the doctor was no tailor

Friday 10th May, 2019

The sun is rising over the hill. This is to be seen through the white cotton curtains, a sort of muslin, in the huge window of the tiny ward.

In the hospital. The left hand is all wrapped

up in bandages, the little finger is sore. During the

night it has contracted again. the bandage

does not seem to be working property.

sit up. The man in the next bed shouts a

cheerful 'good morning". Reply, wish him a

good morning too. Find the dressing gown, then

fall back to hed, exhausted. It was not a good

night's sleep..

A nurse comes in, she monitors the blood pressure

of the man in the neat bed, then she measures the

temperatnre in his ear.

Then she come over, take off the dressing gown

again, the armband is placed over the arm, it

inflates, after a few seconds, it deflates again.

Some numbers. A temperature reading in the ear.

Everything is in order, the young woman moves an on her rounds through all of the rooms in the ward.

Then it is time to go, down to the

first floor. The lift "takes me down".

Mistake,-the clipboard forgotten

Take the lift back up, walk through the ward and pick up the clipboard woth the protocol attached to it.

And back to the lift, down to the building's ground floor.Take a lift, downto the building's ground floor. Take a left, a left, a left, and get lost again. A ll things are different this morning, the details had not been memorised correctly yesterday.Wander about, People in differently coloured work clothing,scrubs,all with plastic shoes, hurry theough the corridors, indifferent.

Ask somebody the way, and just recieve patently incorrect information. Try to keep the temper under control. Manage.

And at last, find  the right entrance,a short piece of corridor had been forgotten. There is the charming anaesthetiscist, the one with the two five mililitre syringes.

And soon, the sensatio in the fingers will be gone, the physiotherapist can move them about, with no screams and no violence.

Later, in the ward again, write these notes.

And the physiotherapist arrives, unpacks the finger that has been sewn together like a leathern patchwork. With the blood clots wiped away, the work is visible.

The doctor was no tailor, no seamster.