After getting some strange pains, I drove up to Blyton to see the quack. Cautious chaps your medicos these days. They call it ‘duty of care’; I call it fear of litigation.
So he wouldn’t let me drive up to Emergency at Armadillo. Oh no. Called an ambulance didn’t he? And they drove me to Fre-fekkin-mantle Horse Piddle. Very nice crew; very attentive ... and very expensive.
After shooting me full of opiates (which, strangely, didn’t work!) , they admitted me to the Acute Surgical Unit. About which I will now say a few things.
1. DO NOT get admitted there if you can possibly help it.
2. IF YOU DO, you won’t sleep much, depending on the medications; for you will be surrounded by the yelling and moaning basket cases from Hell.
3. ASSUME there will be many, many tests. They like to use all those new expensive machines as much as possible.
4. IF you’re in there, they will come for you for tests at random times; presumably on the basis that you’re on hand and don’t need an appointment.
5. EVERY test demands a different food regime on the part of the victim; but they don’t tell the Unit staff which regime.
6. SO, you will have been on ‘Nil by Mouth’ for 12 hours when the test needs you to have eaten. And vice versa. And a few shades in between.
7. BE PREPARED to have to tell your story in full to every (frequent) visitor to your bedside; and to tell each one what all the previous visitors have said. For, verily, they have no internal communication systems apart from that supplied by the inmates themselves.
8. EXPECT to be discharged any old time they happen to need a bed. Unless you feel well enough to leave; in which case they refuse to let you go.
9. HOPE you get out of there without a number tattooed on your forearm.
Nearly had to go back in for shock when I got the ambulance bill this morning. Ambulances in WA are privatised. They belong to St John. And now I must render unto him $50 a fortnight for what may be left of my life.
