Bringing out the worst in me…

26 Replies

It’s 7.57. On a normal day I would just be lacing my shoes up, ready to take Julia to work. But today isn’t a normal day. I was at hospital for 6.55, securing one of the few remaining parking spaces. Either there are an awful lot of visitors outside opening hours or the staff are using the visitor spaces. I think you know where my money would go if I were a betting man.

I had a twenty minute wait at Phlebotomy because they needed a chat about gloves and the faults with the label printing software. During this time I also noticed that although we have “social distancing” in p[lace for chairs in the waiting room, the chair I selected was not socially distanced from the store cupboard.

When one member of staff used it, we were around 3 feet apart. When four members of staff needed it at the same time, three of them with trollies, I became part of a milling crowd of phlebotomists. I’m going to take a guess here, but my conclusion is that the person who drew up the seating plan had never been to outpatients.

I could go on to offer some suggestions for improvements, and discuss management and leader ship, but I’m eating my breakfast with one hand and typing with the other, thinking is probably a step too far. Anyway, next door’s builders are using power tools and it’s difficult to concentrate.  There’s just something about getting the simple stuff wrong that really brings out the worst in me.

8.26 now. I’ve blogged, I’ve breakfasted and I’ve just checked the work eBay sales. It’s been a quiet week. I can’t see the day being distinguished by urgency and hard work.

Next time I post I will be fully vaccinated. It’s an all action day – blood test in the right arm this morning, vaccination in the left this afternoon. How’s that for advance planning? Two arms, two needles. I’m glad I don’t have a third needle to accommodate, as it would be a tricky choice.

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

 

26 thoughts on “Bringing out the worst in me…”

  2. ladyinredagain

    I think stabbing is a good description. Why do they say small scratch. It isn’t s scratch. I had my second jab a couple of weeks ago. No effects other than a sore arm for a couple of days. I had a blood test a couple of weeks ago. Now I need another next week. Not good for someone with a needle phobia.
    The first blood test showed that I’m very anaemic. The second one is for the hospital before they will see me about the anaemia. Surely the more blood they take the weaker I will get.

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    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      Hospitals do that. Don’t start me on this subject, I can ramble on for hours…

      I was recently told, when I asked, that they used to say “prick” but the word changed meaning. I certainly remember “just a little prick with a needle” being part of a seaside postcard joke in the 1970s.

      I find it helps to tell myself that needles don’t hurt (they don’t – the fear is worse than the pain.) I also imagine myself in a forest glade as sunlight streams through young green leaves and Clannad plays in the background – that helps.

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      1. tootlepedal

        Storage is the big problem. Councils need to come up with a lot more secure bike parking if they want people to use them.

      2. quercuscommunity Post author

        They had secure bike parking at the leisure centre where Julia used to work. Someone managed to lock his bike in and lose the key in the spave of a few yards and local ruffians removed part of the roof to get at bikes. They are just too expensive to risk these days.

      4. quercuscommunity Post author

        There are so many people around who show great ingenuity in stealing stuff. If they applied themselves to something worthwhile they could be top men in their field.

      5. tootlepedal

        As a policeman once pointed out to me when I said roughly that to him, these are people who are working hard at their jobs and are top men in their field already. They are not criminals by default but by choice.

      6. quercuscommunity Post author

        Yes. As we all tend to follow the same work as family members, I suppose that is true. I am part of a line of farm labourers going back into the seventeenth century, and look what I did. 🙂

  4. Laurie Graves

    I do hope all the staff is fully vaccinated. Good chance of it? Anyway, it’s great you’ll be getting your second jab soon. Clif and I got ours a couple of days ago, and the reactions have been mild—fatigue, muzziness, slight headache. Nothing we can’t handle. Very exciting to think we will be able to have friends over to sit around our dining room table in a couple of weeks. For over a year, this simple pleasure was one we couldn’t have.

    Reply ↓
    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      You can’t be 100% sure with the staff – they only have an 80% flu vaccine take-up most years… The second jab went well, Three hours in and apart from a few seconds of soreness when I knocked my upper arm – no problems…

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  5. Helen

    Thank goodness you didn’t need as many injections as my daughter! (It’s okay – just teenage booster jabs, but to get 5 in one day….. At least, it saved someone on petrol.)

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    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      Five is inhumane. One of my kids said, when I asked about his trip to the doctor “She stabbed me in the arm!” I then asked what happened next, expecting sweets or something similar. “Then she stabbed me in the other arm!”

      Reply ↓

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