In fact, what a thoroughly nice day I’ve had. Instead of an 8am screech around the ward, I had a lie-in and then hopped on the bus at 9.45am. Fifteen minutes later, I was exercising my mind and my schmoozing gland at a conference for people who’d like to develop an interest in academic medicine. I met my lovely supervising Professor, who inherited me when I came back from Elsewhere.

“Hello, Blade!” he said, shaking hands. ”Hello, Professor!” I exclaimed, for I really was very happy to see him. “Blade,” he said, shaking his extremely knowledgeable head, “Do call me Firstname.” “Ah, Prof, you know I can’t. I’m from a generation where no senior person has a first name – and that includes my aunts and uncles.”

So I had a jolly lovely day, and feel like I am on the cusp of some important decision-making. I don’t just want to be a surgeon, excellent though it is – I’d love to add an academic component, and I am feeling much more inspired to try. We’ll see.

In home life, I had to make some buns tonight. Now, both Bats and the sister were in the house. I was in the kitchen, battering 8 ounces of digestive biscuits into sawdust with a rolling pin. Did anyone come to see if there was an intruder in the house, doing nefarious deeds? Of course not. It is time I got a good barky dog.

The medical students are getting worse. My boss had an attack of the Red Mist, and had to take himself out of theatre on Monday, because the Final Years couldn’t answer a question. Unreasonable? No…what pushed him over the edge was when Work Experience Girl (age: c. 17) was able to answer instead. Crikey.

…and secretly blogging at work. how naughty

Another night creeps along, interesting things are afoot.

It’s oh so nice to feel like me again.

I have been up since 03.47 am. I am getting too old for this. I used to bounce up and down, without a second thought. Now I am audibly creaking just ’cause I had to get up in the middle of the night. Worst bit was arriving home just as my alarm clock went off. There’s no point in trying a ten-minute-snooze, it ends in oversleeping. All you can do is stay awake, feeling gently nauseated by fatigue. I fell asleep in the audit meeting this afternoon, which wasn’t so smart ’cause HeadBoss was behind me. As soon as the lights go out and the PowerPoint starts, I’m unconscious. Exactly how I plan to be in three seco……zzzzzzzzz

Gosh oh, it’s been a while. Work is…hectic. I wish that people would take better care of their children. Even allowing for my resolutely non-parent status, I figure that letting nine-year-olds do dangerous things is never going to turn out well.

There are now so many jobs on the to-do list that I hadn’t even realised that FB had been shut down. I apologise, and repent, and will blog more. But not now, there’s a man coming to measure me for double glazing and the house is in a state. I must go and redd up.

We got no work done today. Well, by no work, I mean that there were endless bits-and-pieces to be done, but the main event, the full day’s operation list, had to be cancelled ’cause the anaesthetist was sick. Unfortunate, definitely, but the NHS is now running with so little slack in the system, that with our anaesthetist and another off sick, there was no-one in the entire hospital who could cover the list. A very disappointed patient, who’d been in hospital overnight to get organised, been fasted from midnight and, no doubt, had a sleepless night in preparation for surgery, asked my boss could he not put them to sleep? “Well, I might be able to,” he answered, “I just couldn’t guarantee that I could wake you up again.” So it was a long day of finding jobs, and now it’s back to making out the rota. I’m on call as well. Roll on Tuesday.

Ah, it’s 01.08am and I’ve just finished a bit of horrid paperwork. The junior medical (i.e. all below consultant grade; 13 people in all) rota is made out by one of the team, and I’ve just been given the poisoned chalice. The Boss told me on Monday, and as it’s made out on a monthly basis, I have to produce one by tomorrow for dissemination before next week. In Very Excitingness, Batman’s got a job! In Astro City! And he moved home on Tuesday, car loaded with six years’ worth of stuff from Gotham. So you can imagine, on Monday I grocery shopped (as there wasn’t a single green thing in the house, and not much else either), and on Tuesday I cooked, and carried around boxes of stuff, and light sabres, and whatnot. (He really has the best pair of light sabres.) I sat down to the rota on Wednesday, and four hours later, I was no further forward. I had another four hours at it tonight, and am getting there. I’ve done one for next week, to give me a little breathing space, but it’s not much fun. Batman went up Home to visit the family,  and I was so grumpy last  night that he’s staying up there tonight. Two days of married is as much as we are used to. He’ll be back and forward to Gotham a bit over the summer, but he’s mostly home. It’s wonderful – commuting has been a gentle  introduction to married life, but I suppose we have to move in together at some point. At the very least, it’ll be good blog material, no?

Not you, the Dear Readers, of course not. Just everyone else in the world. And I mean everyone (except The Mammy, who doesn’t read blogs, but is learning the joys of Hindernet shop-browsing). I was on call this weekend: 8am Saturday until 9am today, then a full day of work today. I hate people.

Reasons That I Hate People:

1. They are stupid. Would you ignore your child long enough for it to play with Combustible Liquid and a lighter? Or maybe teeter, unsteadily, on a fence, whilst using electric hedgecutters? This when you have already cut a lump off yourself doing exactly the same thing? It’s depressing. This one time, at Band Camp in Casualty, I saw a guy who’d been mowing the lawn in his bare feet. Seriously. Another time, my colleague walked into the ward to see a woman with a cigarette poked through the round hole in the oxygen mask, thumb poised to click the lighter. I could go on, if you like. My conclusions are: (a) people should have to get a permit to reproduce and (b) some people are just too stupid to live.
2. They are liars. It’s got to the point where I just assume, right off, that everyone is telling me lies. “I was walking down the street at 3am, reading my Bible, and someone jumped out and stabbed me!” “Doctor, it was mistaken identity.” “I have no idea how that got there!” No, there is a glass up your ass because you put it there. I don’t give a shit why or what for, and I don’t care how hard you fell, that’s not how it happened. I swear this is true: someone came into the hospital once with a whiskey tumbler in their Bee Hind. As they were being whisked off (sorry) for emergency surgery to extract it, the wife drew the surgeon aside and asked if they could give it back…as it was part of a set. If there’s anything worse than a liar, it’s a dirty liar. These people could be your friends. You might be visiting them tonight. Bring your own cup (is that why it’s a rule at Women’s Institute meetings? Argh!).  My conclusions: I have difficuly with normal social interactions, because I have to remind myself that my family members are not liars.
3. They are always f*&^ing complaining. It is not my fault that it is sore, it is because you got drunk and you threw a punch and you hurt your stupid, lying hand. Did I give you that rash? Exactly why is it my fault that you weigh more than 170kg (but that’s as high as the scales go), and we’ll have to send the houseman to soap you up in order to get you into the CT scanner: did I force-feed you? I am sorry that the clinic was running 90 minutes behind today. There were about 95 patients to see, there weren’t enough clinic rooms and so we weren’t hanging around chatting, we had nowhere to put you, unless you want to take off your clothes in the waiting room. I am genuinely sorry you had to wait, but I have been working for 53 hours now, and will not have any lunch, will have to drive across town like a maniac for another clinic this afternoon and go through the whole damned thing again. By the  time I get home, I’ll be literally shaking from hypoglycaemia and will have to eat a meringue nest to get in enough sugar to prevent me from passing out. I’m serious. My conclusions: damn them all to Hell. Except the old boys. I’ve got a soft spot for them.
4. Women don’t like women. I called a girl in today, at clinic. She was quite a bit younger than me, and had been operated on by one of the consultants, Mr X. I love Mr X. He’s kind. funny, smart and has been enormously supportive of me when I have been having surgical angst. His patient looked down her orange-foundationed nose at me, curled her lip and walked as slowly as she possibly could into the clinic room, to show her dissatisfaction. She wouldn’t even sit down, just stood and looked sneeringly, and said, “Am I not here to see Mr X?” “Why yes, of course you are,” I said. And then I couldn’t hold it in any more. “Don’t panic!” I snarled, “I’ll just get him for you.” What she didn’t know is that he’d already asked me to call him when I got her into a room, and so she didn’t have to be so snippy. Just because I have boring hair, and boring middle-aged clothes, and boring low-but-functional heels, doesn’t mean that I am some piece of dirt you found on the sole of your oh-so-hip pink shoes. Anyway, yours are too flat and I hope you get fallen arches. My conclusions: Bah.
5. Even colleagues sometimes annoy. I’d better not talk about this one, just in case.

Anyway. It was a relentlessly busy weekend. I did get to bed both nights, but I’m absolutely whacked and I am going to potter for a bit and go to bed. Poor darling Batman was home, but he said that any time he saw me, I was sleeping. Not quite true, as we went to the cinema on Friday night, and I endeavoured to stay awake for the whole of Angels and Demons. Not bad, but not nearly as good as Star Trek, wot we saw the previous weekend. Ab. So. Loo. Tee. Lee. Fantastique. Especially Bones. For your viewing pleasure:

(I don’t hate Bones.)

Monday: Entertained you with the rash.

Tuesday: Persisted with the rash, and also developed alarmingly severe joint pains. I regret to admit that Batman is probably right, it is a virus. But for Rather Not Say (But I Know Who You Are), a short Poem:

Syphilis

I have just contracted syphilis

It started with a single kiss

And now it’s very hard to piss.

There is a tune to go along with that, but I can’t remember it. Feel free to improvise.

Also on Tuesday: Batman home for some work. Very pleasant to see husband mid-week. Made very nice dinner, if I do say so myself. Have added third dinner to repertoire.Wedding invitation arrived from Elsewhere, from my favourite LadySurgeon in the whole entire world, the one I totally hero-worship. Wedding on 16th May. Am hoping…

Wednesday: Went to clinic, same cancelled as boss at conference. Came home, took Batman to airport, went back to work and poked some patients, then flaked across town to conference. Most interesting. Met very fine friend from the old days Elsewhere, now home and working not that far from Batman. Blagged way into most salubrious conference drinks reception at Big House on Hill, under assumed name. Didn’t have ticket, so had to pretend to be Jill Somebody. Gathered small party and went for fishy dinner. Very good. Took friend home and everybody lapsed into unconsciousness. Wrists and knees very sore.

Thursday: got up early, took two different kinds of painkillers and went to work. Very good all-day theatre list, even got to do a bit, and boss in rather good form. Came home and made Ikear cupboard, now half-filled with junk. Popped back to work to see patient, discovered that SHO cannot follow simple instructions:

Keep urine output > 40ml/hr.

Urine output for last three hours:

10ml, 9ml, 3ml. Patient not very fabulous. Reg on call saw patient about 50 minutes before me, and has done the obvious  thing and turned the drip up a bit. Output already 75ml. SHO chastised. Patient improves. Go home and check in online for tomorrow’s flight to Gotham. Looking forward to nice weekend.

G’night.

I was on call at the weekend, and as it’s taken me four attempts to write this much of the sentence correctly, then you might wonder why I am not asleep. I should be, you know, but I had a couple of emails that had to be sent or else my liver would have been removed by untrained hands and fed to me without the fava beans. And now I’m all past my sleep. But it’s true: sleep deprivation is bad for fine motor skills. And very bad for spelling, it turns out.

Anyway, I could be operating on you. Wouldn’t that be nice? I’m on call from home, which is sort of OK. Phone rang at 01.09am on Sunday morning. It was one of those A&E (Emerg, Pirate Girl) docs who was born sans first name. “Hello,” says he, “Is that Miss Blade?” “Why yes, it’s Fresh,” I said. “Yes,” said the whelp, “this is Mr X in A&E at St. Anywhere’s.” Ah, I thought, another one of the unfortunates. It is not necessary to reinforce your cleverness by insisting on using your title. You are (a) junior to me and (b) not yet clever enough to be lying in your own bed at the taxpayer’s expense. Anyway, he told me All, and that he was sending the patient home but could we review them? Ah, but had he done X, Y and Z? And considered the possibility of a Relapse? Or that they might just, you know, swell up and die? Not so clever after all, my old son. But then, neither am I. I frightened the shit out of him and then told him they needed to be admitted, so to organise the transfer. They were coming a distance of some ten miles, by ambulance, and it took two hours and forty minutes. Our ward phoned at 03.50am, and not-so-clever me had to get out of bed and schlepp across town to see someone whose main diagnosis was: Too Stupid To Live. Anyway.

The whole point of this is that I’m not used to having Husband beside me when I’m on call. I bounced out of bed each time the phone rang, and bolted next door into what’s laughingly called the study. “Don’t get up!” said Batman, “It’s all right to answer the phone.” Well, I needed a bit of paper and a pen, but the main reason for getting up was that I always make it a point of principle to sound, whatever time it is, that I’ve just been idly filing my nails or arranging some flowers. It removes the element of satisfaction that A&E people get from waking up normal, decent folk in the middle of the night. I’ve spent a lot of time perfecting this, and I sound more awake when I am sitting up straight at the desk. As I explained to Batman at 03.50am after he’d been woken for the fifth time (phone, 2, fidgeting wife waiting for second phone call, 3): “Never let the B*&^ards know that they woke you up! Actually, remember that! That’s a great title for a blog post!”

See? I am always thinking of youse.