April Fools

 I love my anaesthetists.

Honestly, I do. we work so closely together in theatres, a true partnership. To be a good ODP you have to be in sync with your anaesthetist and your patient. You have to be immersed fully in the moment while planning what happens next and ready to drop everything and change plans as needed. You are their support, their rock, their partner. There's a black humour saying that the anaesthetist does everything in their power to keep patients alive while the surgeon does their best to kill them.

I want to talk about one anaesthetist in particular. We shall call him Ted.

Ted is a person of joy and innocent mischief. 

Ted was destined to work in paediatrics.

This is a man who has books of jokes that he brings in to work to share with the kiddos. Dad Jokes, science jokes, math jokes, good jokes, bad jokes, the works.

This is a man who when called in for an emergency on December 25th, showed up wearing a full elf costume. Stripey tights, pointy hat, elf ears, all of it. Perfection.

Now in the mornings, one of my jobs is to the check the anaesthetic machines. It's important to make sure that the machines that do the breathing for people have all the bits they need and are in good working order. One of the things we need to check is to make sure there isn't any leaks in the circuit, we don't want gasses escaping when we're trying to oxygenate someone (that would be less than ideal). Once my machines are checked, and my kit is all set up for the patients, I take myself off to the staff room to get some coffee for my thermos that I hide to keep me peppy throughout the day.

On this particular day, there's a still newly qualified me drinking my elixir of peopling when my anaesthetist stomps (literally stomps) into the room with an unusually disappointed look on his face. It's like when the cool/jokey parent finally decides to discipline you. It shakes you to your core. Your heart breaks and you wanna fix it so bad. You will confess to anything as long as they go back to their normal ways. So he comes in and says "Mouse, I get that you're new. But I was getting ready this morning and the machine has a leak. Weren't you meant to check it?" 

I. Am. Aghast. Already bolting to the anaesthetic room, I am making my apologies, running through my head what I could have missed, asking if maybe someone ran over the circuit and popped a hole when they pushed the bed in... I am new enough that I am on the edge of panicking, I mean, we've sent for the patient, I have to get this fixed ASAP! This is a crisis! An EMERGENCY!

I walk in and head straight for the machine.

What do I see? The source of the leak? Alas, there is no leak in the machine.

Oh no, no, nonono.

There is a leek ON the machine.

Just siting there. Being a vegetable, in all it's veggie goodness.

There are giggles of pure glee that pierce the silence in the room as I stare. I roll my eyes so hard, I'm pretty sure I strained something.

April Fools.