God bless the NHS Part deux

[simsqu]

So I’m at Moorfields for my Pre-Op assessment checks before they book me in for the cateract operation. Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, BMI etc all done relatively quickly, then Biometry, which is basically the ocular equivalent of having my inside leg measured for a new set of jodhpurs.

They sit me in a chair, and a nurse crouches in front of me with her hands cupped ready. The doc stands behind me, grabs a baseball bat, shouts “INCOMIIIIIINGGGG” and whacks the back of my head. My eyeball shoots out across the room and the nurse leaps up and to the right, catching it deftly in an outstretched baseball mitt, just before it hits the fan, tosses it to the doc, who does a quick measurement with compasses and a tape measure before chucking it back to the nurse, who straddles me, Christine Keeler style, roughly grabs the back of my neck, yanks my head up, steadies my head between her ample bosom, and slams the eyeball back in the socket.

OK, OK, heads up, I MAY have exaggerated a little for comedic effect, but to be honest that might have been preferable. I don’t think the nurse had ever used the eyeball measuring machine before. I don’t think she had ever SEEN one before. Not entirely sure she had been in a hospital before, trained as a nurse, or even flipped burgers.

For a start, she couldn’t even figure out how to enter my name into the computer.

Nurse (reading off a form) Just entering your name: sIMSUQ…oooh it’s on capitals. Wait a minute…how do I,,,hmmm

Simsqu (leaning over) I think you need to hit the capslock key…

Nurse Please sit back Sir, let me get a doctor. Doctor! It’s typing capitals…

Passing Doctor I think you need to hit the capslock key…

Nurse Ah ok, S…i…m…s…u…q…

Simsqu No it’s s…q…u

Nurse s…u…q..

Simsqu No no, q u

Etc etc for some time

Nurse now Date of Birth

Simsqu It's 23 4 55

Nurse Please sir, I have to take it off this form.. 22 4 95

Simsqu No it’s…

FINALLY she gets the right info in

Nurse (squaring up her papers and facing me) Can you please confirm you name and date of birth

Simsqu Say what!!!??? I just had to correct everything you typed in!!

Nurse (giving me the Gamma-ray blast look) We must double check all details

So after confirming that I am indeed the person I had just told her I was, I square up to the eyeball measuring machine.

Nurse Now look straight ahead, eye wide, don’t blink don’t blink don’t blink…

So I’m there doing a good impression of an H E Bateman cartoon, and my eye is beginning to dry out

Nurse Don’t blink don’t blink or we’ll have to start again

Arid winds from the Chilean Atacama Desert scour the surface of my eyeball…

Nurse don’t blink!

Huge desiccated cracks appear on the surface of my eyeball, which become instantly clogged with the parched bleached sands of the Gobi Desert, as tumbleweeds gather in the corner of my hollowed-out husk of an eyesocket...

Nurse Oh wait. I need to press the start button…

Anyway

I’m now booked in for April 15th, and I have to take a COVID test and self-isolate from April 12th, which, I believe, is the first day I could have gone out to an agreeable pavement café for a coffee. & croissant.

[stevensfo]

Is it a female thing? My wife has a friggin' PhD in Neurobiology, started using computers before me, yet still has problems with things that a 10 year old could work out!

Re. nurses, I had a really bad accident in my twenties, spent two weeks in hospital and left with two pieces of moulded plaster around my upper and lower left leg, connected with metal joints to stop me bending my knee too far, but removable at night. Back after a month or so for an X-ray to check state of knee. Walk in, huge bloody thing on left leg, but someone had mistakenly written r-leg on paper.

Despite my protests and the evidence of their own eyes, they insisted on X-raying the wrong leg. Then one person with a brain cell twigged that I may have a point, ran off and came back to confirm that I was right. Did they seriously think that I was wore this bloody great contraption on my left leg for a joke?? I finally saw a report that stated that somehow 'patient managed to get the other leg x-rayed as well'. So all my fault!

Steve

PS In a similar situation, when her back is turned, press Ctrl + Alt+ one of the arrows. Walk away and wait for the fun to start!

[UncleEbenezer]

They sit me in a chair, and a nurse crouches in front of me with her hands cupped ready.

Nurse Windsor or Matron Jacques?

Is it a female thing? My wife has a friggin' PhD in Neurobiology, started using computers before me, yet still has problems with things that a 10 year old could work out!

Don't we all have problems with things a ten-year-old could work out?

[servodude]

They sit me in a chair, and a nurse crouches in front of me with her hands cupped ready.

Nurse Windsor or Matron Jacques?

I was thinking more of Sir Sean Connery's "From here?" as delivered in "Never Say Never Again"

[BobbyD]

So I’m at Moorfields for my Pre-Op assessment checks before they book me in for the cateract operation. Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, BMI etc all done relatively quickly, then Biometry, which is basically the ocular equivalent of having my inside leg measured for a new set of jodhpurs.

They sit me in a chair, and a nurse crouches in front of me with her hands cupped ready. The doc stands behind me, grabs a baseball bat, shouts “INCOMIIIIIINGGGG” and whacks the back of my head. My eyeball shoots out across the room and the nurse leaps up and to the right, catching it deftly in an outstretched baseball mitt, just before it hits the fan, tosses it to the doc, who does a quick measurement with compasses and a tape measure before chucking it back to the nurse, who straddles me, Christine Keeler style, roughly grabs the back of my neck, yanks my head up, steadies my head between her ample bosom, and slams the eyeball back in the socket.

OK, OK, heads up, I MAY have exaggerated a little for comedic effect, but to be honest that might have been preferable. I don’t think the nurse had ever used the eyeball measuring machine before. I don’t think she had ever SEEN one before. Not entirely sure she had been in a hospital before, trained as a nurse, or even flipped burgers.

For a start, she couldn’t even figure out how to enter my name into the computer.

Nurse (reading off a form) Just entering your name: sIMSUQ…oooh it’s on capitals. Wait a minute…how do I,,,hmmm

Simsqu (leaning over) I think you need to hit the capslock key…

Nurse Please sit back Sir, let me get a doctor. Doctor! It’s typing capitals…

Passing Doctor I think you need to hit the capslock key…

Nurse Ah ok, S…i…m…s…u…q…

Simsqu No it’s s…q…u

Nurse s…u…q..

Simsqu No no, q u

Etc etc for some time

Nurse now Date of Birth

Simsqu It's 23 4 55

Nurse Please sir, I have to take it off this form.. 22 4 95

Simsqu No it’s…

FINALLY she gets the right info in

Nurse (squaring up her papers and facing me) Can you please confirm you name and date of birth

Simsqu Say what!!!??? I just had to correct everything you typed in!!

Nurse (giving me the Gamma-ray blast look) We must double check all details

So after confirming that I am indeed the person I had just told her I was, I square up to the eyeball measuring machine.

Nurse Now look straight ahead, eye wide, don’t blink don’t blink don’t blink…

So I’m there doing a good impression of an H E Bateman cartoon, and my eye is beginning to dry out

Nurse Don’t blink don’t blink or we’ll have to start again

Arid winds from the Chilean Atacama Desert scour the surface of my eyeball…

Nurse don’t blink!

Huge desiccated cracks appear on the surface of my eyeball, which become instantly clogged with the parched bleached sands of the Gobi Desert, as tumbleweeds gather in the corner of my hollowed-out husk of an eyesocket...

Nurse Oh wait. I need to press the start button…

Anyway

I’m now booked in for April 15th, and I have to take a COVID test and self-isolate from April 12th, which, I believe, is the first day I could have gone out to an agreeable pavement café for a coffee. & croissant.

Should have gone to Boots...