Well, it happened just as I feared it would. I presented myself to the hospital this morning, after a preliminary foray yesterday afternoon, to find that no one I\u2019d been corresponding with could be found. First I was given an appointment card for an anaesthetic preassessment clinic, and sent up to the 5th floor. The unfriendly receptionists there sent me off to the anaesthetist\u2019s secretaries office. Those grumpy ladies frowned terribly and sent me off to the sleep clinic. \u00a0After wandering around there for a while I went back to the preassessment clinic, snuck past the receptionists and found some anaesthetic nurses. They took me back to the secretaries office, who looked at me with dismay. Eventually they relented and tried to ring the only two anaesthetists I knew the name of here, neither of whom were available. I could tell I was ruining their day so finally agreed to go away and return at some later time. Sounds funny now, but really I can\u2019t imagine any of our lovely staff treating someone like that, even if they spoke funny. Wouldn\u2019t you ring the duty anaesthetist at least? Not a promising start, anyway. Finally in desperation I thought I\u2019d try the interventional radiology department. You don\u2019t need a swipe card to get around the hospital so I had no trouble getting in via the ambulance entrance. The neurological emergencies receptionist was much more helpful, she delivered me to some more secretaries who told me they\u2019d find someone to help me. In the meantime I found a comments book in the waiting room that was full of glowing comments about the interventionalist teams, how they had saved their lives, and how grateful they were. There was even a poem! I\u2019ve never seen anything like it – it was quite heartwarming. Eventually a doctor arrived. After several mangled French sentences he asked me to please speak in English (I\u2019d actually been doing quite well with my French. A friend had once told me that when in doubt, you should just say the English word in a French accent. Oddly enough, this works even better the more complicated the word is). Anyway, this nice young man turned out to be an interventional radiologist (INR) himself. \u201cOh, did you go to the SLICE conference?\u201d I asked. \u201cYes\u201d, he said, \u201cI gave a presentation on silicon modeling\u201d. \u201cOh yes of course!\u201d I said, racking my brain, \u201cthat was excellent!\u201d. Anyway, he has my phone number now for any stroke calls at odd hours, and he introduced me to one of the anaesthetists down there, so things are looking up. Now hoping not to spend the next three weeks crying in my room, eating cornflakes out of the packet and watching cat videos on YouTube.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, it happened just as I feared it would. I presented myself to the hospital this morning, after a preliminary foray yesterday afternoon, to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-ca","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2366,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/14\/time-for-another-old-scheduling-email\/","url_meta":{"origin":754,"position":0},"title":"Time for another old scheduling email!","author":"Interloper11","date":"May 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Do we hear anything further about Cory Jane? Read on and see... (NB. I have no idea if anyone is interested in knowing about our allocations of people in the anaesthetic department. I\u2019ve kept those notes in where it conceivably might amuse. Happy to be told not to bother if\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10225,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/14\/lest-we-forget-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":754,"position":1},"title":"Lest we forget","author":"Interloper11","date":"June 14, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"We arrived just in time for our French movie double feature yesterday, and as I sat down in the comfortable couch arrangement that all good theatres have these days, I reached around behind me to find the seatbelt. As I realised what I was doing, I froze in horror. I\u2019ve\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8421,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/08\/old-scheduling-email\/","url_meta":{"origin":754,"position":2},"title":"Old scheduling email 13 October 2017","author":"Interloper11","date":"October 8, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"It feels like time to go through the archives again. From: Kirsty Jordan Sent: Friday, 13 October 2017 2:24 p.m. To: Wellington Anaesthesia All Staff Subject: What's it all about? Big election scandal this week. Some anarchist hacked their way onto the Forest and Bird \u201cBird of the Year\u201d election\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2272,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/30\/prepared\/","url_meta":{"origin":754,"position":3},"title":"Prepared","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Exiled to preassessment clinic for the afternoon, for my sins. I\u2019m a last minute replacement for someone who\u2019s sick, so I don\u2019t even have my stethoscope on me. That\u2019s my excuse, anyway. The last thing I want to do is find some physical sign that I then need to decide\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6312,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/23\/old-scheduling-email-mid-jan-2017\/","url_meta":{"origin":754,"position":4},"title":"Old scheduling email mid-Jan 2017","author":"Interloper11","date":"March 23, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Gradually wading through my backlog of old work emails, combing through them for crumbs of humour and\/or pathos (one of the musketeers). I\u2019ve left in more detail than usual today, so you can see what happens when there\u2019s a strike on (junior doctors in this instance). I gave up scheduling\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2593,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/06\/13\/nostalgia-aint-what-it-used-to-be\/","url_meta":{"origin":754,"position":5},"title":"Nostalgia ain\u2019t what it used to be","author":"Interloper11","date":"June 13, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Home miserable and sick. It\u2019s been drizzling for about three months solid - I\u2019ve forgotten what the sun looks like. One daughter flew back Uni this morning , and another leaves for Canada on Sunday with no return ticket booked. I am bereft of inspiration. Must be time for another\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}