Monday 30 April 2012

Its saturday morning in Little Britain...its not a wedding in Cana !




The patient was a young man working for a chain store as a general dogsbody...unpacking goods, repacking goods, unloading goods...a general schlepper...
...but a nice enough fellow, polite and keen to return to work after a colleague had inadvertently dropped a pallet load of goods  onto his foot from about 1m...
...he had been wearing trainers...
...was limping...
...and his foot was swollen and bruised and deformed with bony pain to most of the meta-tarsals.

His foot looked painful...
...and he was cold and wet because he had been working outside in the loading bay in the rain.
I decided to x-ray his foot.

In a moment of weakness , I handed him a towel to dry his hair.

"Have you taken any analgesia? Any tablets for the pain?"

No mate...I didn't have nuffink at work...

"Okay...would you like some pain killers?"

Yes please...

"Okay...do you have any medical problems?"

No...

"Do you take any medicines on a daily basis for any reason, medical or otherwise?"

No...

"So you don't take any medicines ever?"

No...

"Are you allergic to any medicines...to anything at all?"

No...

"Good...well I'm just going to get you some Kapake tablets...its a nice mix of paracetamol and codeine and will kick in quite quickly...irrespective of what you've done to your foot, we need to start to get the pain under control as quickly as we can...okay?"

Thanks...

I went to the pharmacy, popped two Kapake tablets into a little plastic medicine cup (that for all the world looks like a shot-glass) ( and which they frequently become at the Christmas party) and returned to my office.

I placed the medicine cup onto the tablet next to his right hand.
I pointed at the medicine cup..."Okay bud...those are the pain killers...I'm just going to you some water..."

I reached into the cupboard above my desk, picked out a clean disposable plastic cup , and turned and walked the two steps to my sink...
...I was standing directly beside him....
...he got splashed with some water in fact...
...as I  filled the cup up with cold water.

I handed him the plastic cup...."Okay...pop those pain killers down and lets get you off to x-ray...." 

He reached out, took the cup and drank the cold water in one continuous swallow.

He sighed, wiped his lips on his shirt sleeve and handed me the cup back.
He smiled at me and settled back on his chair, gingerly adjusting his foot.

"What.About.The.Pain.Killers...why didn't you take the pain killers?"

I did....I drank the whole cup....

"Good grief...the tablets on the table in the pot are the pain killers...just like I told you one minute ago...that was water in the cup to help you swallow them..."

Water....I thought that was the pain medicine...?

"Why would it be the pain medicine...you saw me go to the sink, open the tap, and fill the cup with water...."

Oh....I thought it was fancy water...for the pain....

His foot was broken ...I could fix that.
There was nothing I could do for his lack of common sense except suggest he have a vasectomy.


1 comment:

  1. Yikes. Unbelievable to me that these people are permitted to breed indiscriminately. Help us...

    ReplyDelete