A deceptively-attractive eye opener at the hospital

THIS PATIENT WAITED PATIENTLY in the packed waiting room the mandatory few hours for the specialist and looked studiously through the NHS summons

form, wondering if - just maybe - I had the date wrong and could go home.

I thought, too, that it could look like an impatient patient, which might stir a professional conscience or two.

Perhaps it might encourage this or that nurse to prompt an expert sharing an nth coffee with nursing lovelies that perhaps it might be good form to inspect me, closer to or even near the given time.

I read the document much more slowly than these communications seem to receive when they are first taken out of the envelope.

Curious for its label

At home, perhaps like most people, I note the date and the place, and get that into the diary. But here in the hospital, I was curious to discover the actual name for my condition.

It had to be rather grand, surely, for me to be summoned for examination by a real live specialist, paid God knows how handsomely by our generous taxpayers - and doubtlessly worth it.

The condition's label leapt from the page. It wore a decidedly ominous look, I thought, as I sat among a group of decidedly unhealthy and certainly unfit citizens.

It was in Latin, of course, which medics thoughtfully use to spare our nerves.

Dread, perhaps

Curiosity – dread, perhaps – had me drawing my vintage iPad #1 from the backpack and clicking on my revered Chambers.

The damning word in that summons read glaucoma. I looked up and now saw that beside the room number stood the ominous sign, 'Glaucoma Clinic'.

Obviously, I must be a glaucoma sufferer, whatever that might be, even if I hadn’t realised it before. Somewhere within this humble body lurked a glau, poised, ready at any time to throw me into a coma. I’ve seen people in a coma. It's not desirable.

Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventuring book, Sailing to Purgatory, at
http://sailingtopurgatory.com/index.php/feeds/482-a-deceptively-attractive-eye-opener-at-the-hospital