Epistle from Cyprus XV - 01 July 2007
Love in a Warm Climate
Allow me to introduce Phoenicia. Phoenicia is from Greece, tall, very slim with absolutely zero conversation skills who works in a local hospital. Phoenicia found me at a weak moment when I was desperate. It was a brief affair and we were together for just 4 days and 3 hot sultry nights. It seems we were made for one another but then, cold and silent, Phoenicia moved on to some other poor sucker. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.
If the ambient daytime temperature is in the 40s only dropping to low 30s each night even a cold fish like myself ought to be prepared for trouble. If you have been running a fever for 48 hours you should not wait a further 48 hours after the start of a bout of 'wildies' before seeking medical assistance.
With a hot fever you start to find some new cold hard facts of life. Like the fact that a ceiling fan is actually a fiendish device; a cross between crack cocaine and Chinese water torture. 'Turn it on! Turn it on! I need it!' 'For crying out loud turn off that noise.'
That an air conditioning unit is actually the sinister big brother of the ceiling fan but with added bleeding sinuses and razor wire stuffed down the throat.
That cicadas are an insect created by the devil and sent directly from hell to a tree outside your window. Their 'singing' has the effect of an electrode wired directly into the brain without anaesthetic. They practice at anytime of day or night beginning with a solo and finishing with full orchestra each voice slightly syncopated to induce the maximum mind numbing pain.
Sunshine is no longer a tourist magnet but is there to sear your brain just before removing your retinas.
That a Cypriot ambulance is a small mobile glass house used to increase the body temperature to dangerous levels. As in common with all Cypriot vehicles at least one tyre skid stop is obligatory. They are guaranteed to rise your profile in your neighbourhood.
- 'Hey! Everything OK?'
- 'Yes I always travel by ambulance. You simply can not get a taxi this far out of town.'
Anyway the hospital reception was an icy 25C and mercifully brief. I am taken to a hospital side room and then I am introduced to Phoenicia. Cool, tall, exotic and silent. Within an hour of hooking up with Phoenicia I start to feel better. I start to see things more clearly. Phoenicia introduces some new friends like Cannula, Saline, Glucose, Ciprofloxican, Bioflor, Buscopan. There are so many I lose track of their names. I started to count my liquid intake but as anyone who knows me will attest after 4 litres of saline and 2 antibiotics I am anybodies.
The hospital staff extract so many specimens and samples I am left feeling like a piece of rag thrown out by a ladies sewing circle. By the way does anyone know why they put a spoon in that little sample tube? Does somebody get to taste it?
Excuse me from breaking with protocol and traditional British reserve here. I know I am only the patient here and it is not my place to ask questions. However is it really my job to check the IV tube for air bubbles that are making their way every 15 minutes into my veins? OK OK I am over-reacting and I am sorry. A male nurse assures me it takes about 20 millilitres of air to cause an embolism. I am calmed and return to bed.
Wait a minute, is that 20 millilitres in total? Do I have to sit here and count them? How big is a bubble anyway?
Here are a few tips if you ever find yourself in the same situation.
ETET. Entry to exit times for food. Initially I believed I had sub-second responses but the doctor tells me it was much longer. If I want to make the Guinness Book or Records I have to 'push the envelope'. I assure him that my envelope is already pushed completely out of shape.
The fingers on my left hand are so swollen with IV saline drip I cannot close them to make a
fist. It makes no difference as I am so weak I could not fight my way out of a wet paper bag. They are like a bunch of small white unripe bananas. I hear a universal sigh of relief as I realize I will never play the violin.
01:15AM and my IV has stopped flowing so I go to the nurses' station. She wriggles the cannula back and forward, up and down inside my vein to demonstrate how I can control the flow of saline myself. After I come down from the ceiling I decide that if it stops again it can stay stopped.
Anyone who has been there will tell you that hospitals are boring. Hours and hours of boredom. Nothing to do except work on my Homer Simpson impressions. 'Bed goes up' 'Bed goes down' 'Bed goes up' 'Bed goes down'.
For a few moments while they enter the building I wonder whether there really is a God. Then I realize that there is ... and He is mocking me.
Allow me to introduce Phoenicia. Phoenicia is from Greece, tall, very slim with absolutely zero conversation skills who works in a local hospital. Phoenicia found me at a weak moment when I was desperate. It was a brief affair and we were together for just 4 days and 3 hot sultry nights. It seems we were made for one another but then, cold and silent, Phoenicia moved on to some other poor sucker. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.
If the ambient daytime temperature is in the 40s only dropping to low 30s each night even a cold fish like myself ought to be prepared for trouble. If you have been running a fever for 48 hours you should not wait a further 48 hours after the start of a bout of 'wildies' before seeking medical assistance.
With a hot fever you start to find some new cold hard facts of life. Like the fact that a ceiling fan is actually a fiendish device; a cross between crack cocaine and Chinese water torture. 'Turn it on! Turn it on! I need it!' 'For crying out loud turn off that noise.'
That an air conditioning unit is actually the sinister big brother of the ceiling fan but with added bleeding sinuses and razor wire stuffed down the throat.
That cicadas are an insect created by the devil and sent directly from hell to a tree outside your window. Their 'singing' has the effect of an electrode wired directly into the brain without anaesthetic. They practice at anytime of day or night beginning with a solo and finishing with full orchestra each voice slightly syncopated to induce the maximum mind numbing pain.
Sunshine is no longer a tourist magnet but is there to sear your brain just before removing your retinas.
That a Cypriot ambulance is a small mobile glass house used to increase the body temperature to dangerous levels. As in common with all Cypriot vehicles at least one tyre skid stop is obligatory. They are guaranteed to rise your profile in your neighbourhood.
- 'Hey! Everything OK?'
- 'Yes I always travel by ambulance. You simply can not get a taxi this far out of town.'
Anyway the hospital reception was an icy 25C and mercifully brief. I am taken to a hospital side room and then I am introduced to Phoenicia. Cool, tall, exotic and silent. Within an hour of hooking up with Phoenicia I start to feel better. I start to see things more clearly. Phoenicia introduces some new friends like Cannula, Saline, Glucose, Ciprofloxican, Bioflor, Buscopan. There are so many I lose track of their names. I started to count my liquid intake but as anyone who knows me will attest after 4 litres of saline and 2 antibiotics I am anybodies.
The hospital staff extract so many specimens and samples I am left feeling like a piece of rag thrown out by a ladies sewing circle. By the way does anyone know why they put a spoon in that little sample tube? Does somebody get to taste it?
Excuse me from breaking with protocol and traditional British reserve here. I know I am only the patient here and it is not my place to ask questions. However is it really my job to check the IV tube for air bubbles that are making their way every 15 minutes into my veins? OK OK I am over-reacting and I am sorry. A male nurse assures me it takes about 20 millilitres of air to cause an embolism. I am calmed and return to bed.
Wait a minute, is that 20 millilitres in total? Do I have to sit here and count them? How big is a bubble anyway?
Here are a few tips if you ever find yourself in the same situation.
- Shave your entire body. I have mentioned the fact that Cypriots are hairy. It makes no difference. There are no concessions granted here when removing sticking plaster.
- Try and avoid the room opposite or adjacent to the guy who sounds like he is wearing an aqualung filled with snot.
- Try and avoid the room opposite or adjacent to the guy who has had his nurse alarm call bell removed. This was not done without good cause. To compensate he has now memorized the name of every nurse on the entire 3 shift roster. Not only that he is happy to demonstrate his new found knowledge and he will call those names incessantly every 8 seconds for the entire 3 shifts.
ETET. Entry to exit times for food. Initially I believed I had sub-second responses but the doctor tells me it was much longer. If I want to make the Guinness Book or Records I have to 'push the envelope'. I assure him that my envelope is already pushed completely out of shape.
The fingers on my left hand are so swollen with IV saline drip I cannot close them to make a
fist. It makes no difference as I am so weak I could not fight my way out of a wet paper bag. They are like a bunch of small white unripe bananas. I hear a universal sigh of relief as I realize I will never play the violin.
01:15AM and my IV has stopped flowing so I go to the nurses' station. She wriggles the cannula back and forward, up and down inside my vein to demonstrate how I can control the flow of saline myself. After I come down from the ceiling I decide that if it stops again it can stay stopped.
Anyone who has been there will tell you that hospitals are boring. Hours and hours of boredom. Nothing to do except work on my Homer Simpson impressions. 'Bed goes up' 'Bed goes down' 'Bed goes up' 'Bed goes down'.
Phoenica and me
For a few moments while they enter the building I wonder whether there really is a God. Then I realize that there is ... and He is mocking me.
posted by /s at 10:42 am
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