Public hospitals. Places of never ending intrigue and WTF was that? One such WTF is a posse of cigarette smoking patients in DVT prevention stockings in hospital for either (or several) of the following:
> Diabetic induced amputation of a major limb
> Alcohol induced liver failure (they'll also have their bottle of Jack with them - no joke)
> Obesity related Diabetes
> Obesity related heart condition which has required open heart surgery and a double/triple bypass
> Cancer
Within this vortex are all manner of people who seem to be unable to read or lack the ability to acknowledge signage because they're having a toke right next to the 'No Smoking' sign, or the perennial favourite belonging to Queensland Health - 'We don't smoke here anymore.' Right. So where
do you smoke now, you stupid twats? What kind of fuckery is this? I've asked these people, 'Can't you read?' which leads to engaging in a dialogue or an all out argument over the state of the health system and how I don't give a flying fuck if they're addicted to nicotine or how smoking post-surgery increases the chance of a DVT. I've never ended one of these 'debates' on a positive note and have been verbally abused and threatened physically, which is one definition of funny. 'So cancer stick dick, you're going to rise like Lady Lazarus out of your wheelchair while attached to a drip feeding you expensive anti-biotics and chase me down - ooh, I'm fucking petrified!' I'm sounding a little Maddox (www.maddox.xmission.com -check it). Don't get me wrong - I'm a lover, not a fighter and I've been told that I'm one of the most calm and rational people around. I don't get rattled very often, but when I pop my top, you don't want to be there.
So I went out to Charlies (The Prince Charles Hospital) this morning to have an ultrasound on my subclavian and axillary for my DVT or SE. For non-medical people, that's an ultrasound - and a whole lotta gel - of my collarbone, armpit, chest and arm for a deep vein thrombosis or spontaneous emboli after being on the receiving end of a stuffed up PICC line.
Yes, everyone should have one - a thrombus, that is. I was in the ultrasound suite for nearly an hour. Suite?. Why yes. But not just any suite. It had a bed, probes and gel, a babe in a uniform and dimmer lights. Did I mention the cameras and gloves? Oh yeah ... ultrasound suites ---> the latest home for swingers.
Swingers, white supremacists - they're all the same. In the waiting room was a man who had done his fair share for his country. From what I could tell, he was a war veteran. Without being age specific, I guesstimated that he would have served in Vietnam. His arms were dipped in skank, I mean, ink (deliberate slip up to share with you one of my favourite turns of phrase 'dipped in skank'. I thought it slutted, I mean, slotted in beautifully. Yeppers people, I'm on fire.)
Anyway, I thought it a *little* ironic that this man was wearing a t-shirt and hat bearing the Australian flag (with some little ditty about immigrants) and how the shirt and hat would have been made (and possibly designed) in China. He's been conscripted to Vietnam and served his country - a war he probably knew nothing about when he was called up, and unfortunately would know everything about post tour of duty. Also, the ink used on his tattoos was in all likelihood 'Indian ink' or 'Chinese ink'. I thought it sad that his passion for patriotism had somehow failed him. He could very well be a jaded war vet and I have to say that I can't blame him.
Post swingin' ultrasound, I hotfooted it (read: lead footed it) to the Royal (that's the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital), and for once I wasn't going there to see the broken cunt or digit cancer doctors. It was to see my dashing ENT surgeon. It's always nice to drift off in a haze of Propafol looking at eye candy while reciting poetry from your teen angst era, or just generally talking crap. This is because there's nothing worse than drifting off into the slumberland of general anesthesia when you're looking at a 'handsome' woman or a scary looking (usually in the form of a hairy backed male) doctor. That is, unless you die and the last thing you see are the former and/or the latter.
The last major surgery I had in January, I drifted off to some really pissed off anesthetists, because they had such trouble cannulating me. Well, shit - I had told them at the pre-admission clinic that I was practically impossible to get venous access without a central line or a cut down. Google 'venous cut down' - it's messy. Telling off people with lots of letters after their names (MBBS FRACS) is something I do well. I also excel at screaming down clusters of men (who have seemingly endless reams of very important looking certificates with the afore mentioned letters trailing after their names) in front of their peers and young charges. It's becoming more of a hobby than a habit or borne out of necessity. This is the only time I get angry - when someone stuffs up. I have the right to curse and shout because it's my life they're dealing with. I'm not an illness. I'm not just a body. Having ranted about the bad eggs, most of the doctors I deal with are magicians for all the right reasons. Just keep the clowns away from me ...
My advice is
always choose an uber-gorgeous doctor, say for example, Peter Hotkins, I mean, Hopkins, and if you die on the table, then at least the journey has been worth it. I'm not happy if I'm sedated before I see Hotkins. I have to see Hotkins. Truth be known, I can honestly say that if he was the last person I sucked face with, I mean, looked at before I died, I would die a satisfied woman with a satisfied mind. He holds the line, stays the course and has saved my life. Considering the issues I have with death due to the monumental fuck up of last November's cunt cancer surgery, if I could have Propafol and Pete on a plate for my last supper, then that would be my order.
For some time it has been clear to me that I know too much about things I really shouldn't know about such as: sedatives, anti-biotics, anti-coagulants, anti-rejection drugs (that's a whole lotta 'anti'), cannulation techniques, how to stick a needle in my chest, how to cannulate a fellow human being (on the first go, thank you very much), finding a vein for a phlebotomist, automatically de-bra-ing/free boobing for x-rays, telling anaesthetists that I'll need a payload of drugs to get me even slightly drowsy and so many other things that aren't coming to me at the end of a long day bound in the red tape of hospitals.
It's sad when you know the 'universal precautions' by the time you're ten years old (gloves, goggles, gown, surgical hand washing etc.) but that was my reality. Still is. I'd never 'un-C.F' myself. I really wouldn't change a thing - apart from scoring a syringeful of Propafol so I can rape Hotkins*.
I feel safer in a public hospital than in a private one. It never ceases to amaze me how people are so deluded when they presume that private hospitals are the better of the two. A private hospital essentially killed my Uncle. If he had been at Charlies, the leading heart hospital in Queensland, I suspect that Garth would still be sailing his yacht 'Kaos' and would be a proud grandfather. The universe could not have taken a more beautiful person, and while this happened well before I hit my teens, it still stings. It will always sting. Stuff like that sticks and the grief only fades ever so slightly over time. So my message is this - don't assume that any private hospital is better than a public one, because that's just an elitist load of crap. Public hospitals are a freak show, and for that alone, I love them.
And if I still haven't made my point - get yourself a hot doc. A hot public hospital doc. Trust me ... I'm a patient.
* intended as a joke**
** um, not really ...
END NOTE: If you haven't already, you simply must listen to one of the sexiest songs of all time - 'Wild is the Wind' sung by Nina Simone. I would be on the verandah at Hargreaves (my family's old place on the river), swinging to this song, bending to Nina's voice as it snaked out of those big B&O penters. It's a song that wraps around you; like a mood that passes through you. Drench yourself in it on a windy day on the apex of the bike track on Nadine Street, Graceville. If that doesn't get you tingling, you're as good as dead.
'You touch me,
I hear the sound of mandolins.
You kiss me.
With your kiss my life begins.
You're spring to me.
All things to me.
Hmmm, don't you know you're life itself?'
