TheBanyanTree: The leg on the cutting room floor

[Peter Macinnis]

I have just written to a medical practitioner friend with whom we do a 
lot of bush walking: he and his wife, also a medico, say we are alone 
among friends of their age in keeping up and not groaning.  Last Sunday, 
we walked 10 km that involved about 500 metres of ascent and 300 metres 
of descent (vertically) over rough ground.  We have known them since 1974.

For Christmas, he sent me anonymously, and only identified himself later 
as the donor, a book called 'The 100-year-old man who climbed out the 
window and disappeared".

I have had some other reading to catch up on, but I needed some very 
minor surgery to delete a lump in my throat, a benign cyst that has been 
lurking under my beard.  It's annoying, but it was best to get it out 
and miss a few days of working.  Time, I thought, to read the book which 
was highly recommended.  Here follows what I wrote to my friend.

Before I share that, I have a history of disruption in hospitals, though 
I have never gone over the Dark Side.  Once, when asked if I used aids 
for walking, I answered "yes", and when asked what, I said "legs". 
Another time, I confronted and dressed-down an overbearing thug of a 
matron who started abusing me for not shaving.

I had had my beard shaved off for the op which had happened two days 
earlier, and was growing it back.  I might have explained that, but she 
had severely irked me.  I don't like bullies, and in my bureaucracy, I 
was senior to her in hers, yet I never treated people like that. 
"Madame," I said, "I haven't shaved for seven years, and I don't intend 
starting now, just to satisfy your whim.  So, if you have no medical 
advice to offer, be off with you!"

This was spoken loudly enough to be heard by a number of nurses who 
loved me for it, because they lacked the freedom to speak out, and this 
old cow was merciless with them.

A few years later in another hospital, they brought round the tea and 
coffee trolley, left it for ten minutes in a common area and then 
whisked it off before we inmates could get seconds.  Three of us 
hijacked the trolley on the second night, and after the puzzled 
attendant found it missing and stalked off, we brought it out of the 
empty ward where we had stashed it and had a second cup.  It was 
standing there when the attendant came back, but he never worked out 
where it had gone while I was there, which was another three nights.

There have been other ploys, but those vignettes will suffice to stake 
my claim to being a potentially disturbing influence and combined 
Strange Attractor in any quasi-medical to medical/surgical situation.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The thank-you note:
-------------------
I saved the book for a special moment and that came yesterday while I 
was sitting around in my ward, waiting for over an hour to be gowned and 
put up on the cart (cue obligatory joke from the Python version of the 
"Holy Grail").

Anyhow, I have never seen such a marvellous textbook for a 
surrealist/anarchist plotting his escape from a hospital as this work. 
I am home now, lying down a lot and I have followed Allan to Iran, so 
far (that's around page 150).

This is sheer joy--and not a bit of inspiration!

The nurse who was prepping me added a second wrist band to my leg and I 
said to her "I don't want to interfere, but if that is there so they can 
identify that leg after they removed it, I would have no further 
interest in it, but that if they really needed an ID, they would have 
the left leg for comparison.

There had been some good badinage, and I expected her to say they were 
taking both legs off, in which case I would have said "well you've got 
me stumped," but instead she told me an independent surgical team was 
going in through the heel, so that if the short-cut group missed The 
Lump, the long-strike team would get it.  It seems that nurses are 
getting brighter.

What could I do? I murmured "the wonders of modern technology" and they 
turned the tap on.  Just as well, because I was about to go out the window.

Sometimes, the best scripts don't quite make it onto paper.

peter

-- 
Peter Macinnis           petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au
Breeder of Pedigreed racing leeches (GT stripes extra)
centipede farrier  (special bulk rates for millipedes)
http://oldblockwriter.blogspot.com/