The other day I got bitten in the face by a dog. It was a surprise to me, but it really shouldn’t have been considering this dog had attempted to rip my throat out the last 2 times I saw her – odd considering dogs are meant to enjoy strange smells.
Naturally I was shipped off to the nearest hospital to get it checked out. I was in a surprisingly good mood considering the situation, but my Dad’s constant retorts of “how many times have we told you to keep your face away from the dog” never failed to weather my manually upkept spirits.
Arriving at the hospital was an odd experience too – I’ve never been in the front way, my visits were all 10 years ago and hurried in through the back to the tune of sirens. Walking in and joining the queue felt rediculous. At first everyone in the waiting room seemed unscathed, there to pick up medication or visit loved ones, so wandering in with a plaster covering my right side seemed like I was trying to be showy. Like an hour ago, I looked at the miniature Cujo in front of me and tried to decide whether a bite to the face or crotch would draw more looks.
The receptionist was a real professional too, barely reacting when I told her I’d been bitten in the face with all the enthusiasm of a 6 year old showing people the cool stick he found. Filling in details missing from my NHS profile, confirming my lack of allergies or illnesses, putting my mask on upside down, all passed by without a hitch.
Sitting in the waiting room was fine, I didn’t have to wait long either, which is a blessing, because at the moment of the nurse’s arrival it occurred to me that reading a short story about an angel of death giving hospital patients heppititis isn’t the light reading one should be doing in the middle of the ER.
I was led into the hospital where I met another nurse, the one who would be looking at my gnarled face. He removed the plaster I had on and was casually rocking the look of if I may say so myself. He wiped the blood off and talked to me, very proper, very eloquent. The kind of person who recinds a regional accent in favour of speaking in Time’s New Roman.
He left for a while to get some extra things, a couple of plasters and antibiotics. I spent some time looking at the bed in front of me, all the little things crammed in there, little extra pieces of technology added for the tiniest bit of aid. It was amazing, truly the sort of thing that can convince anyone to be a doctor before they find out about the hours.
He came back with the plasters and a pair of scissors. The scissors caught my eye, because:
- They were sealed in a little bag. Not how I imagined scissors being delivered somewhere, but considering the water he wiped my face with came from little bags, it’s clear that someone at the hospital’s supplier got a little overeager in the packaging area
- Not that I thought he would, but scissors strike me as the sort of thing to make a centimetre cut in ones face worse. Unless he had hidden desires to beautify me by making the inevitable scarring on my face symmetrical, I couldn’t work out what he planned to do with them.
He cut a antibacterial strip to size, put strips over it and added a big plaster. That’s all that was needed. In the middle of a fuel crisis I had to be schlepped to and from the hospital to get an NHS funded sticker to go over my war wound.
When I could leave, I got lost pretty much immediately. On my journey into the building I was led to the end of a corridor and arrived at my destination. On return, I found the only corner in the corridor and took it to another room full of actually ill people. There’s little that can crush your self esteem quite like seeing a bunch of genuinely ill and in pain people, and standing there with a tiny injury that you none the less went to the same place as them for.
I left the hospital with a dull ache from a bruise on my face, a night of drinking with my friend cancelled, and a tired parent coming to pick me up. Essentially, it was no different from visiting a friend in Liverpool.