What would you like to go with your tea?

I was a trainee nurse for a year after I left school. It was a daunting experience, especially as my first ward was male genito-urinary; a bit of an ordeal by fire for an 18 year old. Doing the bottle round was fairly unpleasant, collecting what seemed like gallons of foul smelling urine in every shade of green, yellow and brown you could imagine. The warm bottles smelt the worst. I had a little trolley to fill up and then wheel to the sluice to empty. The most worrying job though was when I had to shave a man's credentials ready for theatre. It was very nerve racking skimming the razor across the round and baggy skin when you weren't used to it. It took ages too. I was a bit taken aback when, having just finished, the barber came up to the ward asking which patient needed his attention. More embarrassing than that experience though, was the old chap who called out, 'Nurse! Nurse! I need my slippers'. I ferreted around under his bed and in his locker, but couldn't find them. He then said, 'Not to worry, I don't need them anyway', whipped back the blankets and added, 'because I haven't got any legs!'. I was left speechless, staring at two well bandaged stumps.

Quite often on this ward, it seemed, men would call out, 'Nurse, nurse, I need the bedpan, I think I'm going to have...' whereupon there would be a moist raspberry blowing noise and the final word would come out slower than the issue of concern had, '....diarrhoea'. The hospital at the time didn't approve of nurses wearing latex gloves for 'messy' jobs, and it was with a sinking heart that you approached the poor patient and started to clean them up.

I was also taken aback some time later on another ward when a very well spoken, very elderly and very frail 'Miss' was given a Cadbury's chocolate swiss roll to go with her tea, which she held up appreciatively and said, 'Oh, it's rather like a black man's cock dear'.