Monday - must be physio. Hanging around waiting for a non emergency ambulance is strangely stressful - can't start anything, nervous about going to the toilet, difficult to relax... They came eventually around 9.15 - knocking on the door having used the service buzzer to get into the stair. Two women this time - one in the fluoro kit, the other in a hefty fleece.
"Where's your coat? Its raining out" the tall one said bossily. Surprised and somewhat submissively I pointed it out. She put it on me. Personally I thought it was too warm for a coat and I would only overheat in the overheated ambulance (I did). But you don't argue with the driver. "Have you got your keys?" "In my bag - you can check if you like.." She did! Rustled through my bag and gave it a good shake. I guess you can't be too careful - you must be sick of breaking into people's houses I muttered with what I hoped to be the correct degree of empathy. Its not that I'm not grateful - I am - very - its just very odd to be treated as if I my brain isn't working properly...
I was accompanied down the stairs. No chance of anything untoward happening. Into the ambulance to find my two fellow travellers. The ambulance had already had one aborted collection - no-one answered the door. Off to the Eye Pavilion to drop off the first man. The other bloke, with diabetes, was a stonemason. I asked him if he was retired. He looked at my strangely (later it turned out he was only two years older than me - I swear it was his beard that caused the confusion - but was I simply falling into the trap that everyone on patient transport is 'old'?)
Gave us a not so potted history of all the buildings he had worked on on the way through Newington. The mad colonel with the waxed moustache who had a library full of first editions but never read: 'books are for homosexuals' he had apparently shouted... The wealthy Jewish businessman with the pig farm... The stonemason had also been knocked off his bike in the past - by a bus. And the driver had given him gip. There's a bit of a pattern evolving here...
My physio session was not as interesting as the trip. A couple of new instructions. Take the moonboot off at rest - and put more weight through my right toes. Back in the ambulance I asked for the heating to be turned down and I took my coat off. We left the stonemason behind - hadn't seen his consultant in time. It wasn't the same without him....
"Where's your coat? Its raining out" the tall one said bossily. Surprised and somewhat submissively I pointed it out. She put it on me. Personally I thought it was too warm for a coat and I would only overheat in the overheated ambulance (I did). But you don't argue with the driver. "Have you got your keys?" "In my bag - you can check if you like.." She did! Rustled through my bag and gave it a good shake. I guess you can't be too careful - you must be sick of breaking into people's houses I muttered with what I hoped to be the correct degree of empathy. Its not that I'm not grateful - I am - very - its just very odd to be treated as if I my brain isn't working properly...
I was accompanied down the stairs. No chance of anything untoward happening. Into the ambulance to find my two fellow travellers. The ambulance had already had one aborted collection - no-one answered the door. Off to the Eye Pavilion to drop off the first man. The other bloke, with diabetes, was a stonemason. I asked him if he was retired. He looked at my strangely (later it turned out he was only two years older than me - I swear it was his beard that caused the confusion - but was I simply falling into the trap that everyone on patient transport is 'old'?)
Gave us a not so potted history of all the buildings he had worked on on the way through Newington. The mad colonel with the waxed moustache who had a library full of first editions but never read: 'books are for homosexuals' he had apparently shouted... The wealthy Jewish businessman with the pig farm... The stonemason had also been knocked off his bike in the past - by a bus. And the driver had given him gip. There's a bit of a pattern evolving here...
My physio session was not as interesting as the trip. A couple of new instructions. Take the moonboot off at rest - and put more weight through my right toes. Back in the ambulance I asked for the heating to be turned down and I took my coat off. We left the stonemason behind - hadn't seen his consultant in time. It wasn't the same without him....
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