The Boerewors Emergency Medicine Chronicles: The wife's cooking

Friday, 12 December 2008

The wife's cooking

Another busy day in Paradise as the Great Unwashed struggle with winter coughs-and-colds.The Unit has only been open an hour and we have already seen 15 patients between the three of us.

I call in the next patient, who has a temperature of 38,2C and is coughing and reports that he is feeling 'short-of-breath'.
Fair enough.

"Good day Sir...what can I do for you today ?"

Well...what it is...its like this...my wife cooked some sweet potatoes and fried eggs for my tea 3 days ago...and I'm been sick since then...

"Vomiting-sick ? Diarrhoea and vomiting ?"

No ...I've got this cough and a very sore throat and I feel very hot...very very hot

"Right...and you think that this is related to your wife's cooking ? Why ?"

Well...I was alright until I ate my tea...wasn't I !?!

*sigh*

"Well...honestly...I think that it is simply coincidental that you got a cough after eating your teatime meal...I'll have a look at you just now, but I do think that you've got a cold probably with an uncomplicated-chest-infection..."

Well !!

Why would you think that ??

"Well...umhh...mainly because I don't think that your wife is trying to poison you...do you ? "

(Lord knows,I can understand why she would want too though...he refers to her as if she is a chattel...and is clearly just an ungrateful sod)

Well...no...I don't think so...not really

"Right...so along with everybody else...including me ...excuse me why I cough...you have a cold"

But I've never had a cold before...ever

"Really ??"

"Julian..." I call for my trusty HCSW..."Please call the Centers for Disease Control...I think we have the bionic man here..."

*sigh*
*cough*

"By the way Sir...I notice that you told the Triage Nurse that you are a non-smoker ?"

Yes...?

"Well...I'm sitting 2 meters from you...and frankly I can smell the marijuana from here...my eyes are watering the smell is so strong..."

Jer...well...I don't smoke tobacco do I...that's what kills you...

"Okay...well I do think that you might want to smoke less...in fact...excuse me,but I just need to go to the vending machine and get myself a cookie...and some milk...and a bag of crisps...can I get you anything ?"

1 comment:

Bongi12 December 2008 at 17:59
just discovered your blog. expat??
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What I do and where I do it

Naturally...naturally... this blog is a complete work of fiction.Of course it is... None of the people (or their relatives) or any apparent colleague or indeed any event mentioned within the blog, exist, or have ever existed. Really..no..really...Honestly..trust me..*right*

If you think that you recognise yourself, -particularly if you are a clinician or an ex-girlfriend-, then you have a narcissistic personality disorder.

However if any part was true then the introduction might read something like this:-
I work as an autonomous Emergency Nurse Practitoner serving a charming English seaside town called Little-Ghetto-on-Sea, on the East coast, closer in fact to Europe than to London.
We treat a wide range of minor illness and injury , with admitting privileges to St Vulva's, the main academic hospital some 20 miles away .
It is apparently one of the UK's most densely populated city's...and fits Littlejohn's discription in the Daily Mail when he says,"most British seaside towns are run-down dole-claimant dormitories,which seem to take a perverse delight in driving people away through a combination of rip-off prices , tatty boarding houses and disgusting food and draconian parking regimes" . It often feels as if it is the setting for 'Little Britian' which most foreign readers will know is more social commentary than cutting-edge comedy.Indeed most of the male patients are typically shaven headed pierced,inked,dirty-fingered,dull eyed ,baseball-cap wearing, unemployed smokers with prodigious drinking skills. The women have a limited vocabularly, ranging from "innit" to "my (human) rights" with not much else inbetween.Invariably they have several children from different consorts (love that word!) and walk through the town talking on their cell phones and ignoring their children.There are few vegetarians and even fewer graduates.

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This site is for entertainment purposes only.

Any patient interactions or cases that are posted here are not based upon any single person ,living or dead ;or any specific event.

Conversations in quotes and remarks that appear to be quoted verbatim are not necessairly true. All patient details are changed to make identifying them impossible, far exceeding the minimum standards for de-identification of patient information.

However , occasionally , ECG strips ,photographs,or x-ray images that are of clinical interest are posted and are subject to that particular patient having given me written permission for the image to be published;and no original NHS images or materials are used,removed or uploaded from any of the hospitals in which I work.

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