Wave bye-bye to medical confusion misery with our cut-out ‘n’ keep A-Z of healthcare, lavishly compiled by Ming the Mangled of Masho.
A is for Antibiotics. Don’t bother with tablets & pills, they’re just bill-inflaters. Go straight for the intravenous drips. 10 minutes and you’re on Planet Woop-Woop & they work. Mighty tackle
B is for Bedbaths. At face value most guys would love the prospect of pretty Thai nurses soaping up below the waist. Reality is they are so rough, especially over raw scar tissue, & many wear rubber boots. They pull and tug you up & every which way, rip out your drips, bang your head on the steel gratings, final effect is like 15 rounds with Mike Tyson. Pretty hardcore.
C is for Catheter. Absolutely brilliant invention, you can drink as much as you like and watch the full footie game or movie without interruption. Sleep undisturbed all night too (but see Z). Should be made optional for parties & social gatherings – loo queues obliterated at a stroke – and you can hide your bag in all kinds of flashy accessories. Easy to remove should the need arise (ahem).
D is for Denial. Cancer? No. Maybe they mean Capricorn. Yes, that’ll be it. Clerical error. Lost in translation. Phew!
E is for Electro-cardiogram. Bit of a money spinner. Keeps ’em happy though. Also Enemas – oh yes.
F is for Food. For some impenetrable reason this must be cold rice slop essentially placed on the far side of the room where you can’t reach it. The terrified nurse is in and out in seconds so you’ve no time to complain. Then the doctor does his rounds and says “You’re not eating – how come?” “(a) It’s in another time zone and (b) who wants congealed rice slop anyway?”
G is for Gurney, or hospital bed. Made of solid tungsten, bedsores are guaranteed within 2 days. You got buttons to raise & depress the thing, side cage-bars to prevent movement, pop-out arm straps to completely immobilise you, whatever you do you feel more uncomfortable than before. Pure sadism.
H is for Hospital Room Temperatures. These must be set to minus freezing. Nobody knows why. The blankets (read towels) are too short to cover you so you need loads. Once in your room you can switch off the aircon and open your windows to let some warmth in. They hate it and try to re-establish the tundra but stick to your guns.
I is for Insurance. Minute you walk through the hospital door the meter starts running. That helpful nurse with a glass of water? Ker-ching! The bloke you crashes your wheelchair into doors? Ker-ching! All the food slop you couldn’t/wouldn’t eat? Kerching! Every needle, plaster, pyjama pants, dressings, you name it. When you finally check out there are pages and pages of itemised things you’ve used (window-cleaners? Per-lease). You sign, they fax (fax!) it to the insurance company who spend hours and hours deciding whether to pay or not. By this time you’re desperate to get out and get tempted to pay up yourself. It’s what they want. Stand your ground.
J is for “Just a moment please”. The pinnacle of Nursespeak. It means “I haven’t a clue what you’re saying. I may (or may not) fetch someone else”.
K is for Kidley Infection. Don’t you mean ‘kidney’? It’s what I said, diddle I?
L is for Laxatives. Don’t bother – go for the enema. Wahoo!
M is for MRI scan. Used to be like being inserted head first in a front-loading washing machine with bad techno blasting away inside. Pure claustrophobic horrors. Now its just an arch you slide through, but the machine speaks Australian. “Take a deep breath and hold it right there, mate”.
N is for Narcotics. Morphine is vastly over-rated. All it seems to do is give you naff lava-lamp explosions on your eyelids when you close them. You have to self-administer with a click-drip. Don’t bother.
O is for Out-Patients Department. Bloody luxury.
P is for Paperwork. The raison d’être of the medical community, you are not in hospital to get well but to generate paperwork. Colossal amounts of forms must be compiled on every topic then utterly ignored. So every passing doctor or nurse will ask you what your temperature or blood pressure was last night instead of consulting your file. You can just make up numbers and they nod sagely.
P is also for Pyjamas. The tops are OK, but the bottoms are the most useless & irritating garments invented. They always, always fall down if you attempt to move. Try pulling your drip-on-a-stand to the bathroom at night with these round your ankles. After 2 days I just refused flat out to wear them at all. Still paid for ’em though.
Q is for Quit Smoking. Spend first 5 days immobile then another 15 days so drugged you can’t remember what cigarettes are and hey presto! You’re well on the way through cold turkey.
R is for Regulation . Like all Total Bureaucracies, hospitals run to rigid routines. Thus when you want to sleep (all the time) you will be constantly woken every hour to have silly tests done and be asked if you’re asleep. All is noted in the Paperwork that nobody reads. (Actually I may be a little unfair here; since they discovered my temperature soaring and blood pressure plummeting, denoting the kidley infection. Still, it annoys the living Bejabers out of you).
S is for Suspended Animation. That’s what we want. We spend 6 months out of it and they can do all the testing, slicing, probing, stitching, stapling, blood pressuring etc they want and we know nothing about it. After 6 months we revive, healthy ex-smokers. Well that’s the plan anyway.
T is for Tumours. The endoscope actually gives you take-home photos of the critters. When you close your eyes on morphine you see them totally black but limbed in bright yellow light. Nasty, & hard to shake off.
U is for Urine Test. If I’d had this very basic test 3 months ago I might have been spared a lot, but the Kan urologist didn’t think of it. It’s easy, painless and cheap, & the results are through in minutes. When did you last have one? Do it now, and have a blood test too.
V is for Visions. Largely very poor quality, and quite unpleasant, yet easy to dismiss. But dreams can be vivid and feature ancient events, feelings and people you’ve long forgotten about. Luckily a nurse will awaken you any minute and dispel it.
W is for Wheelchairs. Preferable without Thai drivers crashing you into everything.
X is for X-Rays. OK I suppose, but sooooo last century.
Y is for “You! Body Weight!” “You! Blood Pressure!” “You! Temperature!”. The eldritch screech of nazgul nurses as they continuously ruin yet another nights sleep.
Z is for Zzzzzzzz. Forget it, sleep aint gonna happen.
There’s a massive 5 points to be dispensed however my drug-addled brain decides. The question is: what have I missed from my litany of medical woe?