Prescription for Disaster

Friday 1 August 2014

These cookies taste like hatred


“You expect me to stir my coffee with a fork? A FORK?!?!? The gross incompetence of this hospital is staggering. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.”

I think I need to go back to ward reception to thank them – I had asked them for some entertaining ward-mates this morning and wowsers did they ever deliver!

The irate, horrible old man is back – across the room but still very, very audible. I can hear him berating a doctor again from here, and so badly want to go ask him to “yell a little louder please, I need a good blog post for today”, just to watch him turn purple. He just spent 20 minutes yelling at a group of nurses at their desk who were only vaguely paying attention to him – something about the gall of the hospital to make him wait.

We are on the infusion ward. We’re ALL waiting – just chill out like the rest of us.

They finally got rid of him as he stormed back over to his chair, only to come flying back at them in a rage over the lack of plastic spoons available at the coffee cart. A firm Irish nurse urged him back to his spot like a lion tamer wielding a wooden chair and a whip (back you crazy bastard, back!) and he managed to sit still for a while, harrumphing loudly toward anyone that came within his sights.


I’d gone down to the Sarc clinic this morning, and it was decided that in addition to my regular Infliximab infusion today I would need another steroid infusion as well (fun), so I needed to wait for a doctor to arrive on the ward to check me out and give them the all clear before any infusions could start. Not a problem, I assured the nurses as they came to apologize for the wait, I’m here all day anyway.

My stomach just gave a loud rumble – it’s already noon and the noodle bar of satay awesomeness is open downstairs. I can’t go now and risk missing the doctor when they arrive, but I was in the clinic when the lunch orders went around. Come on doctor. Come on. The noodle bar closes in an hour, if I miss out on that the only vegetarian option left is mushy peas and unidentifiable quiche of some sort. Come on doctor! I assure the nurses again with a smile that I’m happy to wait – telling them so as my eyes slowly drag to the left, watching the other patients’ lunches arrive. The room is filled with the smell of warm potato, oil from fish and chips and the sweet aroma of warm custard. Spoons and forks are clinking against plates and I’m salivating so hard the back of my jaw is burning.


Ten minutes later and I was still waiting. The other patients had nearly finished their lunches. Hunger pains were stabbing my already aching chemo-tummy. I refusd to eat the apple I brought prematurely – that was for later and my stomach was expecting satay noodles – I wasn’t going to risk disappointing it. I know the type of stuff it pulls when angry with me. Where was that doctor! Let’s get a move on here!

20 minutes later and I was still waiting. I’m normally quite happy to do so, but this noodle situation was getting dire. It was closing in less than half an hour – didn’t people realize this? Another nurse came by, noticing that I didn’t have a lunch in front of me and encouraging me to order something before it was too late. So I did – mushy peas and some kind of quiche thing. It was the only vegetarian thing on the menu and I didn’t actually plan on eating it anyway. Hurry up doctor!
It had been 30 minutes, time was cutting it close and there was a flurry of movement across the room – The Doctor had arrived! Drugs and bodily fluid samples were now flowing like champagne at a wedding. Patients sat up a little straighter and the nurses leapt into action. The doctor was making her rounds through our ward. She made eye contact with me from across the room – she was coming to me next. Next! I was next! Two minutes with her and I can get on with my life – dropping off my prescriptions at the pharmacy, arranging my next session AND BOOKING IT TO THAT NOODLE BAR FOR LUNCH before the infusions started.


She finished with patient 0 over there and started walking toward me. I sat up a little straighter and smiled – a welcoming ‘get to me so I can go’ kind of smile. A ‘don’t worry, I’ll be an easy patient’ kind of smile. She was nearly on my side of the room when WHAMMO! That irate old man came out of NOWHERE and got her, pulling her over to his chair zone with an angry rant and threats of formal complaints.

WHAT?!? Interference!!! INTERFERENCE!!! Where’s the ref!?!?!


And then he lit into her about the nursing staff’s general incompetence. The food. His cannula site. His treatment. The temperature inside the hospital.  The lack of spoons for coffee.
I was screwed, and my luke-warm lunch of mushy peas and unidentifiable quiche tasted of hatred and retribution.

Well played you ornery, irate old bastard. Well played.

I guess sometimes the best revenge happens when we don’t even know we’ve gotten even. Perhaps this is what I get for heckling an old man, whether or not he deserved it at the time. Regardless, I have a new nemesis.

Candace 1                   Irate Old Man 1

Game on.



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