On Call : Dr. Daisy Dashwood writes........

"You know, I always seem to luck out and get the Consultant who's on holiday," mused Gordon. "First week, it was Dr. Flett at that Risedronate Brainstorming Session, then I went over to the Park Side and he left me halfway through the honeymoon period. I keep trying to connect with Dr. Berkley, but I can't seem to ditch my abandonment issues and seal the bond."

"Tell me about it!" said Chuck. "Being the only SHO and having absolutely no cover," (the 4 JHOs sat up indignantly, possibly the most exercise they would do that day). "I sometimes feel that it's a miracle that I make it through to 5pm without having slit any part of my pulsatile anatomy."

"And now Dr. Flett's on leave," said Gordon. "I'm left minding all his crumbly old Grannies in the Geriatric Ward, who are becoming progressively more Parkinsonian or demented by the day. Sometimes both."

You get kinda stuck in a rut when you have to manage the Ward Round on your own. When your Consultant goes away, they try to slim down the number of patients on their list so that you're left with the chronic attenders and the Ward Round deteriorates into an endless round of social visits and demented abuse.

"Let's see," said Chuck. "You're going to feel a bit more constipated today, I'm going to give you some laxatives, you'll have a crap and feel better tomorrow. Oh how I love my worthwhile job."

Chuck can sometimes be more sarcastic than Amos. But it keeps us on our toes. Chuck likes to refer to it as his 'caustic wit'. Amos just refers to him as 'that caustic twit'. The rest of us maintain a dignified silence and think deep thoughts. After all, they do write our references.

"Ready for the weekend?" asked Paddy. Everybody apart from Janey and Amos, who were on at the weekend, punched the air in collective acquiescence. Because we have 4 JHOs and 6 SHOs, Amos is included in the JHO rota.

"If there's a night to get sick, tonight's that night," said Chuck. "There's an SHO and A JHO who's actually a Reg."

"Yes, I feel I have long since moved on from being a JHO," said Amos superciliously. "Ah, I remember the first time I took blood as if it were yesterday."

As Registrars don't tend to do menial tasks such as taking blood any more, yesterday probably didn't even come close to the last time Amos had seen a needle.

"It was on a blind man and I stuck the needle in and rooted around for a while," recalled Amos. "Almost immediately, the arm started to balloon up. I was terrified that I had done some serious damage to the guy. Thank God he couldn't see what I was doing! I was totally paranoid that I would be thrown out of Medical School."

"What did you do?" asked Sally, all but taking notes for the next time that this happened to her.

"Pressed on it really hard," Amos magnanimously. "And didn't tell anyone. Then when the Ward Round came along the next time, I just looked around and pretended I didn't know anything about it. I'm telling you, blind patients - it's the way forward!"

******************************

"Have you seen the old Granny on Ward 12?" asked John.

"Which one?" asked Jade. "There are 24."

"The one with the goatee beard," said John.

"Grannies don't have goatee beards!" I said in disbelief.

"She does!" argued John. "If you look at her chin, she has a grey goatee beard! It's really cool. Except for the fact that she's female. And a Granny. And Grannies aren't supposed to have beards."

"Speaking of haircare problems," chipped in Janey, "have you seen the Admissions Board?"

We all crowded round. After all, it had to be more exciting than the blood results.

"Charles Carter," read Amos. Amos always assumed the parental role in these situations. We look upon him as a second father, sometimes even a mother. "Emergency admission, for a very badly-needed haircut."

"Oh yes!" said Janey. "Charles is in desperate need of a haircut."

"That is so not fair!" protested Charles. "It is a fantastically, beautifully, well-cared for mop. Unfortunately, it just looks a state. I tell you, I have perfected BedHead."

"Take him to A and E!" said Amos, looking a trifle wild about the eyes.

"Oh, they won't admit him!" scoffed Janey dismissively. "Quick, somebody call the surgeons!"

"They'll only take him once the medics have clerked him in," I said. "Psychiatry?"

"Amos!" interrupted Poppy. "Stop teasing Sally!"

Amos was perched on the desk with one of the freebie drug rep. laser pointers and was tormenting the Medical Students.

"Make it stop, please, somebody make it stop!" moaned Sally, scurrying frantically about the floor, in a futile attempt to evade the menacing red dot.

"Way to go Amos!" yelled Edward, punching the air in a gesture of victory.

We all turned and surveyed Edward in shock. Edward himself looked a little surprised and quickly turned a becoming shade of rose.

"My word!" he muttered, swiftly exiting the room.

"You know, I'm a trifle worried about Edward," said Gordon. "He's evidently not himself. Look, even I'm sounding more like Edward than Edward does."

"You know," I said thoughtfully. "I thought I saw him out the other night."

I thought back to the event. I had been walking back from the off-licence when I had come upon a figure, clad in black bomber jacket, Kappa shellsuit and Nike cap, aiming random punches at a wall.

"C'mon, I'll effing have you!" snarled the figure, two-stepping daintily and finally getting the better of a particularly nasty piece of shrubbery.

Even with the neddish getup, the silhouette had a distinctly aristocratic bearing.

"You know, I think he might be having a mid-life crisis," I said to the group.

"No!" they said in unison. Sometimes I feel we hang out together too much.

"He has been working awfully hard on the wards," pointed out Mary loyally.

"You'd know," I muttered.

"Pardon?" she said archly.

"Extra-curricular ward work is always commendable, Mary," I said airily.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she said, blushing.

I smiled enigmatically and executed a neat pirouette, twirling romantically with an imaginary dance partner. John, actually. But no-one else needed to know that.

"Don't you dare spread any rumours, Daisy Dashwood!" she hissed menacingly.

"Would I?" I said saintfully, making up my mind to put it through the hospital grapevine ASAP.

*************************************

"What's the lowdown on the next admission?" I said, bouncing down next to Gordon and Amos.

"An elderly lady with oesophageal carcinoma," answered Amos, writing out the chit for a chest X-ray. "Gross stridor."

"Why?" I asked. This is why I am glad I am a JHO. I still have the right to ask why and even if I don't, they have the right to berate me and hurl abuse at me. It all works out to a common purpose in the end. We know where we fit in the great circle of life. I applied myself to the more pressing question of the great circle of stridor.

"She keeps on out-performing on each admission," sighed Amos, shaking his head.

"Chronic attender?" asked Gordon. He knew all about them.

"Bed blocker!" snorted Amos. "I keep on telling her not to eat solid food but doesn't she pay the darndest bit of attention? You just know she's going to go and eat a lamb chop when you let her out. Honestly, she sounds like Darth Vader. It's like we're setting up for 'Star Wars' in Resus 1. We already have that nurse that looks like Yoda - all we need is Dr. Berkeley to go a bit beserk with the rigid siggies and then we might as well call up Speilberg".

"I don't know," mused Gordon. "I don't think her cognitive function's off. She drew some pretty damn good intersecting pentagons on her MMSE."

"I have done SO many MMSEs this week!" said Amos emphatically. "Bloody overdoses. And it's not like they even take enough to do themselves any damage. They do my mental state more harm than theirs! 10 paracetamol!" he snorted. "It's not even an overdose, it's just a good sleep."

*********************************

I was on the 'phone to my father.

"Daisy, why are there so many pictures of you around the House?" he demanded.

"Er, so as you don't forget me?" I supplied.

"We could hardly forget you, Daisy," he answered sarcastically. "There are pictures of you looking out at us from every wall."

"And anyway, we can't ever forget you!" chimed in Auntie Agnes. "You've left an idelible mark on this family."

"You have me on speakerphone?" I said incredulously.

"Speakerphone, schmeakerphone!" scoffed my father.

"Think yourself lucky," reminded Auntie Agnes. "Remember what happened to poor Crystal. All I have of her is that photo she appliqued in pasta when she was 9."

"You don't have a more recent photo of me?" asked Crystal, appalled. Not that it probably mattered to her. She was at that tender age of 16 where men mattered more than Highers and any comment geared towards sympathy was probably geared towards impressing the person on the other end of her mobile.

********************************

"I see why they call it the Doctors' Mess," said John, standing in the middle of the room and surveying the motley arrangement of 10 year-old BNFs, 'Hospital Doctors' ("But are they addressed to any of you guys in person?!" said Amos triumphantly) and BMJs of a questionable vintage. Generations of flies had probably lived and died in there.

"It is a bit of a tip," I agreed, surrupticiously leaning in closer to smell his aftershave.

"A bit of a tip?!" he said incredulously.

"Oh, so much more of a tip than I could possibly ever convey with words!" I said hurriedly, lest he think I was less of a female than I would want him to think. "In fact, it positively makes me want to run and get a mop and attack it from all angles. Grr!!"

"Is that so?" he said, looking at me slightly oddly.

"Er, no?" I guessed.

There was a silence. Neither of us knew what to say. I wasn't sure whether it was a good sign that he was silent as well. On the one hand, he might be awkwardly fumbling for the words to tell me that he, also, had been desperately in love with me for the past few weeks; equally, he might be counting down until the next Multidisciplinary meeting when he could escape from his psycho colleague. I swallowed and looked at him. Better to know than not to know. He was looking at me as well. I risked a smile. My God, he was leaning closer! Could this be it? Did he like me as well. I swallowed again and moistened my lips, leaning marginally closer. He was definitely getting closer, and his eyes were half shut. That's it! I decided. Now or never Daisy. I slowly shut my eyes and puckered up. And……..nothing. I opened my eyes slowly to see John picking up an old and mouldering copy of the BMJ off the floor.

"What's up, Daisy?" he said, noticing something amiss.

"Er, nothing," I said, turning away.

"No, something's off," he protested. "What is it? Is it something I've done?"

"No," I said pitifully.

"That always means yes, in female speak," John said. He took hold of my shoulders and turned me towards him.

I swallowed for the third time, ridiculously aware of his hands on my shoulders.

"Well, it's just….."

"Just what?" he probed gently, his hands still on my shoulders.

"I…." I've been hopelessly in love with you for the past 2 months? I get hopelessly distracted by your bottom during the ward rounds? I'm going to scream if I don't get to kiss you in the next 30 seconds?

"Daisy." He said my name ever so gently and so I turned my head to look up at him. He was looking at me, in a more tender way than I had ever seen him look before.

"John." I moved fractionally closer. His eyes closed in tandem with mine and I could swear his lips were moving closer. This was it, this was it! The Kiss was about to happen…….

"FUCK THE LOT OF YOU!" screamed Edward, lurching unsteadily through the doors. John and I sprang guiltily apart, him to leaf ardently though the Sign Guidelines and me to intensively study the ATLS poster. Funny sense of what constitutes a home from home in the Mess.

"Er, Dr. Butterworth-Jenkins?" I said, unsure. "Edward?"

He looked over at me blearily.

"Just, er, come over here and tell me all about it," I said.

With a strangled sob, he crashed to the floor, put his head in my lap, and sobbed like a baby.

Jesus Christ.

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