts of expletives would be expressed.  It was the second doctor who took blood from me that caused the problem.  I had dragged myself back from the toilet and was sat sitting on the edge of my bed when he came up to me.  I could tell from the equipment he was holding that he was there to take blood.  I asked if he wanted me to lie down on the bed but he poo pooed the idea and began to tap the back of my right hand.  I watched the needle slip in through my skin and, like the doctor, was surprised when water seemed to ooze out around it.  He then began to raise and lower the needle, but following a fan shape, looking for a vein.  Eventually he found a vein and managed to take the blood.  I was glad that he had managed to get some, so that my transfusions could continue, but in the hours that followed I wondered about his oath of Primum non nocere, first do no harm.  All I could do was watch as my right arm began to swell up, which I can assure you was far more interesting that anything they were showing on their television screens.  

It was explained to me that most of the blood tests were like dipping the oil on your car, making sure that there was still some in there and seeing if my own systems were beginning to build my reserves back up.  Then the tests began to see if I was compatible with the blood they had brought up from the laboratory.  I was then hooked up to bags of blood which was fed in to my body.  One nurse explained that they had to be extremely careful with the blood as it had a four hour life.  That from leaving the laboratory the blood had to be transfused within a four hour period, which included travel time.  She explained that although the blood had been donated free, the processes it had gone through to clean it up were very costly so that had to be taken in to consideration as well.  On top of this you had all the monitoring and checking and double checking, which I felt was them politely explaining, because of the exact systems they had to follow, that I now wasn’t exactly anaemic to them but perhaps more of a pain in the arse.

I wasn’t sure if I would move ward again but settled in to ward life by listening to the other men there.  I found it very interesting watching and listening how different people tried to establish themselves within the group.  Of the six men on the ward four of us would actively participate in conversation.  Well; for them it was conversation whereas for me it was social research, or as we used to call it in the forces, ‘Taking the piss.’  The guy in the bed next to me kept telling all who would listen that he was great friends with the chief executive of the hospital.  I think he thought that this made him something special, that the doctors attending him should only wear bow ties and he would receive special treatment.  I never once saw the chief executive come to visit him on the ward and wondered if I told him that I was friends with a porter, who regularly came to see me and ask If I needed anything, that he would understand his pretend little world of ‘I am better than you,’ was quite hollow and empty.

In a way his typical English attitude of, ‘I am better than you,’ encouraged me to act myself, which was pure Irish working class scum, despite the fact that I am King.  But as everyone shall be equal in the new Ireland then I can be either one or the other, or both.  It started with the two pretty Indian doctors and it was day two of the blood transfusions.  In they came, drawing the curtains, and you knew that everyone else on the ward was listening to their prognosis or your problems.  “Have you been bleeding?” asked one of the doctors, I’m not sure which one.  “No,” I said.  “But your blood count is not going up?”  Here they started getting all technical talking about haemoglobin and stuff like that, although why they would start talking about the film the Lord of The Rings is beyond me.

I could see that the process they used was very similar to the thought process I used myself, which was to shout at things or at least run though my options out loud.  “Doctor,” I asked.  “Is the blood you are giving me English blood?”  The two girls looked at each other and really didn’t know what to say.  “Not a bit of wonder it’s not working,” I said, mainly for the ears of everyone else on the ward.  “I need decent Irish blood, not that foreign English muck.” They smiled nervously at me and began to back away.  “Look I said.   If you don’t have any decent Irish blood knocking about just give me a couple of cans of Guinness and I’ll be fine by the morning.”  Then I heard an Irish accent.  Way off in the distance I heard a little female voice that hailed from the same part of the world that my voice did.  She responded to the name Aoife, (pronounced Ee Fa) and was the pharmacist on the ward.  Of course the first thing that shoots in to my mind it that this could be a sister of mine.

Stranger things have happened, so the next time that she was checking the file at the bottom of my bed I engaged in conversation with her.  After the basic pleasantries I got straight to the point and asked Aoife where she was from.  Normally in Ireland this is one of the methods used to determine what religion you are, or as they say over there, what foot you kick with.  She said Omagh and I expressed a sigh of relief, explaining that I was worried that she may have been my sister and hoped she understood that I couldn’t have cared less what foot she kicked with if she kicked at all, I mean she may have been a biter.  I was still being woken every fifteen minutes to have my blood pressure taken, something stuck in my ear and a plastic clothes peg type thing put on one of my fingers. 

One of the beds became vacant and I tried to get the other patients on the ward to agree that we would tell the next patient to be wheeled in that everyone on this ward was expected to die within two days and we were all putting five pounds in a kitty so the last remaining patient would scoop the lot.  Staff were expecting me to start leaping about the place with the huge amount of fresh blood they were pumping in to me but I wasn’t having any of it.  I was still falling in and out of sleep like the Dormouse at the Mad Hatters tea party.  Unlike the Dormouse when I was woken, and thankfully not by having tea poured all over my nose, but by a heafty Turkish male nurse at the end of my bed shaking my foot, I didn’t start singing Twinkle twinkle little star.  “Do you mind if take your blood pressure sir?”   My head was still befuddled with sleep, so I didn’t reply, but when he was wrapping the cuff around my arm, he asked, “Did you have a good night’s sleep sir?” I couldn’t help myself but say.  “I feckin was, till some shit woke me up.”

Celtic Illumination, part 403, Someday my prints will come.

It should come as no great surprise to many of you when I admit that I have slept in some weird and wonderful places, from snow holes to ditches and back again.  One I remember was a purpose built room where the bunk beds accommodated six people at a time.  We had come in, as you do, a little bit exhausted and dined on babies heads followed by a decent cup of coffee with possessed cheese on rolled oat biscuits.  We were then instructed to line up by the door that led into the bed room and wait for a bed to become empty.  The moment you were next in line and saw someone pull themselves off a bed you made your way to it, rolled on to it and slept.  There was no messing about.  We were still in full combat gear and would even have cuddled ourselves around the rifle, or machine gun, we carried.  In such a macho, methane flavoured, environment I had one of the best sleeps ever.

I can now assure you that one of the most uncomfortable night’s sleep I have ever endured would have been my first night in an NHS hospital next door to the duty drunk Scouser.  A slushy, dripping, snow hole would come a close second but at least I didn’t have someone waking me up every thirty minutes taking my blood pressure, sticking something in my ear and putting a plastic clothes peg type thingy on the end of my finger.  Gary proved that not only was he a decent fellow but that he wasn’t a liar as he arrived in the middle of the night to take me off for an x ray.  The only good thing about this was that I was encouraged to remain on the bed which he expertly wheeled along the dimly lit corridors.  It was obvious that the technician at the x ray department had been roused from her sleep as she yawned and scratched her way around me.  For some reason I was asked to stay on my bed and was x rayed there.

Gary brought me back to my ward where our friend The Scouser was hanging over the side of his bed throwing up.  Of course he wanted to tell everyone in the hospital that he had thrown up and was yelling at the top of his voice, between wretches, “Nerse!!  Nerse!!”  Gary expertly navigated my bed away from the spreading pool of vomit and parked me up an extra two or three feet away from The Scouser, who I think had begun to wonder not just where he was but who he was.  Then there was the pain from the stab wounds which allowed him to roll back on to his bed and begin to whine for someone to attend to him as he was a very sick boy indeed.  He plugged his ears back up again with the television headphones and stuck his face in front of the television screen, it really was Orwellian.  I knew that I was exhausted as the constant waking up, with people sticking needles in me, or taking my blood pressure, and the noise from the others area was just too much.

It was as dawn was poking through the windows, and I don’t mean that blond girl from Hazelhurst, when Gary arrived again to inform me that I was to be taken to another ward.  In a way I was quite interested to experience the working of an NHS hospital as it was so often talked about in the news.  You had the likes of the Commonwealth Fund, a very highly respected organisation, which produces analytical reports on the performance of different countries’ health systems, declaring that the NHS is the world’s best healthcare system.  http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/17/nhs-health?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2   And then you have the Tories selling it off piece by piece, lining their mates pockets and robbing the British tax payer blind, as normal. But let’s not talk about politicians as that would start a rant you would probably never hear the end of.

Once again it was a six bedded ward and I was slotted in to a central position.  It was bright and busy and more people were surrounding me and sticking things in me.  I wasn’t sure if I should have accepted the breakfast I was offered as I couldn’t guarantee that it would stay down, so I declined the cereal and orange juice and opted for the safe option of toast and tea.  They even gave me some little pots of marmalade.  Someone was selling newspapers from a trolley while another person was offering every patient towels and soap, with toothbrushes and toothpaste.  It was like market day in Norwich, except there was no sheep.  A nurse came in and wrapped the curtain around my bed, not in a parcel type of way; she enclosed the area so that I could have a bit of privacy.  She then went off and returned with a large bowl of hot water.  I assured her that I could perform my own ablutions and would not require her bed bath.  She left me alone so I stripped off and began to scrub myself from top to bottom.

 It was as I was at the bottom part, and I don’t mean my feet, when a young nurse came in and I am sure, from the way I was contorted on the bed, was probably put off her lunch.  I hurried up with my ablutions as they tended to enter through the curtains like they were pantomime capes, swinging them wide open so that the bored patients dotted around the ward could have something different to gawp at.  Eventually I found myself clean, dry and dressed in fresh pyjamas sitting on the edge of my bed, enjoying the anonymity the closed curtain gave me when it hit me.  Nothing physical, it wasn’t a flying bedpan or the like, but the sensation that I needed the toilet.  Now for normal people this is usually no great problem, you experience the sensation that suggests you should consider making your way to the nearest toilet, you go to the toilet and perform whichever function you need to.  With me I knew that from the moment I got the sensation, to needing to be firmly positioned on a toilet bowl, was three seconds.

I launched myself off the bed and flew through the curtains.  I didn’t know where the toilet was, so wasn’t sure if I could make it and was so pleased to find that as I moved along my toast and marmalade were coming back up.  “Toilet?” I asked a passing nurse who looked at me and she pointed to a door which I made a beeline for.   More came out of my mouth than my bottom.  In fact it would be safe to say it was all a case of nothing more than hot air, but we all know, many from experience, that you can never trust a fart, especially in company.  Normally I would have been mortified in case anyone passing outside had heard the rumblings but I was in no real state to care.  I cleaned myself up, had a wee rest and then made the return trip to my bed.  The other patients were being moved about like pieces on a draught board.  The commotion on the ward seemed to phase itself out and it became calm and quiet.  I could feel myself begin to drift off to sleep when none other than The Scouser was wheeled in to the bed space next to mine.

My fears that I was to be hounded by this fellow, for my remaining time in the hospital, didn’t last long as a male nurse arrived to take me, my bed, and my possessions to a new ward.  There were only three fellows in this new ward, all of whom were sleeping so I decided to join them and allowed myself to drift off.  Despite being in a new ward and drifting in and out of sleep I could still hear The Scouser complaining away about the fact that the television had eaten his five pounds when he hadn’t even watched the thing.  It did cause me to smile but at least I was in a relatively quiet corner of the unit.  Next I was woken by a gaggle of doctors who wrapped the curtain around our little gathering and began to fire questions at me.  Had I noticed six pints of blood pouring out of my body?  Not only do I think I would have noticed such an event but I may have made a note of it and I am sure Irene would have told me off if I got any of it on the furniture.

It was decided that I should be tested; this unfortunately had nothing to do with MENSA but was more along the lines of a gastroscopy, an ultrasound examination and a flexi sigmoidoiscopy.  Flexi Sigmoidoiscopy is not something I had come across before so I had to ask.  One of the doctors translated it for me and said, “Colonoscopy,”  a term which I didn’t need any further translation of.  I was still slightly uncomfortable with the notion but knew it was the right thing to do.  The curtains were swept back and the doctors moved on to the fellow in the next bed.  I couldn’t be bothered listening in to what was wrong with the fellow next door as I was more concerned with my upcoming photo session.  It was nearly three o clock in the afternoon, I had almost been in the hospital twenty four hours, visiting time was almost upon us so I did the only thing any decent patient would do and went to sleep.

Celtic Illumination, part 402, Florence Nightingale and the potty mouth from Hell.

I had found myself sat sitting on one of those trolley things, in a cubicle, in an accident and emergency department, in one of my local hospitals.  Not something I usually do and not something I thought that I needed to do, although to tell you the truth my fate was now in the hands of others.  And those others were still being told to keep their wandering hands to themselves.  It was quite late at night, about eleven thirty and I was nodding off repeatedly.  A drunk was escorted in and the evening livened up a tish.  It was another stabbing but this time the fellow was quite upset, not only was he upset but he was exceptionally drunk.  I had been in the accident and emergency department for almost eight hours.  During that time there must have been, on average, forty people in the department, some medics, some patients, and apart from the chap immediately next door, the previous stabbing victim, it was impossible to hear what people were saying.  Now all anyone could hear was this fellow, The Scouser.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like Scouser’s and I’m not a racist in any shape or form, but there’s a certain ‘fullness’ to the Scouse accent, especially when drink has been taken, and when it is expletive laden, with each word showered with saliva and issued at the equivalent volume to eleven on an amplifier, it tends to send a shiver down ones spine.  Believe it or not there was a recent newspaper report that said, “Scousers have the least intelligent and least trustworthy accent,” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2433201/Scousers-intelligent-trustworthy-accent--Devonians-friendliest.html   If I was a newspaper editor I don’t think I would have published that story, how embarrassing for so many people, however the Daily Mail is not really a newspaper, it is only concerned with celebrity worship these days, like the porn actress Kim Kardashian and her dysfunctional family, they’re not news, or even newsworthy, they’re just sad.  Had the Daily Mail bothered to ask me my opinion I would have said that for me to listen to Received Pronunciation, or as some dipshits like to call it ‘The Queen’s English,’ that it makes me physically sick.  Please don’t tell the people at Debrett’s, I’ll be barred from reading the book for life.

So, as I said, the evening was getting interesting as the police tried to remove various items of clothing from our Scouse friend to use as evidence.  Another bobby was trying to get a statement while some medics were tending the wound or wounds.  The Scouser, and by the way I couldn’t see any of this, I could only hear what was going on, as could everyone else in the accident and emergency department, the Scouser was of course resisting everyone who was in the cubicle with him.  I began to smile to myself at the thought of a gang of medics going to offer him a bottom inspection.  Of course this being a hospital there were many tried and tested methods of calming people down and the Scouser did calm down.  There was no magic needle or small white pill used but from what I could hear, which was a police officer apologising, for slipping and accidently landing a forearm smash on the Scouser’s head, the method had been effective.  After that things began to return to normal and I felt myself nodding off.

As my head dropped down I was sure that I saw someone I recognise pass by the cubicle opening and I shouted out, “Hey Gary.”  Sure enough it was Gary, an old friend of mine I had met while driving a taxi.  He was one of the nicer fellows and I knew he had left the taxi game and was working as a hospital porter but hadn’t expected to bump in to him.  I was pleased for him as he seemed happy and deserved a break.  Gary nipped in to my cubicle and informed me that he was just coming on shift but that he would be looking after me, not to worry.  It was nice to know someone there and also to know that that person would help me out.  Quite soon after Gary came in and told me he was taking me off to a ward.  As he wheeled me along various corridors we spoke of the old days and some of the laughs we had together.  Hospital wards these days are slightly different to the ones I remember.   The last one I was in was in Belfast having my tonsils out.

There must have been fifty beds lined up, military style, the matron, ensuring that everything ran to plan and the sick people coughing and spluttering their germs all over the place.  Gary wheeled me in to a darkened room.  I could see that normally there would be six beds but this ward only had five.  There seemed to be activity at the other end of the unit but this appeared to be a sleepy corner.  Along the opposite wall were three recumbent men, in bed, separately.  Gary stopped by what would have been the central bed, had there been three beds along this opposite wall, and asked if I needed any help to transfer from the trolley to the bed.  Perhaps it was a combination of the dark and it being night time and me having what I now knew was some form of anaemia, but I was freezing and asked Gary if he could find me a blanket and a pillow as the bed was simply a mattress.  I knew that the NHS was having a hard time and was being run by civilians but a bed without blankets or pillows was not something you expect to find in a hospital.

I was actually shivering and Gary noticed this as he returned with a pillow and blanket so he didn’t seem to mind me asking for another blanket.  I had tried to keep any noises I might have made to a minimum as I didn’t want to disturb the three patients opposite however the new arrival in the bed to my left had different ideas.  It was The Scouser.  This time I could see everything, the picture was complete for me and I can assure you it was not a pretty one.  It was male, about twenty five to thirty years of age, very short if not shaved head with a smattering of tattoos all over his body.  To say he had a potty mouth would be an understatement and not a subject often covered by Debrett’s.  This surprised me as the police men had gone and the Scouser was accompanied by his father, an uncle and a nurse.

He managed, with great effort and verbal description of the humongous pain he was in, to move himself from the trolley to the bed.  This is where he started to notice things.  One, there were no pillows, and no blankets plus his television didn’t work.  “Nerse!” he rasped like a rag and bone man strangling a rat.  “Nerse!  I need a blanket and two pillows.”  The poor old nurse was trying to get him settled and promised to get him the required bedding as soon as she could.  “Ah look!” he complains.  “You’ve got to put fukin money in the telly!”  This wasn’t a question or a statement but was an invitation for the father and the uncle to get involved in the technicalities of getting the television working. It was one of those horrible things they have in many hospitals these days that sits on the end of a huge extendable arm and pours a stream of shite into some poor persons head.

I didn’t have long to wait before the one of the three of them who could read announced,”Ow much!  Five quid for eight hours?”   I had no intention of watching any television while in hospital and now that I knew how much they wanted for that privilege I was certain of it.  Dick Turpin used to do it with guns.  Gary nipped in and told me that he would be off now but that he would probably be back in an hour or two to take me for an x ray.  It was one o clock in the morning, I was about to go to sleep, well; Scouser permitting.  Details of the stabbing were being discussed in hushed tones between the three fellows, who had done it, what was going to happen to him and what should or should not be said to, ’The Bizzies,’ or as normal people call them, the police.  Our Scouse friend had no money with him so had to borrow five pounds from the father and the uncle.  This was a complicated affair as counting was involved and then finding the machine where they could convert the cash in to credits for the television.  “Nerse!!”

While either the father or the uncle, I’m not sure which, but one of them had gone off to find ‘the machine’ the Scouser, the one in the bed with the stab wound, was complaining that he needed two pillows and some blankets.  I was willing to accept this as the fellow might have been in pain and should be allowed a little leeway to express his discomfort.  However, and I am sure Debrett’s will back me up here; he began to get quite nasty.  Each word or even syllable was drenched in even more alcohol flavoured spittle as he forced his words out.  “Nerse!  Nerse!  I need two fukin pillows and a fukin blanket or I’m going to lose it!”  Unfortunately sleep was completely out of the question for me now as I was raging with anger.  In my opinion, and I’m sure once again that Debrett’s will back me up, but he was abusing the nursing staff and I wasn’t prepared to allow that to happen.

I waited in case the abuse continued, I expected some sort of confrontation to erupt after I had spoken but I wasn’t that worried as there was no blood in my body so if he hit me, I wouldn’t be bleeding all over the place, plus I was already in hospital so help should be close at hand.  The father, or the uncle, returned with the television token and the three of them worked out how to insert it in to the television.  The Scouser continued to moan but only to his uncle and his father, he didn’t direct any of his statements to the staff, thankfully.  I was still quite tense and was pleased when the father and the uncle left the ward, but should this fellow say anything untoward to any member of staff then he was getting a broadside from me. 

He had the television on and had drawn the screen close to his face.  Luckily he had headphones on so I wasn’t disturbed by the sound and there wasn’t even that much flickering from the screen.  Whatever he was watching must have been very funny for it had me in stitches.  It was half past one in the morning, I was lying on a hospital bed, in a dimly lit ward, still wearing my slippers, like a vampire victim without the obligatory teeth marks and I was laughing my head off.  The ward had gone all quiet and only one sound now threaded its way through the still night air.  The Scouser, who had made such an issue of getting his five pounds to watch the telly, had fallen asleep and was snoring his head off, while his eight hours viewing time ticked away and he still hadn’t been given his fukin pillows or blanket.

Celtic Illumination, part 401, Primum non nocere

It was no surprise yesterday to find a comment from Colonialist but it did make a refreshing change to see that rather than one of his standard insults it was in fact a constructive comment.  But it had me wonder how many others had thought along the same lines.  I have to admit that he showed real, almost military, strategic thinking.  His suggestion was that rather than me being taken to hospital, for nothing more than a severe case of man flu, this could be some devious plot to man nap me where I was to be taken underground to meet some ghastly fate.  Quite possible when you think about it, but who in their right mind would not just want to man nap me but even attempt to man nap me.

For starters Irene was with me, that’s more close protection than the Pope has when he nips out of the Vatican for an ice cream.  Secondly, I have no known enemies; there are people who are jealous of me, jealous of my good looks, my fantastic legs, my superior intellect and my humble nature.  But I don’t think such a person exists who would want to damage me in any way at all, apart from the priests I slag off, the lying, cheating, thieving, scumbag, Paul O Grady, Delia Murphy, whom I promise you we will get back to, and half a dozen or so military men around the world, especially in America.  So I’m not really under any personal threat, which is why I wasn’t thinking along those lines, but well done Colonialist, you’re showing promise.

I had collected the top three books off my current reading pile but what I hadn’t done was take my Debrett’s guide, so I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to talk to the man in the back of the ambulance.  I wasn’t certain what category he would fall in to as an ambulance man.  I decided to treat him simply as working class.  My panic or confusion had subsided and I was now fully back in control of my facilities.  I began to question the man as to where I was being taken, what department, were they aware that I was coming.  I wasn’t expecting red carpets, or a brass band, but a group of fully trained competent medics would be a start.

Praise the Lord for mobile telephones as the ambulance man telephoned the practise nurse, who had ordered my hospitalisation in the first place, Pauline.  With a few suggestions from myself I managed to get the pair of them working together so that by the time we had pulled in to the hospital grounds, not only did we know where we were going, but where we were going, knew we were coming.  I had managed to by-pass the waiting area in the accident and emergency area, which I have to admit can be quite fun, as an observer, especially on a Friday or Saturday night.  So as the lift on the back of the ambulance touched down I was wheeled through a set of doors and taken straight in to the accident and emergency department proper.

I was slotted in to a cubical and left to wait.  I didn’t like waiting for you have the time to question your decisions, like for example I was wearing slippers.  Now it was four o clock in the afternoon, so a touch early for evening wear, but I was on a bed, well; a sort of bed, so night wear could have been considered appropriate.  But I was about to be introduced to people and slippers are not considered formal footwear in any society, unless your name is Hugh Hefner, so I was committing the old social faux pax.  If I covered my feet and accompanying slippers with a blanket, thrown across the bottom of the trolley and my feet, in an almost casual manner, then people might not notice and I could forever hold my head high in local society.  Then they began to come in, the medics that is.  It was all very confusing as I didn’t know who was who or what.  I didn’t know who was a nurse, or a doctor, or even a consultant, in fact it could have been the fecking duty cleaner who was poking about my elbows looking for a vein for all that I knew.

At last one person, female flavoured, came in.  She was Indian, that’s Asian Indian, not Red feckin Indian.  She wore an ill-fitting blue suit with the word ‘Doctor’ printed in heavy thick white letters across the front.  She was also very pretty.  A young fellow came in and began to fiddle with my elbows.  There didn’t seem to be any distinct clothing difference between the different trades so I assumed that the fellow sticking needles in my elbow and wrist was a medic.  It was like having a bracelet as one needle had been inserted in to the arm while two or three connectors flopped about on the outside.  Someone else was draining blood from my right arm, and filling tiny bottles while another person had wrapped that thingy around my arm and inflated it.  Then they all went away.

It could have been quite boring just sitting there, well; I was reclining and Irene  was sat sitting, but luckily enough a young fellow who had been stabbed was in the next cubicle and was giving his statement to one of the accompanying police men with him.  Normally in accident and emergency departments when someone has been stabbed and is giving a statement to police, the police are usually holding him down and there would be an awful lot of shouting, blood and unnecessary violence.  This casualty sounded to be a very nice young man who had found himself to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Even though he had been stabbed in the leg he didn’t complain, or moan, not about the pain or his treatment.  I would hate to think what state I would be in if I had been stabbed in either of my perfect legs.  It’s something I don’t wish to even think about.

Now the young fellow who was sticking needles in my left arm comes back in and begins to ask me questions like “Where is all the blood in your body?  What have you done with it?” Well; I ask you, how impertinent can you get?  It’s my blood and I can do with it what I want.  I wasn’t aware that most of it had buggered off, so listened to his questions to see if I could determine what they had found out about my condition.   The doctor came back in, the good looking one, and I determined that the young fellow was in fact a junior doctor.  Now; I need to explain something to you.  I was brought up in a strict Irish Catholic environment; in fact I wasn’t so much brought up, as dragged up.  The greatest sin was to be a homosexual, a bottom bandit, an uphill gardener, sure wasn’t it even illegal to be a pillow biter up until nineteen sixty seven.  And attitudes didn’t change overnight, so for years, at the back of our small minds was the fear that some rough type of Bum Bandit would jump on us and have his wicked way.

So now that I have explained that, you will understand my reaction when the young fellow, the junior doctor, announces that he is going to insert his fingers in to my bottom to look for my disappeared blood.   There was no soft lighting, no music, not even a glass of chilled, white, Pinot Noir, just the elastic snap of a blue medical glove.  I’m not sure if Debrett’s covers this sort of thing, I’m sure it does, as it’s full of shit anyway, but I found myself refusing the examination.  The junior doctor informs the doctor, the good looking one who now steps forward and asks that I reconsider.  I did and the answer was still the same, for a simple Irishman it was all too sudden, I needed time to get my head around what they wanted to do to me after years of brainwashing from the Catholic Church, not to mention the unwanted attention in that area from the pervert priest, no one was touching my arse.

More and more people made their way in and performed their specific function.  One nurse took swabs from in and around my little bits and pieces and inside my nose and mouth which I found very strange indeed.  Another actually had a look at my bottom which I found very suspect, but if I was missing sixty percent of my blood that I thought they should be looking for a cut, or a hole, where the red stuff would be coming out.  Even as a Good Ol Boy I am sure they were missing the basics.  I breathed a sigh of relief when the consultant came in.  I knew he was a consultant from the moment I laid eyes on him.  He was well dressed and immaculately turned out.  He too was Asian but I wouldn’t even stab a guess at what part of that huge continent he hailed from.  He stood alongside me and I knew that I now had a fellow on a similar intellectual level who would understand me and my decision completely.

It was a bit of a surprise when he too suggested that an examination of my rear end be undertaken.  By now, I could see the sense of what they were suggesting but I still couldn’t get my head around it and still refused them permission to proceed.  At ten o clock in the evening I telephoned number one son Gerard and asked him to come out and pick up his mother Irene.  She wanted to stay but there was no real point.  I was to be taken off to a ward for the night and testing would continue first thing in the morning.  I looked at the consultant, the doctor and the junior doctor all huddled together at the end of the cubicle I was in and wondered if they had an ulterior motive for playing about with my bottom.  I only had forty percent of the blood I should have in my body and was to be admitted for testing and curing.  By the time the porter came to take me to my ward it was half past eleven.  I knew that the porter wouldn’t want to inspect my bottom as I knew him quite well, it was Gary, an old friend from  my taxi driving days, I relaxed, as I knew I was finally in safe hands.

Celtic Illumination, part 400, Das Gespenst, der Ingenieur und der Krankenwagen Mann.

I know that a lot of you, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but I do know that a lot of you like to pretend that you are cultured.  This allows us to communicate on a similar level, or at least allows you to pretend that you are on a similar intellectual level as myself, almost.  I’m sure it would take a normal person five or six minutes to read each blog, but I do know that many of you spend hours each day looking up the various literary references I put in to liven things up.  So for those among you who are really cultured, I expect that you will have seen the magnificent film Das Boot, made in 1981.  I also expect that you will have watched the original German version, like all right thinking people will have done.  There were many wonderful characters in the film but I would ask you to think about the Obermaschinist, Johann.  Johann was also known as Das Gespenst, The Ghost, and dearly loved the engines of the U Boat.  Now you remember him, he looked like a scarecrow that just had fifty thousand volts DC applied to his backside.

It was when they were attacked by two destroyers and sank off the Gibraltar coast, don’t worry I’m not giving the story away for any Heathens amongst you who haven’t seen and loved this film, but if you remember the blind panic that Johann, Das Gespenst, went in to that is how I felt inside my head as Pauline stood standing there in our front living, sitting, drawing, parlour, room telling me that she had ordered an ambulance to take me to hospital.  I mean there was nothing wrong with me, much, apart from the old Man Flu, all I needed was some magic little pill and everything would have been sorted.  After all, she was a medic; she should know things like this.  It was as if she was speaking a foreign language.  The more advanced cultural geeks among you would now expect me to mention the fact that Johann, Das Gespenst, spoke Austro-Bavarian in the movie rather than the more common Thuringian dialect that most of the crew spoke.  But let’s not get in to a discussion about German dialects, all thirty five of them if you exclude the Frisian and Dutch dialects, when we have much more important matters to discuss like me.

So; level one, blind panic had been achieved, rather quickly one might add, and confusion was trying to take over.  I used the old technique I had formulated when I was imprisoned at Violent Hell and would be receiving a vicious beating from a priest, or priests, as they occasionally liked to tag team on us little boys.  All for my own good I might add.  I’m going to have to sit down one day and work out exactly what or how I, as an eleven year old boy, benefited from having a forty year old man beat me silly with a four foot long bamboo cane.  Perhaps he was trying to pass some of his Christianity on to me through physical contact, who knows what they were up to.  I began to think what I needed for my impending trip to hospital.  Once again, like answering the front door, despite the fact that I was about to be lashed to a trolley and be ferried away to hospital, this was no excuse to lower or forget about standards.  Go to the previous blog and use the link to Debrett’s guide for social incompetents if you don’t believe me.

First of all was what I should wear, as you all know, and as Mark Twain famously told us, clothes maketh the man.  I would be meeting consultants and surgeons and the like and would need to make an immediate and good impression on them.  Despite my clear train of thought I had one slight problem which was that all my clothes were upstairs and I wasn’t.  Not only wasn’t I upstairs but there was no way on Gods earth that I was getting upstairs either.  Pauline is now informing me that I would be on my way within two hours.  I now had to accept one of the most difficult facts and situations that all men face now and again, which was to admit that I needed some help.  I could probably make it up the stairs, collect all the necessary stuff and get back down again within two hours but the ambulance was arriving within the next two hours, not in two hours’ time.

I telephoned Irene.  Ansaphone.  I telephoned number one son, Gerard.  Ansaphone.  The only other person who was close enough and who could help me was son number three, Charles.  I telephoned him.  Ansaphone.  Strange that for the first time in your life, when you actually are prepared to ask for help there’s no one there, this is probably why most men are reluctant to ask for any form of help in the first feckin place.  I tried to think what else I should take with me and settled for the top three books off my current reading pile.  Pauline has now left, gone back to the medical centre where she would arrange things.  I’m not sure what she was arranging but she was wittering on about district nurses coming for blood and that the medical centre was closed on Wednesday afternoons.  It was as I began to prepare myself to stand up that the telephone rang.

It was Irene wanting to know what all the panic was about.  I waited as she told me off because by telephoning three people, I had panicked and everyone was now worried.  I assured her that there was no panic neither was there any cause for panic, all that was happening was that I was off to hospital, probably for the afternoon where I would be given a little white pill, have a nice chat with a couple of consultants or surgeons and everything would be tickety boo.  I asked if she could come home for five minutes and help me get a bag together.  I find it strange that the Whirling Dervish tells me that I am the one in a panic when she arrives home five minutes before she left work, in a cloud of burning rubber, smoke and screeches that would scare the bejesus out of an itinerant banshee.

The ambulance man arrived before Irene had filled the bag.  I didn’t expect to be kept in but still had some pyjamas packed, along with the old toothbrush, assorted cravats and bow ties.  Remember you must never lower your standards.  The ambulance man wasn’t an ambulance man; in fact he was a ‘First responder.’  The first responder gets to the casualty and determines how sick they actually are and can prepare the ambulance crew who would be racing toward the patient.  Just to show me how good he was he contacted the actual ambulance, the big van thing, cause he arrived in an estate car, and asked them how long they were going to be as if it was necessary to get me to the hospital on time, Ding dong the bells are going to chime.  He wrapped something around my arm and inflated it, then stuck something in my ear and then jammed a plastic clothes peg type thing on my finger.  It wasn’t wine and chocolates but he certainly was a nice man.

Then he started to write things down and I felt a little uneasy as it had been a sort of rolling news story during the recent weeks that your medical records were now going to be sold to anyone with enough of the old folding stuff.  So I knew that whatever was written about me would, in a couple of years’ time, be plastered all over the newspaper front pages, if I put one of the proverbial feet in the wrong place, as if such a thing could happen with legs like mine.   So I would have to be careful with whatever I said or admitted.  Strange that I was thinking now about what I might have to say in a few years’ time.  The real ambulance team arrived, effectively blocking the street and ensuring that every available neighbour would be curtain twitching.  They too wanted to wrap things around my arm and inflate them but the other fellow assured them that he had done all that, all they had to do was get me in the van and off to hospital.

Hospitals are run by civilians as are the rescue and response services, so it was no real surprise to learn that I was to travel to the furthest hospital in my region rather than the one that was three or four miles away.  They didn’t hang about and chivvied me from my big leather seating thing in the room at the front of our house, across the front lawns, and in to their beast of a vehicle.  They made me get on to the bed type trolley thing and then strapped me in.  The last time I had been in the back of an ambulance would have been on the A5 in North Welsh Wales, in a mad convoy, breaking every rule of the road and racing a helicopter to the casualty.  This time there was no explosions or flash, bang, wallops, no Docker figuring out which way the wind doth blow, no excitement or adrenalin rush.  This time everything was much more placid, more refined, as perhaps it should be.  We arrived.  As the rear doors swung open and I began to descend, on the lift, I realised that this time things might be getting a little bit serious.

Celtic Illumination, part 399, And don’t spare the horses.

I’m sure there was a crack of thunder and a snap of lightning as we left Saundersfoot.  Using the old smoke and mirrors routine I had pretended that I was in fine health and managed to get myself in to the driving seat of the car.  It was unusual for me not to load the car, not only as a gentlemanly act but as a man can pack a car, properly and securely, in one tenth of the time it takes four women.  This of course is a scientific fact.  I had made sure that the first dose of painkillers had been swallowed exactly one hour before departure so that from the moment I sat in the driving seat I was properly medicated.  This time, with shoes on, I was determined to make my way up along the Welsh coast line, the only area of Welsh Wales where I had never been before.

I was sure that is was going to be an interesting journey.  Apart from the fact that I had three experienced back seat drivers sat sitting on my back seat, none of whom had ever held a valid driving license, I was guaranteed not just a steady stream of directions but constructive criticism on my ability to drive and how I could improve.  On top of that was the added gift, by being in South Welsh Wales, of knowing exactly where you were at all times but not being able to pronounce the name of the place you were in.  Saundersfoot was easy but the first village I was aiming for was Dwrbach, followed by Scleddau and so on.  No point in asking directions really as place names such as Llwycelyn, Cwmrhydneuadd or Ffos-Y-Ffin, didn’t really compute with the old grey matter.

The only name I was aware of from that area, apart from Tenby and Saundersfoot, was the name Saint Govan, or Gofan, if you want to be true to the language of the area.  He was reputed to be an Irishman, don’t these bloody foreigners just get everywhere, coming over here, taking our chapels, anyway, Saint Govan was also reputed to be Sir Gawain, one of the knights from King Arthur’s round table.  There’s lots of fantastic stories about Saint Govan and his time in Wales, mainly living on his own, fighting marauding pirates and ringing a silver bell.  So you have an Irishman, living on his own, in a small hut, on some sea cliffs.  Sounds very much to me like the fellow had a bad case of Man Flu.  My only worry was that old Saint Govan might spring back to life as I drove past with over fifty percent of a very active and evil coven resting on the rear seat of my car.

Luckily for me there were no supernatural shenanigans and we slipped by the holy grotto and began to enjoy the coast road.  It was a fantastic drive, the road was almost empty and the brightly painted houses along the route certainly brightened up my day.  As a request for a rest room stop had been issued from the back seat area I was still bombarded with questions as I slowed down and turned left into a forest.  It’s not as if I had driven straight in to the feckin trees, sort of cross country lunatic, but was following the heavily signposted road that told me, and anyone else who cared to read the signs, that it led to a rest area with toilets, picnic tables and litter bins.  I do like to see litter bins, especially in their natural environment in the wild, so it was only as I pulled up next to the toilet block that the proverbial penny dropped.  I opened my door, threw my legs out and began to stretch.  It was nice to see the back seat drivers take health and safety to an extreme and ask if it was okay to get out of the vehicle, putting me to shame once again.

I was pretty happy lying there; in fact it started to rain.  Can you imagine being in the middle of a huge forest, in the middle of South Welsh Wales in the rain, it was close to perfect for me.  I say close to perfect as my back seat drivers now scurried about trying to find somewhere out of the rain so that they could finish their cigarettes in peace. I even encouraged them to have a second cigarette, not that I was interested in building up their nicotine levels but in order for me to have another few minutes enjoying the rain and the trees.  By the time we were close to home, and I mean about half an hour away they started planning who should be dropped off first.  Normally I am a very placid guy and as they say back home, I wouldn’t say boo to a goose, but this infuriated me.

I had been driving for five and a half hours and now I was expected to drop each one of my passengers off at their respective house, where their respective partners sat watching football, or Jeremy Kyle, or Jeremy Kyle playing football.  Not only did I just want to get home and stretch out on the settee, oh by the way I’m very sorry I lied to you all yesterday.  I actually checked with Debrett’s guide for simpletons, morons, and pretentious prats, after I finished the blog yesterday and discovered that I hadn’t been stretched out on my settee, or couch, I had actually been stretched out on a sofa.  And apart from apologising for that I feel that I also have to apologise for the other despicable lie I told which was that I wasn’t in my front room, or parlour, or living room or lounge, when in fact I had been in either my drawing room or sitting room.  I never knew we had so many fecking rooms in our wee house, but here’s a link to Debrett’s just to prove to you that these idiots not only actually exist, but they really do practise this bullshit. http://www.debretts.com/british-etiquette/british-behaviour/t-z/u-and-non-u

Irene caught the twist in my face as I made sure I didn’t scream out loud and she suggested that I drop everyone at the mother in law’s house, where they could be picked up and ferried about by their own partners or children.  It took a while for the practicality of the situation to sink in to my three back seat drivers but eventually they accepted that this is what was going to happen whether they liked it or not.  Women should not be allowed anywhere near the luggage compartment of a motorcar, especially if there is luggage in it.  Everything had to come out and be positioned round the rear of my car so that they could not only sort through everything but that they could ensure that I couldn’t move.  I suppose it’s always the case that when you plan or organise something so that you can save a few minutes Mister Murphy comes along with his bloody law and you’re scuppered.

By the time we got to our wee house my legs were like cartoon thumbs.  Luckily there were no photographs taken so I could still retain the title of having the loveliest legs in all of Ireland and I actually think I was starting to look forward to the medics coming on the Tuesday as this Man Flu was hanging about far too long.  Irene was tired so went to bed early; I knew that I couldn’t make it up the stairs so settled in for the night where I was.  Of course I got the old lecture first thing the following morning, ’What was I doing sleeping on the settee? This was a living room not a bedroom.’  I was tempted to point out to Irene that she was technically incorrect but as she was preparing some bacon in the kitchen, or food preparation area, or whatever the posh name is for the room with the sink and cooker, with a huge carving knife in her right hand, I decided against it.  Even though I was in the grip of Man Flu I wasn’t taking any chances.

As for the ‘going to see the doctor’ I had sort of escaped.  I had explained that my appointment was at twelve o clock on the Tuesday.  This was accepted until the Monday evening when I was asked who I was going to see.  I confessed that not only were the medics coming to see me but that rather than a doctor I had the practise nurse  lined up to inspect me.  Unfortunately, and as most men understand, not only was this statement accepted, but it was accepted gladly, as Irene now declared that she was delighted to know that she could participate in the consultation.  If it had been capable of moving, my heart would have sank.  Not only was the poor old nurse going to be getting a telling off but so would I for being sick in the first place.

Twelve o clock on the Tuesday came, and then went, but the practise nurse didn’t.  Lots of other times came and went, like half past twelve or a quarter to one, even half past one, but still the practise nurse didn’t show.  The clock kept pushing on and Irene left for work.  It was such a relief to be left alone, knowing that I could deal with the practise nurse, Pauline, if and when she ever showed up, which she did, at half past two.  I managed to get myself to the front door and opened it, inviting her in.  It doesn’t matter how close you are to death, you must never lower your standards, just check with Debrett’s if you don’t believe me.  I got back to where I was sitting, honestly I couldn’t be arsed looking back to see if it was a couch or a settee or a fecking sofa, but it was a big black leather thing that could seat three people comfortably and my arse was on it.

I expected that Pauline and I would begin our normal banter and she would then listen to my prognosis that I had Man flu, she would give me a little pill and everything would be tickety-boo.  I must admit medicine has really moved on since I was a practitioner.  Rather than take my temperature, or blood pressure, she had taken out her mobile telephone.  I knew that they had some weird and wonderful app’s on these things so waited to see what, ‘Star Wars’ type device she would use to determine my health.  Probably give me a chest x ray and fix my teeth at the same time.  She used the app that the telephone was designed for which was the. ‘Make a telephone call.’  As she listened to the ring tone, by holding the telephone up to her ear, she informed me that the consultation was over, she was calling an ambulance, I was going to hospital.