Satima's Blogspot: September 2015

Sunday, 6 September 2015

Travel and Triage

Sunday, September 06, 2015 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

Today my karma apparently called for a journey. Mercury was on my midheaven and the north node of the moon was conjunct my natal Neptune, but I don’t think I can blame them for the cause of the excursion. The fact is I lost a contact lens. And I lost it in my eye.

Anyone who’s worn contacts knows how ornery they can be. I find them exasperating, but I do prefer exercising in contacts rather than spectacles, which have an evil habit of flying off one’s face during turns or other fast movements. On Friday, after my usual exercise class, I took out the right lens successfully, but the left one refused to cooperate. First it folded in half, then when I tried to take it out, it made a beeline for the underside of my eye and lodged there, no doubt laughing at my frustration. I went to the optometrist, but she couldn’t coax it out and as it was knock-off time on Friday she was understandably unwilling to waste any more time on it. Very often, a lost contact will find its own way back into place, and I could always go to the outpatients if it didn’t.

And it didn’t. On Saturday, the eye became sorer and sorer, so this morning, Sunday, I decided to pay a visit to the lovely new Fiona Stanley Hospital. Thank heaven for the circle route bus, which passes my door and also that of the hospital, although it was about a forty minute bus ride. Once there, I sought out the Emergency Department, where a couple of ladies – obviously on staff but it what capacity I don’t know - asked me where I was from, and when I mentioned the name of my suburb, they asked why I hadn’t gone to Royal Perth Hospital, which is marginally closer to home. My explanation was that RPH is always packed with people waiting in outpatients. I didn’t add that on a Sunday morning at RPH I could expect to fall farther and farther down the queue as people hurt in drunken brawls overnight and kids injured at sports practice filled up the waiting room. Besides, Fiona Stanley Hospital is beautiful, and very new.

Dr Stanley is an Australian epidemiologist noted for her work in the arena of public health, especially her research into child and maternal health as well as birth disorders such as cerebral palsy. The hospital that bears her name was opened only last year, and it is magnificent. What’s more, they have magic-workers on staff.

As I approached the triage desk, my sore eye started to water. By the time I sat down I was actually weeping! The young lady whom I took to be a reception clerk asked what was wrong. ‘I’ve got a contact lens stuck under my eye ball,’ I replied.

‘Would you like me to get it out?’ asked the bright young lady. I was doubtful. After all, she was behind a narrow window, seated at a desk. I didn’t think she’d be able to get hold of it. Besides, wasn't she an admin person rather than a medical one?

‘Yes, I can!’ was her cheerful response. ‘It’s washed itself into the corner of your eye’. And reaching across the desk, she removed the offending lens and handed it to me with a smile.

I told the two ladies on the way out that the young lady was brilliant and should be a doctor, and one of them confided that my little heroine was a prize-winning, multi-certified nursing sister, certainly bright enough to be a doctor, but she loved being a triage nurse.

My eye is now fine, and I’ve decided I love Fiona Stanley Hospital!

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