Jellyfish

Sorry to keep you waiting.
But, obviously, not sorry enough not to keep you waiting…

You probably think it was another patient that kept me busy. Actually, I was at a stag-do last night. They had one of those strippers which burst open to reveal a cake. It was horrific, actually – blood everywhere. Spent the entire night just trying to get the carpet clean, and in the end no-one felt like eating the cake. But that’s the great thing about being a doctor. You can walk into work covered in blood, and no-one bats an eyelid. They’re all too busy wondering whether anyone will notice whether they’re covered in blood, and wondering where they left the eyelids.

So, let me just take a quick look at your chart.

Ah. An appendectomy. Have you ever had your appendix removed before? Silly question. But, I don’t know, it might have crawled back in. The appendix has quite a strong homing instinct, and most people’s first thoughts upon seeing an appendix crawling towards them - like a fat, pink slug - is to scream, affording it an entrance.

Now looking at your chart, it says that your date of birth is 1993. Is that correct? Okay, so you’re young enough to believe that the world is still full of opportunities, old enough to realise that they probably won’t won’t be offered to you.

Now, I trust that you received the release form. And you signed that, yes? Good.

Now, I don’t want to scare you – because that would be an emotion, and I know your generation isn’t used to them - but as with any procedure, there is a chance of complications. Now, obviously, this will involve sedation, and as with any use of general anaesthetic, there is a risk that you won’t stay under for the length of time intended. You know, there’s a one in five or six million chance that you may stay under for three, maybe four, hundred years. And you’ll stumble out into the street, feeling over-exposed in just your surgical gown as the breeze dances over your shoulders, and the streets will be empty but for cockroaches and posters of Boris Johnson the sixth, and it’ll be like one of those films where Cilian Murphy runs away from things (only there aren’t any credits, and you look nothing like Cilian Murphy. Actually, I find it quite insulting that you would think to besmirch his name with such a comparison.)

Now, me and the guys were talking, and we reckon that your best bet is actually to sedate yourself again, and cross your fingers that by the time you wake up again, the fall-out from the nuclear war between Tesco and Ecuador will have died down to a sort of tolerable level.

Of course, there’s only a very remote possibility of that happening.

What’s more likely is that the operation might be disrupted at some point. A group of alien ambassadors might burst in here and take me captive before I can finish the operation. In the event of that happening, you’d probably just bleed to death here on the operating table, while I’m marched in front of their leader, and asked to speak on behalf of the human race.

But as I say, there’s only a very remote possibility of that happening. The last time I checked, weren’t any alien craft hovering in a geostationary orbit above earth. But, then, the last time I checked was seven years ago. It wasn’t something I’d foreseen as a pressing probability, and, in many ways, I think the fact that I did actually once check is more remarkable than the fact I haven’t checked recently.

Oh, come on now, there’s no need to look so panicked. You’re not the first person to ever have an operation! I’ve put hundreds of people to sleep – some of them patients – and if I’d taken a medical exam, I’m sure I would have done very well.

So you have nothing to fear.
Except jellyfish.
Jellyfish are terrifying.