Woke up today with a sore throat and a headache. Am about to go to bed, sore throat and headache still present. Diagnosis: Man Flu. I can’t even really remember what I did today. I spent the whole day feeling ‘a bit ill’. I had the gravelly voice and weak-ass cough to show for it. I think it helped that on the whole today was pretty uneventful.
This morning in at 8 for ward round, then up to theatres. They were inserting a trache under GA and half way through I was invited to scrub. Now, I thought I should perhaps err on the side of caution and not scrub in if I’m only going to have to de-scrub ten minutes later. But I braved it. And felt fine, then nauseous, then fine, then feint, then fine, then just plain ill, then fine, then it was all over. Right at the end dear old Reg turned to me and said “ok, now you pop in the sutures this side”. I had to put in a total of two sutures. On my four week placement it was the first bit of actual anything I’ve gotten to do. Smile. Good job I remembered how to suture.
I’m not complaining. Technically I don’t think I’m supposed to be doing anything at all if I understood the bumph from the University who I’m on placement with. Something to do with insurance and how I’m a wild liability (did someone give them the heads up or what?). As far as I can tell I’m not even supposed to breath near patients. Which is interesting since this is essentially medical work experience and I’m due to start actually working as a Doctor in five months, so I’d like to think I’m at least vaguely competent at the basics. But still, I’ve been quite enjoying spending most of my time in theatre drawing, bantering or just watching (and desperately riffling through the anatomy textbook I’ve taken to carrying around everywhere).
After the trache there was a half hour wait until the next patient, so I nipped home and hung out the laundry (good girl). When I went back we were told another 45minutes to wait so I went with the SHOs down to A&E. All of the SHOs have been really nice to me, considering I’m an outsider to them. It’s like when there’s a party for all the kids in the class and your brother is in the class and he’s invited but your parents have negotiated that you can go too just to get you out of the house. Everyone is nice to you, but you don’t really know who each other is. And you inevitably end up finding something to read in a corner while everyone else plays Action Man. But I went down to A&E as one of the gang. We saw a lady who had had a fall and sliced her lip. It was a tiny slice and the SHO popped one suture in the outside and two on the inside. Now I have always struggled in these situations- this kind of stuff makes me feel oh so feint. Always has. I’ve had to go and lie down before in A&E with minor lacerations. Lips especially. Just makes me queasy. And as an aspiring MaxFacs I will be expected to sew up a lot of lips. So, having spent a portion of the time bracing myself against the bin, I managed to assist as best I could and not hit the deck. Go me. I reckon if I just keep seeking these things out eventually I’ll just get used to it. Or eventually have to chuck it all in and be a Psychiatrist.
Back to theatre, another interesting case on the table. Neck dissection for massive neck lump (malignant node). Nice patient, had seen them in clinic. Mr Big Cheese turned up too which was nice, and we were all treated to his favourite topic of conversation: the lack of RCTs in surgery, the lack of Evidence Based Surgery, the lack of anyone having impetus to establish any research base, his mission to establish a National Centre of some kind and that we should all give to his research charity so that we can benefit from it’s collected data later in our careers. What I understood of it sounded good. But I won’t lie, some of it was a little over my head. I can’t donate any money to his charity but one of the SHOs suggested whoring me out as an artist (at which point I mentioned I was already whoring myself out as an artist for the charity). Well, that’s the plan. Eventually.
I stayed for a couple of hours of the surgery, was kindly donated some paracetamol but eventually just decided that Man Flu was better treated at home with bed rest, DVDs and tea. So slunk off home. I was given the opportunity to join one of the Consultants at an Art and Anatomy examination day, but couldn’t face the journey. Another time. On arriving home and sauntering into the kitchen to get teabag, trod right in a massive puddle of water. Further investigation showed a completely defrosted freezer. Went to find paperwork on ‘what to do in case of...’ and could only find the advice of “In an emergency bleep 2222”. Now, for those of you not in the know, 2222 is the crash bleep. It’s for real emergencies. As in, someone’s heart has stopped emergency. Not the freezer has defrosted. After a bit of trial and error I managed to contact someone in security who sent up two young men who flicked a switch, said ‘there you go’ and immediately fucked off again. I had to ring up again to request a mop. The kitchen floor was soaked, I’d already slipped on it once, and there’s no mop here. I had to ‘book’ someone with a mop to come up. Totally weird. The infrastructure is exactly as if I were living in the hospital. And it doesn’t help that various floors in this building are currently being used as offices- not great for me to meander around in my PJs of an afternoon.
Anyway. So, after that and several small dinners, I spent a leisurely evening watching the Men Behaving Badly back catalogue and drinking tea. And not sleeping the whole evening away. Which made me happy. Happy enough to paint in fact. Painting on the bed was interesting- only one paint stain on the covers. I’m pretty proud of this one- I think it may be my best one to date (shame it's not a great photo). What’s this? Improvement? Finally, a tiny, niggling, sense of achievement.
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