OK- I just sat down to finally start writing a case report. And have decided that since it is 20 past 10 and I’ve been very tired lately I should probably just blog and go to bed. Today was a funny kind of day. I went in for the ward round at 8, pottered a bit with the SpR and SHOs and dawdled to theatre. It was really sunny out and I think my body had decided that it was just going to take a holiday and not tell me. It’s like being one of those little souvenir horses that you push the button up underneath and all their strings lax and they go all floppy. I felt like I was made of custard and had to use a mental field to keep it me-shaped. That makes it sound worse that it was. I guess what I’m trying to describe is; I was a bit tired.
Tired or not, brain had decided to vacate the premises today. I went to theatre and they had started a parotidectomy. Consultant turned and immediately invited me to scrub so I could get a better view of the exciting hunt for the facial nerve. I hinted that I didn’t really want to but didn’t want to seem rude. So after holding a couple of retractors for an hour and mentally screaming “she’ll be coming round the mountain” I could not stave off the hot flushes and just tapped out. This however is the one nice thing about being an Elective Student (not a real student with real obligations), is that you can just say- ok, that’s enough for me today, I’m off for an 11.30am lunch and a nap.
After escaping theatre surreptitiously, home via the library (the library here is really cool and now I have a pile of anatomy textbooks that’s just the right height for me to put my laptop on and watch DVDs in bed). After lunch I nipped to the residence office downstairs- I am now paid up until the end of six weeks and no they can’t turn the heating down. Then I went on a little adventure to find Consultant’s Secretary so that I could get on with a project. She lives at a hospital two bus rides away. But the sunshine made it all a rather lovely journey. Despite being quite a nasty area of London. I had phoned this lovely lady who was super sweet and in my head was in her early thirties with brown hair and some ethnic jewellery. I was shocked to be greeted by a tiny little woman easily fifty years old who at first I thought was one of the patients. She had a pack of Pall Malls on her desk and was just on her way to have her last remaining teeth root canalled out. But she was an utter sweetheart with the voice and manner of a cheerful adolescent. I was plonked at her desk to do some spreadsheet work. It took me just over an hour and was just great. I sat there, ctrl+C-ing things then crtl+V-ing them, changing a few colours, ctrl+F-ing some stuff and then writing a little summary. It felt like I had finally achieved something tangible, on paper, and was whisked back to my days working in admin, when everything was easy*.
* Please do not take this as an insinuation that working in admin is easy. It’s just that all the admin job’s I’ve ever had (several, and mostly as a temp) have been sweetass kick-backs.
So, departing there around 3.30 in the afternoon I trundled back to my territory and it’s supermarket. I did well with some reduced fish and a bottle of chenin blanc. I then walked through the market to get home, just swinging quickly by the £1 stall and picking up two tops for work and an outfit á la Marla Singer. Got home, cooked all my fish into portions for the week (best impromptu use of a can of mushroom soup award please- fish in mushroom and wine sauce was actually really nice), ate dinner and did what I always do when I’m not entirely sure I’m feeling myself: watched Labyrinth (*insert ‘feeling myself’ jokes here*). Yep, there’s nothing to help a girl get back to reality than David Bowie in a pair of leggings.
I think tonight’s portrait and it’s comparatively controlled and thought-out use of paint is a reflection of my inner peace and serenity. That's right folks, I’ve lost the plot.
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