Surgeon: “You need a colonoscopy. It will be on Friday. Arrange transport home, because you won’t be able to drive. Are you on medication?”

Me: “Yes, [Strong Stimulant For ADHD]. Why, will I be knocked out?”

Surgeon: “Anaethetised? Not quite, only sedated. Either way, it takes a while to wear off.”

Me: “Can I cycle there and get a train back?”

Surgeon: *Pauses* “Yes, but you have to walk back to the train station. The nurse will ask you about sixty questions. She has to be sure who you are, so be patient.”

A colonoscopy. Lovely. On Friday, I am escorted to the private room. I am told to take off everything — underwear, jewellery, the bunch — and wear only the theatre gown. I lie under the duvet and read a book, waiting for the nurse.

In walks the stereotypical matron — a short, plump woman aged about sixty. She speaks in a plain, English accent, and she’s very terse with no sense of humour. I’m a young man.

Nurse: “I am here to ask you some questions. I need to go through them all in order, and I need an exact answer — nothing more, nothing less. Do you understand?”

She’s right. Patients have died because the wrong patient was operated on, etc.

Me: “Yes.”

Nurse: “What is your full name?”

Me: “[My Full Name].”

Nurse: “What is your date of birth?”

Me: “[Date, month, year].”

Nurse: “What procedure are you having?”

Me: “A colonoscopy.”

Nurse: “Have you taken off all your clothes?”

Me: “Yes.”

Nurse: “Are you currently wearing corrective spectacles?”

I pause for a minute and consider saying something silly, but I don’t trouble her. She is still looking down at her clipboard.

Me: “No.”

Nurse: “Are you currently wearing contact lenses?”

Me: “No.”

Nurse: “Do you normally need vision corrected?”

Me: “Yes.”

Nurse: “What transport home have you arranged?”

Me: “I will take the train.”

Now she’s looking agitated and confused. Somehow, these questions aren’t going as she expected. She looks at the floor, at my cycle helmet, lycra shorts and top, and cycling shoes — lots of hi-viz. Finally, she looks up.

Nurse: “How did you get here today?”

Me: “I cycled.”

Nurse: “How far?”

Me: “Twenty km.”

Nurse: “Where are your spectacles?”

Me: “Home.”

She puts down the clipboard.

Nurse: “How did you see to get here?”

Me: “Contact lenses.”

Nurse: “Where are they now?”

Me: “In the bin.”

Nurse: “How will you see to get to the train?”

She looks again at all of my cycling stuff.

Nurse: “Does the surgeon know about this?”

Me: “Yes. Check with him.”

She leaves. Enter the surgeon.

Surgeon: “Hey, [My Name]! Ready to get a camera shoved up your a**e?”

Me: “Mister [Doctor]! Depends if I can get past Judge Judy there. She seems to have a problem with my eyesight… or trains. What’s going on?”

Surgeon: “Yeah, she’s a bit procedural, but she has to do it exactly as it’s written. Patients have tried to drive home, crashed, and then sued hospitals. She has a list of allowable forms of transport, which doesn’t include trains. Even if it did, you have so much lycra with you that she doesn’t know whether to believe you.”

Me: “You approved it. What do you want me to tell her?”

Surgeon: *Pauses* “Just change your answer to taxi. Look, the sedative affects everyone differently. You of all people know whether you would be safe getting home because you have been managing your own concentration levels with [Stimulant] for years. I’m happy with anything other than driving. Just tell her taxi.”

Me: “Okay. What about the glasses thing?”

Surgeon: “Yeah, she can’t figure out how you’re going to see anything because you threw out your contact lenses.”

Me: “She could have asked. I brought spares.”

Surgeon: “She could have asked. [Nurse], come in, please. He’s brought spare contact lenses to see on his way home. Ask [My Name] how he is getting home again.”

Nurse: “What transport have you arranged home?”

Me: “A taxi.”

Nurse: *Smiling brightly* “Excellent. Off to theatre, then.”

The colonoscopy happens. I don’t remember much thanks to the sedative. I get dressed, take some [Stimulant] (per my prescription), and go to the cafe. I feel wide awake. It’s just like a normal day… so I cycle home.

The follow-up appointment comes the next week.

Surgeon: “How did you get home?”

Me: “I had some [Stimulant], that knocked the sedative out of me in an hour, and I cycled all the way home to [Town].”

Surgeon: *Laughing* “The nurse was right not to believe you! How did you feel the drug was working? Did you feel at all sleepy?”

Me: “Not at all. I was wide awake.”

The surgeon just laughed again, wrote the final report, and discharged me.

I’m a nurse in a hospital ward. I’m standing in the nurse’s station, trying to decipher how a medication is supposed to be given.

The medical teams are doing their ward rounds, so there’s a whole gaggle of doctors present discussing things amongst themselves, so I figure I’ll outsource this problem.

Me: “Hey, can someone translate some doctor’s handwriting for me?”

There’s a small laugh from the group.

Doctor #1: “Yeah, sure.” *Looks at my paper* “Oh, that’s my writing!”

There was a much larger giggle from the assembled medical team.

Hey, at least it meant he knew immediately what it said!

I’m a nurse in a busy hospital ward. Each ward has a little kitchen where the tea trolley lives. Each one also has a fridge with basic supplies, including the meal replacement nutrient milkshake bottles that many patients are prescribed because many people in the hospital are a bit malnourished or struggle to eat full meals.

Despite these milkshakes being part of the normal running of the ward, they don’t get automatically restocked by our dedicated ward food staff. The nurses have to call the kitchen to request restocks.

The kitchen is notorious for not picking up the phone, and there is often very little time for us nurses to spend trying to call them.

Day 1: I notice our fridge is getting a little low on drinks. I try calling the kitchen. No one picks up. I don’t get another chance during my shift.

Day 2: Our fridge is really low on drinks. I have to steal a few from the next ward, but they are also running low. I call the kitchen repeatedly. It goes to voicemail every time.

Day 3: There are almost no drinks in the fridge. I dial the kitchen — voicemail. It’s near mealtime after all; they’re busy.

I call again. It doesn’t go through. I redial repeatedly. Nothing.

I call again an hour late. It’s picked up! There’s a voice on the other end, but they’re kind of quiet. I can only pick out a few words. What are they saying?

Voice: “Dignity… duty… respect… relationships…”

They had picked up the phone and left it off the hook, so the ringing wouldn’t disturb them getting a lecture on professionalism.

Meanwhile, our cupboards were bare.

I managed to get through and make a request at about 2:00 pm that day. I finished at 3:00 pm, and I’ve been off since, so who knows if the amount or type of what I requested even turned up with the dinner trolley.

I overheard this while visiting my elderly parents.

Mum: “Dear, you’ve left the bathroom heater on again!”

Dad: “No, it turns itself off after a while.”

Mum: *Irritated* “NO, IT DOESN’T! IT’S ALWAYS ME!”

Dad: *Teeny-tiny voice* “Oh.”

Our old house was ridiculously hard to find. The entrance was easy to drive past, it had a series of apartments next to it, and four houses all split off from the path that came to our house.

Whenever I ordered pizza, I checked how well the driver had been able to find the house, and I kept adding instructions until I had about three paragraphs accurately guiding people down the right paths, giving them a clear location to park, and listing three different ways to identify if you were going down the wrong stairs, including the fact that the closest stairs you could mistakenly go down were attached to a car-port.

Once I got it to this length, most drivers commented happily how useful it was since it saved them a lot of messing around, or they at least found us very rapidly without knocking on the other house we were attached to.

This only failed me twice. The first time, I was absolutely certain that the driver wasn’t quite at reading level in English, which was fair, and he was sweet and only a little lost. The second one, though…

He went down the wrong stairs, complained when I corrected him, basically had very little interest in coming down to the correct area, and made me come up to meet him. The kicker, though, was his parting line.

Delivery Driver: “Why do you have so many directions on your place? It’s so easy to find.”

I didn’t see that guy again. I didn’t make a complaint because he made it to me in the end. However, the next driver was once again grateful for the instructions. It’s only you, mystery driver.