Heart Attack!

My poor female staff's Mum has had two heart attacks in the last two weeks.  Both times she ended up in hospital with bleeping things all around her and a mask stuck over her nose and mouth so that if my male staff came to visit she wouldn't be able to smell him.  These hospital people are so clever,  they think of everything.  The first attack was fairly minor, in fact they weren't even sure it was an attack until they'd taken blood tests after the event.  The second one was nastier though. It was last Wednesday night.  My female staff was out teaching people's bellies to dance and we cavies were at home with my male staff watching the TV and pooping on the floor.  I don't mean my male staff was pooping on the floor, he has a special room for doing that.  The phone rang, it was female staff's Mum saying that she was having chest pain and difficulty breathing.  She said she'd taken three of her angina pills but they hadn't made any difference so she'd called an ambulance.

My male staff said he'd be right there. She only lives about four miles away.  By "right there" he of course meant about three hours because before he could go anywhere he had to catch us and we had absolutely no intention of making life easy for him.  We all scuttled off in different directions and hid behind various items of furniture, peeking out now and again to see where the big ugly brute was and then ducking back into cover.  We took it in turns to distract him by sprinting across open ground so that my male staff thought he had a chance of catching the sprinter.  He didn't of course, he's far to fat and lumbering and while he was distracted the rest of us would quickly change our hiding place so that when he came back to look for us we were nowhere to be seen. Generously, we always left him a poop as a consolation prize.

After a while we grew bored and let the silly old fool catch us.  Anyway, he was getting very stressed and red in the face and we were worried that at any moment he might have a heart attack himself.  So the four of us Baci, Tom, Alfie and myself were unceremoniously bundled into the back of the Hyundai Getz and we raced through the night to my female staff's Mum's house, arriving at exactly the same time as the ambulance.  The paramedic pretended not to be surprised at being greeted by a large middle aged man clutching four guinea pigs to his chest (I'm sure they see more bizarre things than that in the course of their duty.  People wearing "I VOTED FOR TONY ABBOTT" tee-shirts for example.)  and went inside to deal with his patient.

My female staff's Mum was sitting in her armchair breathing with great difficulty and complaining of chest pain.  Her face was grey and pinched.  The paramedic quickly attached her to a monitor - that's a machine for measuring pulse and blood pressure etcetera, not a large rodent eating lizard. My female staff's Mum loves animals very much, but at that particular moment I doubt that she would have appreciated being strapped to carnivorous reptile. Anyway, the machine bleeped a few times and spat out a strip of paper with numbers on.  "Looks like you're having a heart attack." Said the paramedic.
 "No shit Sherlock!" I said, but as usual all the human heard was wheek, wheek, wheek, though he did glare at me as if he understood.  He then jabbed my female staff's Mum with a needle and squirted something from a little bottle under her tongue.  Then another ambulance arrived.
 "This ambulance will take you to hospital." The paramedic informed my female staff's Mum. I can't because I'm working alone and you'll need someone in the back with you.  These two new paramedics loaded their patient on to a bed and popped her into the back of the ambulance and drove off leaving us feeling sorry for the first paramedic who was obviously some sort of social misfit who couldn't get anyone to work with him due to either a personality defect or lack of personal hygiene.

We four guinea pigs and my male staff followed the ambulance to the hospital and sat in the emergency waiting room while they stabilised my female staff's Mum.  Well actually my male staff sat and read the March 1977 edition of Nation Geographic while we cavies scuttled about on the floor, sniffing at the sticky little puddles of blood and playing hide and seek amongst the overdosed junkies laying around under the chairs.  It was fun. I hope we get to go back there again soon. The only downside was the continuous racket made by a variety of kids with things either stuck on their heads or irretrievably jammed into some orifice or other.

At last a nurse called my male staff's name and he frantically gathered us all up and stuffed us into an overnight bag that he had hurriedly packed for my male staff's Mum. It contained vital items that an eighty-five year old lady might need in hospital.  There was a bunch of basil, a recipe book, a carton of milk, her favourite china elephant and a fridge magnet advertising a local fish and chip shop.  We were shown into a curtained cubicle where my female staff's Mum was laying on a bed surrounded by things that go "bleep" and "bip....bip....bip" She was wearing an oxygen mask and was apparently still having a little trouble breathing. Nevertheless, she did look a little better than she had at home and was absolutely delighted that my male staff hadn't done the boring, obvious thing and packed her bag full of clean nighties, toothbrushes, toothpaste and fresh underwear. Any fool can do that.

A doctor and a couple of nurses were busy playing Space Invaders or something on the blood pressure monitor, but they soon left us alone, allowing my male staff to release us from the bag so that we could stretch our legs on the floor.  Baci immediately scampered under the curtain into the next cubicle while the rest of us set about chewing various important looking cables.  Meanwhile my male staff set about asking my female staff's mum a number of stupid questions that she gallantly tried to answer through the oxygen mask.
 "How are you feeling now?"
 "Mmmmmfff ssnnnnfff faaagummmmfff." I think that translates to "How do you think I feel? I've just had a heart attack you dopey bugger."

Anyway, five minutes later Baci reappeared and was dripping wet and rather smelly, but was looking quite pleased with himself.  I followed the trail of little puddles he was leaving behind him under the curtain and discovered another elderly lady on a bed. Evidently she had a catheter, and the bag was foolishly left dangling from the bed at guinea pig level by some inexperienced nurse.  Not unnaturally Baci had chewed a rather large hole in it and had then been showered in bright yellow, strong smelling wee, a substantial pool of which was now spreading across the floor.  I zipped back under the curtain and hid under my female staff's Mum's bed.  I knew instinctively what was going to happen, and sure enough after a couple of minutes there was a loud crash and a cry of pain, followed by the clumping of running human feet.  Yes, you guessed it.  The doctor had slipped on Baci's pool of wee and broken his leg. Still at least he was in the right place to receive the best medical attention.

BACI'S BALONEY

Onustly, I dint meen to hurt the doctor. He shood have looked where he was going. Anyway, it was stoopid of the nurse to leev the wee bag hanging where any old ginny pig cood reech it.  It was kompleetly predickable. I don't fink it was my fawlt at all. I fink I'm the victim in fact cuz I got all wet and stinky.  I fink I will soo the hospiggle.

Oh, by the way, Uncal Billy has arsked me to tell yoo all that there won't be a blog for a cupple of wheeks becuz we are going on holiday. He says that wiv any luck the next blog will be on 28th July.