Deadish: A hilarious behind the scenes novel about surviving hospital politics by Alex Lancer

Author:Alex Lancer [Lancer, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11: Perils

Jeffrey had left the locker room and picked up his usual double expresso macchiato, but by the time he was climbing up the back stairs he had also gotten double vision.

He was worried now. He had decided he had multiple sclerosis and on top of everything else that diagnosis would disqualify him from obtaining a Consultant job. Professor Stone fixing the interview wasn’t going to help if he failed the medical. Seeing Dr Rossi ascending the stairs he stopped and waited for her.

The echo in the stairwell made his trembling voice a little shriller and more anxious ‘So for the last couple of days I’ve had numbness in my leg. Now with the blurring of vision I’m even more convinced. I really think I have MS,’ he said.

Dr Rossi nodded slowly. She had been making her way to the operating theatre when Jeffrey had stopped her. She was expecting a petulant outburst, possibly a replay of the latest playground squabble with the other children. This was much more interesting. She wondered whether he was cracking under the pressure of surgical training: maybe a little bit of Munchausen syndrome. She’d seen lots of hypochondriac doctors. They took a few symptoms, mixed them together in a brain only suited to soaking up information and produced a fruit cake.

‘Another thing… last week my urine turned blue for two days.’

Rossi unintentionally gave him the special look doctors sometimes give patients, where the left eyebrow is raised and the head inclined forwards. It translates as ‘Mad as a small mental hospital’.

Stone being his mentor meant that she had a jaundiced view about him to begin with. But now that she looked at him again, she could see there was something wrong: his head did look asymmetrical. It was the eyes: the pupils were different sizes. She was opinionated, strong-willed and belligerent at times, but she was an astute enough clinician not to let her prejudices cloud her judgement. Maybe there was something wrong with him.

‘Well, it’s probably nothing but I think you’re right: it might do no harm to get an MRI scan of your brain and a lumbar puncture to make sure you don’t have MS. I don’t know about the urine thing… porphyria is unlikely. You remember the movie ‘The Madness of King George’, that’s what he had.’

Seeing his bulging eyes, she instantly regretted making the suggestion that he might actually have a genuine disease. ‘Anyhow, leave it with me, I’ll get back to you later.’

Jeffrey sighed with relief: sharing his fears and having a plan calmed his nerves. Somehow the thought of having a disease to go with his symptoms was a relief. Dr Rossi wasn’t the most empathetic person, but she got things done. He stood on the landing and became aware of a tapping noise in his head. He thought it was his heartbeat, or the second hand of a clock but then he realised it was Dr Rossi’s high heels rapidly ascending the stairs in her usual manner.

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