When I started the urological odyssey ,which is now my norm, in 2009, I pretended that I was on a plane each time I was admitted to hospital. The sense of cabin crew safety warnings closely aligned with nurses checking me in to bed. TV remote. Nearest bathroom. Etc.

Today is a covid first I am sitting in a hosp waiting room. First as in first face to face appointment since 2019.
Each seat has a glass partition on the left arm. Really rather like Club Class seats.

Where is the champagne the journey planner the movies?  They must be on the blink. 

This is the pain management clinic. The spinal implant review clinic in fact. I’ve had 10 letters about this appointment changes cancellations duplicates. Bonkers. 

My fellow passenger( patient) has suddenly become unwell. Exemplary service 3 nurses in attendance. Now she’s a medical emergency. However a buzzer and rushing around indicates they are looking for a Doctor. At any moment they might announce it.“Is there a Doctor onboard”? They’ve looked in the Doctors room 5 times as if to prove there really is no pilot sorry doctor. So we are just gliding into the clouds of Ericland
Now she’s been taken away. I wished her luck and waved -at least she can avoid AandE.

Eventually my appointment began. The Nevro ( as in spinal implant )rep-person-man was there to plug me in, analyse the data whilst Clinical Nurse tapped away importantly on her keyboard.
I was supposed to have filled in a questionnaire online via the infamous software I call ERIC. Oh dear she couldn’t retrieve that. But reception had also given me a questionnaire to fill in. As most of the questions were on the lines of: How often in the last year have you seen your GP. All my answers were the same. N/A covid restrictions have prevented me seeing anyone let alone my GP. Maybe ERIC doesn’t know there’s been a bit of a bug about since 2019.
Indeed it was in 2019 that my last appointment in PAIN was face to face. Reprogrammed then, it turns out I have been on high frequency maximum capacity since then. CNS lookedaghast.

Why had I done that?

Me? Look I hate to tell you this. You programmed it I just turned the thing on. Or shall we blame ERIC?

Anyhow I soon got ushered out, reprogrammed and cleared for landing once more in a year’s time !

I do recall but for the life of me cannot find the story about a medical emergency on a flight. A passenger in great discomfort not able to empty his bladder. There being no urological surgeon on board a quick thinking GP removed the inside of his biro and used that as a catheter to drain the bladder. The moral of the story is take a BIC biro wherever you go.