Hospital-going

[poliphilo]

I have my hospital-going head on this morning. Very cool, businesslike, unemotional.

Stoical

We just drove my father-in-law to Accident and Emergency. He stood the pain from last Thursday's fall for as long as he could and has finally decided to have himself looked at. He wouldn't call an ambulance. People- neighbours- would see it on the street- and what on earth would they think?

He's stoical too. And he hates being an old man.

Who can blame him?

I have previous with hospitals. As a young man I did a couple of stints as a nursing auxiliary- in Sheffield and at South London's pioneering St Christopher's Hospice. At this distance in time I'm not sure why- because I hated it.

Stoical I suppose.

And when I was a vicar the part of the job I hated most- apart from the ever so jolly social events- was the hospital visiting.

The A&E staff sit behind glass- bulletproof I shouldn't wonder. The clerk's voice reaches us over a speaker system. My father-in-law gives out his details crisply, smartly- like a wonded soldier. He wasn't a soldier, he was in the RAF police. Same thing, I suppose.

And after that he was a railwayman.

Waiting times this morning are calculated at about an hour.  I'll guess there are some thirty people in the room. They're sitting on two banks of seats, facing each other- with nothing in the middle.

I get my in-laws seated and leave them. They'll ring when they need us.

We're back home- waiting. Ailz has just popped next door. We've been hearing high pitched noises and we think Sameena must have had her baby.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Ah, four crows, then.

(Tony, I am watching, for the first time, the BBC program "How Clean is Your House?" It is so funny I am laughing out loud! And horrifying, too!

The voiceover man is perfect: "This pestulant pad..." "This horrifying hovel..."

Honestly, the tearfully grateful, ashamed and filthy householders! How humbly they cast down their eyes before the two fierce housecleaners, one of whom wears rubber gloves with sewn on feathers! They love water, bicarbonate of soda, and drops of lavender.

"On your knees, love," they say to their pitiful subjects, who scrub and weep. I just think this is a wonderful program!)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Over here it's magpies rather than crows. Luckily there are lots and lots of them around- so you can always pretty much make your own luck.

I wonder at the people who volunteer to go on reality shows. There's one I've been watching called The Hotel Inspector- which speaks for itself. These silly people invite the expert in, she tells them everything they're doing wrong- and then- as often as not- they fight tooth and nail against her proposed changes.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

We have a program here, Dr. Phil, in which people will confess the most awful things about their marriages, their debts, their children--even allowing cameras inside to watch them fight and scream at each other, or to follow them as they go shopping with credit cards or overeat crazily or do any number of disfunctional things, while Dr. Phil, a "life coach" and psychologist, tells them off and the audience gasps. What angers me most is that sometimes children of these disfunctional families are brought in and their faces shown on national television.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've seen that show. Didn't Dr Phil start off as one of Oprah's sidekicks?

We have equivalents. There's a thing called the Jeremy Vyne Show which has been described as the 21st century equivalent of putting people in the stocks.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Dr. Phil did begin his TV career with Oprah, but I understand there's now some friction between them.

As for putting people in the stocks, it's true, with the twist that they ask for it.

Have you ever seen How Clean Is Your House? Yesterday's featured a man whose kitchen was filled with bluebottle flies...

(I can't help but wonder if the applicants toss all their garbage around the house in the month before the camera crews arrive.)