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Sunday, May 30, 2010

The Secret Organ

There is an organ, possessed by one half of the population, and coveted by the other half.

An organ, shrouded in mystery and secrecy.

One which is so awe-inspiring, it can render one reverent, and engender fervent maddening worship at the shrine of its wondrousness.

Intoxicating, and inspiring, like a fragrant exotic flower that only blooms once a year under the full moon, in the middle of an abandoned oasis that one happens upon after a solitary soul-destroying walk in the cruel, sun-scarred desert.

*I get carried away sometimes, forgive me*

Ah yes, it is an organ that nourishes, and revives!

One which sings the secret notes of the symphony of seduction, and one which delivers a monstrous roar when its almighty power is displayed at the debut of a life.




All hail the Vagina!

Say it with me: VAGINA.

Composed of thrilling folds of furled flesh, it is moist and inviting, dangerous and exciting!

Like a precious jewel guarded at the top of a tall tower, the vagina is hidden away at the pinnacle of two silky inner thighs...


"Oh my!" I  hear you sigh...

I'm sighing too....but for a different reason...

You see, this organ, this mighty, mystical, gorgeous organ that is everything I have described,
is also grossly misunderstood by both its owners, and those invited to relish in the pleasures of its inner sanctum.

A very young, conservative couple came to visit me in the GP office one day.

After a year of marriage, and one year of religious oral contraceptive use, they had decided that it was time to try and make a child.

I admired her for being brave enough to let the sperm germs infect her uterus, and was keen to help this young couple conceive.

They seemed well equipped to raise a child together, but had come to me for the sole purpose that they believed that she was infertile.

And they believed that she was infertile for two reasons:

  1. After one month of trying she was still not pregnant.
  2. After one month of trying her vagina was still not sucking up every single last drop of semen after ejaculation, in fact it was still allowing all the semen to leak back out and dribble down her inner thigh instead of hoovering it all up into the uterus. Silly vagina!
Yes, you may read that second reason again if you have to. 

Because I am a kind doctor, I pinched myself really hard on my own inner thigh to stop from laughing, and drew anatomically correct diagrams of the machinations of the vagina in order to explain to them that its roof was not like the vacuum attachment they had on the hoover at home!



Which got me thinking, if vacuum cleaners are complex enough to need an instruction manual,then perhaps the vagina needs one too ???

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Education is an Extreme Sport

This one's for Dr "Kitty" M.


Two weeks ago I threw myself out of a plane.



Willingly.


Granted, I had a professional skydiver strapped to my back.





Furthemore, the professional skydiver had a parachute strapped to his back.


The combination of these two facts resulted in a thrilling, exhiliratingly extreme experience, at 9000 feet above my beautiful city.





Yes, I know. I willingly chose to put my life in danger.

I didn't want to be left out, you see. Life-threatening extreme sports are what everyone is into nowadays. And by everyone I mean schoolchildren.



Like the 17 year old patient of ours today who was stabbed in the heart by his fellow pupil at school.

Serves him right for being foolhardy enough to want an education, I guess.

He died, after being rushed into our emergency unit,
after having his chest cracked open in the front room,
after being sped off to theatre by our valiant surgeons.


He died by bleeding to death on the operating table.


Fuck bungee jumping off Bloukrans.


Fuck skydiving.


Next on my adrenaline rush list... school on the Cape Flats.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

EC Syndrome

I'm not sure if you're aware that there is a plague invading the Western Cape.

It is not the recent measles outbreak that has caused so much anxiety.

No.

Far more severe than that.

Far more frightening.

This disease is a conglomeration of the most purulent, macerated, chronic and cancerous iniquities of pathology.

To diagnose it is easy.

To cure it, an impossibility.

It is what we in the Western Cape call: Eastern Cape Syndrome.

Something is not happening in the Eastern Cape.

Something is not happening a lot in the Eastern Cape.

And that something is health care.

Patients, on death's door, are making the arduous journey all the way down to Cape Town in droves, in the hope of better treatment.

Like the bastard child you forgot to tell your wife about, these poor patients from the Eastern Cape rock up, unwanted, at the holy doorstep of the nationally renowned Western Cape Health Department.

I have had three such patients in the last two locum shifts in casualty, who literally arrived in Cape Town on the morning train from somewhere East of the Hinterland, and were on a stretcher in casualty before the noon gun had a chance to blast them back to where they came from.

At medical school they talked to us about the "heart sink" patient - ie the patients that literally make your heart sink...

These are they...

I don't even write notes on them anymore. I just document: "Arrived from Eastern Cape today..."
and then hand them over to the medical registrar....Who will then write down what we all know to be wrong, a combination of, or variation of one of the following

  • HIV stage four, and all of the complications that come with it
  • disseminated extremely drug-resistant TB
  • some fungating cancerous metastasised mass with superadded infection and no hope of cure
  • septic and gangrenous legs, unsalvageable and ripe for amputation
  • spinal pathology that if treated early could have prevented the total lower limb paralysis of some poor teenager...
  • etc
  • etc
  • blah
  • blah
  • blah
You will forgive me for being so dismissive...

It's just that I cannot expend any more energy cursing the Eastern Cape Health Department for not getting their act together...and after months of being faced with the embarrassment of having nothing to offer these dying guests from another province...I've kind of just given up on ever being the brilliant host they hoped for...if only they had presented earlier...or if something had been done for them in their home towns...

Welcome to the Eastern Cape, enjoy South Africa's finest beaches where dolphins play in warm waters, game reserves full of wildlife, where people greet with smiles and enjoy the holiday adventure of a lifetime. Explore the Eastern Cape and experience the best South Africa has to offer, absolute tranquillity and relaxation...


This is a description of the Eastern Cape as promoted by the Eastern Cape's tourism website

However, in terms of health care, the Eastern Cape can only be described as a big black hole of disease.




p.s. Any Dr's out there working in the EC who want to disagree with me please go right ahead and prove to me that I'm just spouting my mouth off when I know nothing of the true state of affairs... My opinion on this matter is of course entirely biased and based only on first hand experience with the patients, not a gold standard randomised control trial.
But I think I know what you're going to tell me...that the fault lies not with the staff, or the facilities, but at the feet of the administrators and managers who are supposed to use their provinicial health budgets to enhance their health service, not drive their patients to seek help in other provinces...





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