Under normal circumstances, Stabbie would withdraw into his shell after a jeremiad such as yesterday’s and not come out for a month or two. These are not normal circumstances. London Stabbie feels that he is justified in writing only one day after his epic posting in order to ensure that just deserts are meted out quickly.
As he mentioned yesterday, London Stabbie has a gammy foot. Part of his therapy is to receive intravenous antibiotics every day. Yesterday the District Nurse, who is called a “Visiting Nurse” in the United States, called on London Stabbie to administer his antibiotics and to renew the dressing on his foot. The nurse who showed up was quite jolly, and very nice, and between Stabbie and the nurse the antibiotics were administered and the dressing renewed. During the visit, Stabbie mentioned that he had an appointment at the Diabetic Foot Clinic today (ie, Tuesday 10th August). He asked her to pass the message along to the managing nurse who scheduled visits, and she said she would. Remember this last sentence while Stabbie continues with his story.
So, this morning LS toddled along to the hospital well ahead of the appointment time (11:30), and sat in the waiting area with about 15 other people. If it’s Tuesday in the Diabetic Foot Clinic it must be Vascular Day! So at around 12:30pm Stabbie’s name was called and he was put in a side office on a chair to await the podiatrist and then the Vascular Surgeon. A delightful Jamaican woman was put in the next chair and we had a lovely conversation, and her good news was quite good: the wound where her right little toe had been has healed, and she can be discharged from constant antibiotics and dressings. Let no one say that London Stabbie has nothing good to say about anyone! They had a right old good time chatting away while the podiatrists were inundated in the next room and Stabbie would be honoured to share a room in the clinic with her at any time.
At around 12:50 pm the podiatrist arrived, removed the previous dressings, and covered them with gauze saying, “the surgeons are in the next room; they’ll be right here.” Like h*ll, they would! The Jamaican lady and Stabbie continued chatting for another 40 minutes, until the surgeon arrived, pronounced her in good shape, only needing her two stitches removed, and looked at Stabbie’s ulcer, which had been produced through therapy to heal another ulcer. The surgeon has put Stabbie on the list for a surgical debridement which will be day surgery. He spent two minutes with LS (two hours + after LS had arrived) and swept out with his retinue.
Now, you may recall the LS needs to have intravenous antibiotics (Teicoplanin) every day, and he had called off the District Nurse. So the lovely nurse at the Foot Clinic supplies that service when he visits for his foot. Aside from the fact that she forgot that LS was in the other examination room, she did a perfect job of removing the dressing over LS’s PICC line, only taking a few hairs with it down to the roots, and replacing it with a new dressing. When the line jammed a bit, she unclogged it with great aplomb. Stabbie likes her very much and tries to make her laugh very hard every time he visits—and he succeeded in that effort today, in spades. She took the prescription for LS’s next stash of antibiotics at 2:25 pm, and London Stabbie was ready to pick it up at around 3:20 pm.
When LS got to the pharmacy, there was a surfeit of children in there. So LS’s first targets for today are the parents of those children, who allowed their little darlings to shout and scream in a way eerily similar to steam whistles, run around the rather small pharmacy waiting area, and generally raise havoc. The little darlings were too young to know how to behave, so the task of teaching them how falls to their parents. Mum and Dad have signally failed at that, so when the children have grown and are out of Mum and Dad’s hands, someone is going to be visiting the happy parents to ensure that they realise the error of their ways.
London Stabbie then went up to the window. The pharmacy bears an eerie resemblance to a doughnut shop, with a “Now serving” number sign above the counter. This sign was showing “091”, but the number on London Stabbie’s ticket was 518. This was quite illogical, so LS went to the desk at 3:25 pm and enquired. The person behind the counter went to check, and said, “It’ll be about five minutes. We’ll call you when it’s ready.”
At 4:45 pm, LS had been sitting for an hour and 10 minutes, with no “518” clarion call from the counter. One of the two nurses from the clinic came in for something else, and Stabbie called out to her and asked whether she’d find out what had happened and when his medicine would be ready.
Of course, all of London Stabbie’s Dear Readers are way ahead of me. The package for “518” had been sitting there, un-called-out, for quite a while. But LS, being a patient, kind, real Londoner who enquires once and then follows the instructions given did not go to the counter a second time. So the counter clerk is the next person who will feel the blade of Stabbie’s wrath. It is possible that, instead of naked steel, Stabbie will prefer to give her a taste of her own medicine, and frost a cake with the loveliest chocolate Ex-Lax imaginable. This is especially apt given that the clerk insisted that she had called it out. Stabbie informed her that his hearing was quite good and that he had not budged from the waiting room the entire time. She shrugged and said, “The ‘Now Serving’ display does not go up to ‘518’.” as if that would excuse her from Stabbie’s wrath. In fact, the person who decided that numbers that are too big to display on the board should be given out to people picking up medications probably deserves more opprobrium than the clerk, who was merely stupid. So after the clerk has her slice of cake, Stabbie thinks that the rest of the cake goes to Number Planning Person, then all the toilets in the building will be locked and marked “Closed for Cleaning; open at 26:00 hours”.
You may think that this is enough malice behindthought for London Stabbie for one day, but no! There’s more. He was lucky to get on the bus and find that all the Priority Seats were filled, but discover that a young woman only had to be asked once before she slid out of her seat to allow London Stabbie, in his cast, to sit down.
When London Stabbie reached Chez Stabbie, he opened the door and found a note. The District Nurse had called and not found him in, and he should call 020 xxxx xxxx in order to reschedule the appointment for his antibiotic. If you have been keeping score, LS asked the nurse who came on Monday to inform the head nurse that no nurse would be required on Tuesday as LS would be attending the hospital. It seems that yesterday’s nurse had failed to pass along the message. Two phone messages were on LS’s phone asking him, in politest terms, where the hell he was so that he could get his antibiotic. So London Stabbie has the greatest respect for the nursing profession, but yesterday’s nurse ranks along with the nurse who tried to take his blood pressure from his forearm and the one who years ago didn’t know how to take blood pressure and took a reading well above anything LS had ever had. She didn’t pass along the message so that a trip and two phone calls were wasted.
London Stabbie would not want to deprive the nursing profession of any nurse except for a medical cause. Two of his great-aunts were nurses and he admired their profession and talents. But he feels that there is a shortage of communication in the NHS that could, in certain circumstances, lead to serious illness or an unscheduled visit to the Choir Celestial to audition for tenor. So the nurse who did not pass along the message, or the nurse who took no notice of the one who did pass along the message, gets a “Get Away from London Stabbie” card this time. The card carries a warning, though: “This is a one-use card: it cannot be sterilised and used for any other patient foul-up situation than the one to which it is now applied. This means you!” Beware, and communicate effectively!
As London Stabbie missed his lunch through all the waiting, he has informed his partner that the two of them are dining out tonight. This may put Stabbie on his partner’s hit list but no matter!
London Stabbie realises that the humour may wear thin, but believe me, his vast sense of humour and great tolerance and even acceptance of the lack of intelligence and common sense among his fellow Londoners are the only things between him and mass mayhem in the Capital, after which the collective IQ has a chance of rising to new heights and everyone will wait for the green man at the Zebra (pronounced ZEBB-rah) crossing rather than jaywalk and get picked off by a lorry.
And now, the usual Disclaimers!
London Stabbie welcomes submissions for consideration for inclusion on Stabbie’s little list. Direct messages to the owner of this blog, who has kindly agreed to forward them to Stabbie, will be promptly dealt with.
Disclaimers: This blog is a satire, and no animals or thoughtless nincompoops were harmed during its writing, nor will any harm come to them in the future, except through the shame and embarrassment of discovering their own asshattery. Your mileage may vary. Reading of London Stabbie, we hope, will induce laughter but is not intended to incapacitate you. Check with your doctor to see if London Stabbie is right for you. Do not read London Stabbie while driving or using heavy machinery. If you recognise yourself in this column we recommend that you go to confession in your nearest Roman Catholic church and do your penance. Sister Mary Ignatius knows where you live.
