The cardiologist, Dr. Alexander Bradshaw, arrived at the health resort for a well-deserved break. He thought hed have a shave and head out for the evening. After all, once youre over forty, you try to keep up appearances. Though he was well into his sixties, but who would notice?
Just as he was finishing up, a woman barged into his room. Describing her would require the talents of a great artist. She was the sort of woman youd use as a model for anatomy lessons: point with a stick and say, A woman consists of Her entrance was a storm.
She shouted how marvellous it was that such a renowned cardiologist as he ended up in precisely this resort! Because right now, the caretaker was wheeling a new patient to the treatment room, and the resorts resident cardiologist was nowhere to be found. Not surprising really, since no one ever plans a heart attack at midnight. But, as luck would have it, a famous cardiologist was here, enjoying his holiday…
Bradshaw felt the familiar trap closing there was no way out. She was formidable, with her nearly fifteen stone and a striking rouge lipstick at the centre of her face, like the seal of the Inquisition on a powdered boulder. You cant talk your way out of things with women like this. Theres no point explaining that even a legendary cardiologist needs a proper team, not just a caretaker and a nurse dressed up as a seductive Snowman.
So Dr. Bradshaw went to the treatment room, where he found the caretaker, wild-eyed, pushing a hospital trolley. On the trolley lay a bearded, listless man pinned beneath his medical records. The man looked like a schoolboy with a lumberjacks head that peculiar build you see in senior researchers.
Raving, announced the caretaker. Keeps muttering rose, rose, rose Seems to think hes in a flower shop.
The nurse took the mans blood pressure and announced it was dreadful. Seventy over fifty, she said, and falling. She joked that those were the measurements of her arms and legs, then laughed so loudly it gave Bradshaw goosebumps. Yet, the file said that for this patient, one-eighty over one-hundred was a warm-up.
Bradshaw looked around the room, hunting for what he needed. Suddenly there were noises not typically found in a treatment room the nurse was sobbing. He asked what was wrong, and she replied that she felt sorry for the man.
Unease crept over Bradshaw. Adrenaline, quick, he snapped, rubbing his hands with alcohol. Do you even know what adrenaline is? And how to draw it up?
Oh, poor man! wailed the nurse, crying against the door frame.
Bradshaw snatched up the syringe and did it himself. The caretaker, catching sight of the needle, looked petrified. It wasnt the sort of syringe you see every day; you could fend off pirates with it. In Bradshaws experience, no ones backside remained composed seeing a needle like that. The caretakers eyes seemed to fold inwards. The nurse continued sobbing in the corner. For a moment, Bradshaw was tempted to give her a slap to snap her out of it before realising she might reflexively hurl herself through the third-floor window, bricks and all.
Enough, he thought, to hell with it. He found a vein in the sagging chest and plunged in the needle. The caretaker immediately collapsed like a felled oak.
Oh, poor caretaker! shrieked the nurse.
Whats wrong with you people? Bradshaw bellowed. Wheres the smelling salts?
Theyre going to die, arent they? Oh, I wish my eyes had never seen any of this!
On the table sat a hefty cast-iron lamp must have weighed a stone. Its base was decorated with a scene called David Heals the Lions Cold. For a moment, Bradshaw considered walloping someone with it for good measure, then thought better of it. He ordered everyone to get a grip. It was starting to feel unclear whom or what exactly he was meant to treat.
Order! Discipline and calm! he shouted.
Suddenly, the patient on the trolley sat up, eyes still shut.
Please dont make a fuss, sir, the nurse scolded, resting her palm on his head and pinning him purposefully to the trolley. Smelling salts are in the cupboard, naturally.
The caretaker was sprawled, his pulse unreachable. The patients bearded hand slipped off the trolley again. Unconscious. For heavens sake, Bradshaw thought.
Start compressions! he yelled, dragging the caretakers leg out from under the trolley.
The nurse flipped the man onto his stomach, hiked up her skirt, and looked about to vault the stretcher.
On the heart! On the heart, you resort woodpeckers! Bradshaw roared.
The nurse rolled the man back, sat astride him, and the trolley creaked ominously. Bradshaw heard something crunch. He shoved smelling salts under the caretakers nose, still keeping an eye on the madness. Fifteen stone atop barely ten. Air escaped the patient like a broken balloon.
Bradshaw hauled the caretaker upright he was an octopus of a man, all slippery limbs. Bradshaw got him to a couch. Meanwhile, the nurse had gone berserk and would soon pulverise the man. He pulled her off, waved the salts under her nose, and parked her next to the caretaker. They sat there like chickens, cotton wool sticking out of their nostrils. One had his trousers round his knees, the other her skirt round her waist. Quite the ambulance crew. The salts had no effect.
Then, the patient began to rise once more, folding upright like a bus seat. Eyes shut, he slowly turned his head towards the couch. The caretaker realised and promptly collapsed flat on his face, making rays on the floor tiles where his forehead landed.
Ladies and gentlemen, murmured the patient, eyes still closed. I must politely ask you all to stop treating me
And he explained the following: He was a lifelong sufferer of low blood pressure. When snow was forecast, he deflated like a balloon. Thunderstorms sent him skidding along the floorboards. None of it was his fault; hed been born that way. His normal was 80/50. Sometimes, it would drop a bit and a cup of good espresso would set him right. Being flattened again by a woman with a necklace the size of billiard balls was not the solution. Hed nearly thought it was the end.
His wife Rose had nipped to the loo, leaving her notes beside him, and then hed felt unwell. The same caretaker who had just disproved the notion that a weak force cant move a strong object had lugged him onto a trolley. It had been unpleasant, but now, surrounded by all these blue-faced nervous sorts, he felt perfectly alive. As for hypotension, it was vanquished. If someone lit a match near him, hed blast off into space. He had no idea what that brave doctor had injected, but he wouldnt be sleeping for the next decade which gave him plenty of time for his next research project.
I have a proposal, said the nurse after the man with the kefir had gone. We were never here.
For a second, Bradshaw wanted to smack her with the lamp, but she continued, Ill look after the caretaker.
Bradshaw left the resort without meeting anyone.
