MisunderstoodMy other half rang a courier today to get a disc sent over to a client. The courier company asked what it was she was sending. "A computer disc", she said.
Half an hour later, 3 blokes in a van turned up. They looked a little disappointed to be handed a floppy disc: they were all prepared to shift a computer desk across London.
Have you been utterly misunderstood recently?
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chthonic, Thu 6 Oct 2005, 23:06)
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There was a patient...who had to have a colonoscopy. For those who don't know what that is, it is in effect a long thin tube with a camera at one end, which enables the operator to see the entire length of the colon. In order to have a good view, unobscured by poo, we give patients something called Klean Prep; the world's finest laxative, just two notches down from a vicious curry.
Klean prep has to be given in three parts; three sachets, one sachet dissolved in 1 litre of water, each litre imbibed 4 hours apart. Unsurprisingly, it has to be given where there is a toilet close by, and in the case of this patient, since he was an in-patient, I explained to him that although he could walk around the hospital, he shouldn't really stray too far away, as it was all going to come out.
He somehow misinterpreted 'don't go too far away from the hospital' as 'able to go out of the hospital, to another hospital on the tube, which has no loos, 20 mins away, for an appointment totally unrelated to his current admission'. I then received a bleep from a rather confused, if not irate nurse who then informed me, after telling me that he had gone off site, that he had already had his first litre of the Klean prep.
'Well then, ' I said, 'he's just about to find out what "being discharged against medical advice" truly means...'
He returned later that day, bent over double, drip stand in hand, heading to the toilet. I now make it absolutely clear to patients about what Klean prep actually does to them...
(, Tue 11 Oct 2005, 18:22, Reply)
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