High Hopes (& Aspirations)

I'm ill.

But no-one seems to believe me.

I started coughing suddenly on Sunday afternoon & haven't stopped. I think I accidentally inhaled something minor, and that triggered off a chest infection. Since then I've been feeling a bit rough, coughing up gunk, I've been running a decent fever & my pulse is a fair bit higher than normal.

Man-flu, everyone tells me.

(Apart from one medical registrar friend who wants me to have a large number of tests... but I don't think my chest sounds abnormal enough to warrant an x-ray, and while I'm happy to stick all kinds of needles into all kinds of places in other people, if I can help it I'll avoid having a "sharp scratch" (ie. metal spike) myself, thank you very much - although a benefit of having tests at work is that they would be processed more quickly than at the GP and I could interpret the results myself... in fact, I could probably put them on here for you medics to have a look through...
Although needles... meh...)

Anyway, I wasn't feeling brilliant, but held it together enough to perform safely at work (I wore a mask whenever I was near anyone, etc, etc.) rather than just sit at home coughing and leave the department depleted.
But rather than drive home between shifts (an hour each way), I thought it'd be better to try & get hold of a spare on-call room & sleep over at work.

So I rang up.

They wanted to charge me £70.

Seventy quid! There are hotels nearby that would charge less than that. And they'd give you complimentary tea & coffee. And a telly.

And a trouser-press.

So, bollocks to that idea.

When I was chatting to some of the doctors working overnight, one told me he never got to bed, his night shift was without exception always too busy - and if it did get quiet, the rooms were too far away; instead he would sit somewhere within the hospital in case of emergencies. So he gave me the key to his unused on-call room.

The room was clean; but I want to tell you about the en suite bathroom... it was the size of a phone booth! One side contained a toilet and sink; and on the other side of a shower curtain was a shower head (the water emptying into a drain hole in the tiled floor).

This shower was bizarre. Invisible water came out of it. I don't know if it was especially designed by NHS engineers or whether it was just faulty... but even on full volume, the spray was ultra fine. It was like a mist - the water was just... there.

The water pressure was immense and I soon learnt that there was a major time delay with adjusting the water temperature too (so I'm guessing... probably faulty then). I thought the temperature had settled when I got in, but a minute later, I suddenly felt a searing pain like my back was being pierced with fine needles... this was the high pressure water jets finally reaching boiling hot temperatures.

Still, I was rested & clean and in a better state to work than I would have been had I tried to drive home & back too.

Thankfully I had today off.


As a break from tradition, this year I've spent most of Valentine's Day coughing...