Casual Tuesday at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital

He will be fine. I know he will be fine. And this is totally not my story to tell, it is Thom's. But as I type this he is in theatre, unexpectedly having a medical procedure performed. It's after 10pm. We left for the emergency department before 6pm. Remarkably fast service. I'll let him blog about the medical issue, but he's going to be okay.
Otherwise... I'm pretty much just whittering on here in order to keep myself amused so I'm not thinking about it. Except of course I'm writing about it.
Crazy time in the ED waiting room. One woman came in with explosive shits. Another man had taken most of his fingers mostly off after falling from a roof. Another guy was mysteriously wheeled-in bent-double clutching his stomach and wailing and taken straight through and never seen again. I have spent much of the evening engrossed in the Wallace family's plight. They're here from Scotland on holiday. The old boy was already in a wheelchair and on oxygen before he left Glasgow... and then the nurse asked him questions clearly indicating the man now also has DVT.
When Thom was taken through I scooted off to get something to eat, then came back and sat with him for a bit. He had made friends with a hard-nosed Irish nurse (they're all from the UK at Charlies, apparently) who had called the boy in the bed beside him a woose because he chundered.
We were sitting their quietly laughing at the almost-fingerless builder beside us who was protesting he needed to get back to Kalgoorlie and the surgeon was busy reassuring him he probably couldn't go home tomorrow.
"You have four fingers almost removed, they're hanging on by partially severed tendons, you're going to need to stay for at least a week."
"Can you just operate now, I told them I'd be back tomorrow."
*blinks*
I kept Thom entertained by telling him a story about my American ally Nick, who put up with months of massive digestive pain only to have doctors remove a complete and unmarked toothpick from his stomach.
Otherwise, the whole thing was very casual indeed. The surgeon's registrar dude was in a bond's t-shirt and jeans. In fact almost everyone was in jeans. It was bizarre.
We were laughing around and couldn't wait to hear what the indian man opposite us had. He looked hale and hearty.
"Do you know why you're here?," the doctor said.
"Yes I got a letter from my GP saying to come in here immediately," Indian man replied.
"You have a tumour... are you experiencing headaches?"
I mean, talk about dropping a bomb and then moving it along. Some people might like to digest that information.
The guy took it like a trooper though, bless him. Maybe it is because the Irish nurse was eyeballing him in a way that suggested to faulter would result in him being called a woose?