Bayonet Drills

Oddly enough, hospitals are not the natural habitat of the Cavius Hirsuitinii Giganticus (Large Furry Guinea Pigs). On the whole we as a species have yet to colonise this particular habitat. This may be due to the lack of food at ground level and the fact that the nurses tend to chase us while waving large hypodermic needles in our direction. Generally we prefer to graze around the floor of McDonald's restaurants where there is always plenty of discarded lettuce and tomato laying around. You do have to be careful not to step in the vomit of those foolish humans who have consumed one of the burgers though. It's almost as good a hunting ground as a long haul flight on an Airbus A380 - and without the risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis - as my male staff knows all too well.

Nevertheless we are quick to adapt to new environments, which is just as well since I've had to spend the last six days roaming the wards of our local hospital where my male staff is ensconced, waiting for patients to get distracted so that I can snatch their sprig of parsley garnish from their plates. Sometimes they refuse to get distracted, so intent are they upon guzzling their food. On these occasions I'm forced to burrow down under their bedclothes and bite the inside of their thigh. Then while they're busy calling the nurse, (Sister, Sister! I think I'm having a groin attack!") I snaffle their parsley and anything else remotely green from their plate and scuttle back to the safety of my male staff's bed, under which I have constructed a very comfortable little nest of cotton swabs and incontinence pads.

The worst thing about being in hospital is that I have to listen to my male staff squealing every time a nurse jabs him with a needle, which is currently three times a day. The first jab of the day comes at about six in the morning, which is a great way to wake up, far more effective than any alarm clock. The nurse comes along to the bedside of my dozing male staff, plunges a nice thick needle into his arm and sucks up about a litre of his blood, which she says they will use to test his Warfarin levels. Of course the real reason is that all the hospital staff are having satanic rituals in the staff room after their coffee break and they need my male staff's blood to paint pentagons on the floor or something. At least that's what I like to think. Then he's barely finished squealing like a girl from that first jab when the second one comes an hour later. This time it's a hefty dose of clexane - a blood thinning agent. This is stabbed straight into his stomach, but it still doesn't stop him squealing, so they go away and come later with another dose of the same stuff. Wallop! Right in the guts it goes. It doesn't help that the nurse likes to charge across the room, needle in hand yelling "Yaaaaaaarrrghhh!" I think she might have been a bayonet drill instructor in the army before she became a nurse.  I don't think this second clexane jab is really necessary because he just starts squealing again and it lasts pretty much until he goes to sleep.

With all the light hearted hilarity and comedic value of my male staff's near death experience it is easy to forget one rather sad and somewhat poignant possibility. There's a fair chance that he will never see his mum again. She is now seven and a half months into a six to nine months life prognosis since she was diagnosed with a brain tumour back in May. It makes me a sad little guinea pig to think that I may never see her again either. She was always very kind to me and made sure I had a steady supply of greens. Even now, my eyes are leaking onto my fur. My male staff's doctor has told him that he must not fly for at least six weeks after he gets out of hospital. There's a reasonable chance that if he does it would kill him.  He can talk to her on the phone of course, but it's not really the same is it. He says glad that when he left her about three weeks ago he kissed her and told her the he loved her, but it looks like he's going to break his promise to return soon and that must hurt.