Tip

Took some friends out to dinner yesterday.

(I didn't know that's what I was doing; but it turns out I'd missed one of their birthdays and the other one had been on TV a few times in the last few weeks - "um... I knew that, that's why dinner's my treat...")

It was a really nice restaurant and we hadn't seen each other (sober) for ages, so we placed our order & were chatting away... About 15 minutes later, the manager came over and apologised that their new waiter had taken our order but forgotten to tell anyone.

Huh?

What did he think he was supposed to do after he wrote down a list of food that we would like to eat that evening. Maybe he put the bits of paper in his locker to perhaps later create an art installation? Or maybe he was going to put it on his blog:
"Fernando's Supercool Blog
Today, I had 3 customers who wanted different meals! Good job I had my pad & paper or I would have NEveR remembered it all LOL!!!!!!!!111111"

Anyway, the manageress said we could have free dessert. Which was very nice of her, considering we hadn't noticed the food was taking a long time. And even if we had, we weren't going to kick up a fuss.

Our food arrived after only a few more minutes, and it was bloody gorgeous.
Then we rose to the challenge of three of their biggest desserts. Well, it's only polite...

(It's like when you go to a really good all-you-can-eat place when you're feeling hungry and have nothing else to do for the rest of the week. I usually make myself fall short of "All-I-Can-Eat" and settle with "All-I-Can-Eat-Without-Being-Sick-As-Soon-As-I-Stand-Up")


So I recommend that next time you eat out, go with the densest-looking waiter, wait for him to mess up and you might get a freebie.


A little tip for you there

(And no tip for Fernando)

Tattoo

I never meant to get a tattoo...

I have nothing against them myself, I've seen some really good ones, it's just that I'm not the type of person that can carry off a tattoo. As proven this weekend, I can't even wear a baseball cap without looking like a bit of a fraud...

But last week, I got a tattoo.
(well... in the literal sense)

It wasn't a good one by any means. I mean, who would want a tattoo on the inside of their finger? I certainly didn't. But...

I stuck my hand in my pocket (as I have every right to do - my hand, my pocket) - a split second later, amid ferocious swearing (I think I may even have invented a new swear word, but I don't remember, I was distracted by the need to swear), I pulled it out again. The lid of my fountain pen had come off and I'd jabbed myself quite deeply with the nib, leaving a strong, black line a couple of centimetres long.

It was quite deep under the skin and wouldn't wash off. And I did try BLOODY hard to wash it off. Seeing as I was in theatres the rest of the day, I was never more than a couple of metres away from a sink and numerous medical-grade cleaning products. Iodine, Chlorhexidine, bleach, you name it. By the end of the day my hand was red-raw & I looked like I had eczema.
And a tattoo.

So I left it. And unsurprisingly it didn't go. That being the inert nature of the humble tattoo. I didn't really mind it, but I did want to alter it to make it look like I'd done it on purpose. I sketched out a few designs of how to improve it - some medical symbols, some Amateur Transplant & music-related designs. Nothing religious though, oh no - that could ONLY cause trouble.

It's a big deal having a tattoo. It has to mean something.
In this job I see a lot of naked people. And before you think that's a good thing, remember that this is in hospital. And the majority of people who are in hospital are not well. And the majority of people who are not well are not healthy. And the majority of people who are not healthy MING like the Plague, sometimes they actually HAVE the Plague. Unwashed, overweight, sweaty bathdodgers... ugh...

I've seen tattoos of names of kids (sweet sentiment, but the people I've seen it on probably needed it as a kind of reminder - "Darren, Britney, Kelly and... er... there's another one... her names on my ankle?"), I've seen "Mum" (but oddly, never "Dad") as well as partners names... I used to ask my patients about their tattoos; getting them to talk about themselves helps them to relax (before I knock 'em out with the Anaesthetic hammer) - but sometimes the stories just wind them up even more - eg tattoos of EX-partners' names/faces. I've seen some hideous pictures. The funniest was on a huge muscly bloke who needed some operation or other. He was giving it all that, being the big man, a little intimidating... till we saw on his shoulder, in glorious technicolour, was a tattoo of Tweety Pie. "I was drunk" he said, and then he shut up.

Anyway, I'd thought I'd probably go with a stylized, black & white piano key pattern, going the whole circumference of my finger. But by this time, my finger had doubled in size & gone red, sore and pussy.

(Incidentally, I once saw in the hospital notes of a lady who had had some problems "down below" a letter from her doctor which started:
"This lady came to Gynae clinic with pussy discharge..." - I wonder which way he meant it...)

My theory is that when the £7.99 WHSmith stainless steel nib (what? I use a fountain pen at work cos it makes my scrappy handwriting look like I'm artistic & elegant... rather than an autistic elephant. It doesn't mean that I'd go out and spend a fortune on a fountain pen.
I ask you - What kind of fool? Who would buy a £700 fountain pen?
Answer: Adam Kay. A few years ago. And then he lost it.
Uses free biros now.)
- as I was saying, when the nib dug under my skin, it probably had some dirt on it - it sure as hell wasn't sterilised, nor was my finger.

So my finger got sore & swollen and needed fixing.

One of the most common emergency operations is "Incision & drainage of an abscess" wherever on the body. Usually after the patient's had several weeks of antibiotics.
Bollocks to that.
With a sterile needle (which had followed me home still in its packaging - see previous post), I scratched very gently into the skin above the tattoo (pausing only to put more & more Bonjella on it - it may be useless for a mouth ulcer - which incidentally is now completely gone, thanks for asking - but it seems to work on my skin. I'm obviously a freak. I mean superhuman), slowly scratching layer after layer until all the ink, dirt and nastiness was gone.

So no more tattoo.

Just a scar.

Amateur Transplants, Amateur Transplants, Amateur Transplants...

So I've noticed that I haven't mentioned Amateur Transplants since I started writing this blog. Oops. Sorry. I knew there was something...

A few months ago, I set up a myspace account for Amateur Transplants.

Sadly it was stillborn.


So like any grieving father, I replaced it with an identical one.
Here it is: http://www.myspace.com/68496766 (isn't it a beauty?)

(Shut up, OK? All newborns are ugly - only their parents convince themselves of their true beauty, and that's because otherwise it feels like everything they've gone through has been a total waste of time.)

There's links to the mp3s legally available on the 'Net (well, as legally as possible, don't get me started...) in the myspace blog.

There. That should keep you click-happy, freebie-hunters happy for a moment.

I'm waiting for suggestions of what to put on the site.

Or this one for that matter.


Well? C'mon...

MOUF ULTHER

I can't fpeak properly, I can't eat or drink anyfing...

I've got a thtupid ulther on my tongue and it REALLY HURTTH!

(By the way, the word is 'TONGUE' not 'TOUNGE'... Just because you're clever enough to know that there's a 'U' in it SOMEWHERE, you don't get any marks unless you put it in the right place.
And while we're on the subject - it's 'Voilà'. Not 'Viola!'. You idoits.)

Anyway, this ulcer's been destroying me for days now - keeping me awake at night despite quarter-hourly applications of Bonjella, the sensation of broken glass when I try to swallow anything even water, etc.

So I saw an ENT Specialist today.

Well OK I didn't SEE HIM see him, I didn't have a clinic appointment or anything... but he was hiding in the coffee room between operations and I saw him.

So I asked him about it. That's possibly the best perk about this job, you get to be pally with people who know almost everything about certain aspects of health, and you can ask them anything. Example, today I spotted one of my colleagues lying on the floor of a supplies cupboard while an Orthopaedic surgeon examined her knee. Well that's what it looked like they were doing anyway... come to think of it, she was making some peculiar noises... I thought it was just pain...)

Nice ENT Consultant man told me it wasn't Captain Cancer, which was a relief (OK, I'm under 50, I don't smoke and I don't eat insane quantities of Japanese fish, so I'm not exactly high-risk; but just 'cos I'm a doctor doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be paranoid about my health once in a while, OK?)

In summary, he told me that nothing would make it go quickly, I just had to carry on what I'd been doing: keeping it clean, taking painkillers and waiting for it to go.

And that's the absolute best advice available for mouth ulcers.
That's all. Dammit - we can put prisoners on the moon, genetically engineer remote control vegetables (probably), but we just can't get rid of mouth ulcers quickly. This profession just brings up one disappointment after another.

Incidentally, one of the other perks of working in a hospital is the never-ending supply of things like fancy sticky-tape which sometimes follows us home (ie left in a pocket by accident. No, genuinely - by accident. What could anyone possibly want with this much tape, short of wallpapering their house with it?)

Hey - I wonder if I've got a scalpel lying around somewhere...
Sod waiting - HEAL WITH STEEL!

(Hmmm... I think I may have been hanging around surgeons too long)

You can't make an omelette

Full stop. That's the entire phrase when used in my company.

I'm not saying I'm a terrible chef; I haven't killed anybody (yet).

But I do like to make dishes that announce their readiness for consumption with a loud DING.

I'm not an avid consumer of microwaveable meals apart from when I'm on-call and the canteen's shut.
I've argued this with many people but unless it's breakfast time right now, toast is not a full meal. I grant you, it may be a pleasant, crunchy, mid-afternoon snack. Or you could be so busy that you have to skip lunch entirely, in which case by all means have some toast instead to keep you going. But - toast for dinner? Alone, apart from a 2mm application of whatever. Pah! Hospital patients eat better and their food's rubbish. Often literally. (Canteen motto - waste not want not...)

But I prefer to irradiate my food, rather than be involved with naked flames and ovens and the suchlike. Call me old fashioned...


In any case, I've gone against this and I've just made the perfect omelette.

2 eggs, a slash of oil, salt & milk. And then a load of sweetcorn, fried mushrooms and grated strong cheddar.
Bloody gorgeous. Just the right thickness, cooked just the right amount (ie neither surface was brown/black or transparent yellow and runny). Perfect meal. I feel terrific.

And a bonus, it didn't aggravate my MUFH (mouth ulcer from hell) so much that I had to stop & cry.

I blame my parents. I never cooked much when I was younger.
When I was six I once made some lovely biscuits. I was trying to make cakes at the time, but that's neither here nor there...


Anyway, I'm off now. I need the loo.

hello

It's come to my attention that this blog is being read by actual people.

I'm not sure that was the plan; this puts pressure on me to start writing something of interest. Is it too late to back out? Can't we just be friends, etc...


Incidentally I have never given anyone the "Just Friends" speech.

Although - you'll be astonished to hear - I have been on the receiving end of it, more than once (What can I say? Loads of women really want me to be their friend)


I think there's a bit in the speech somewhere about not paying attention or something. To be honest, I don't know... I wasn't really listening...

I wonder, is "Hashmat" a real word?

Small prick

Had my MMR jab today.

Don't see what all the fuss is about...



...it didn't hurt that much.

Moving in

After a long, on-off relationship with the Internet, I've decided to make a commitment and move in.

I think this poster would look quite nice on the wall over here...


I'm still finding my feet with this blogging nonsense, but I thought that I might as well give it a go and post my thoughts every now & then.

Now... where can I leave my guitar?
Oh, here looks safe, just next to the fire...