"Whatever!"

 

I've talked before about how my experiences in hospital portering have left me with a strange aversion to certain harmless words and phrases, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/how-dare-you.html and: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/well-take-it-from-here.html. Another of those is: "Whatever!" This was said to me by the evil-eyed Canadian person I mention in the background links. I can't recall the situation, but it was during the first few years of my service when I was in Delivery Suite. I was making this midwife aware of a serious situation in which an important tissue specimen had been thrown in the rubbish by mistake. It wasn't even thrown by her; it was an error made by her midwifery colleague. She waved her hand dismissively and growled: "Whatever, Ben!", as if annoyed that a porter had spotted a mistake made by a midwife, a superior one. A few weeks later it happened again; but this time it was much worse. An entire placenta had been discarded when they're supposed to put into a special container which I would take to a storage freezer. This time Stacey said in the same manner: "That's fine, Ben!"; and I feel the same repulsion at those words too. It says a lot about the NHS to know that this midwife ended up as a top Department of Health official. For all I know she is still there to this day; she is only a few years older than me and probably has yet to retire. A while ago I thought a time would eventually come when I would be able to put the trauma of my HPing life behind me. It is now obvious that this is not going to happen. I am never going to get over it. I will never be able to let go of the humiliation I suffered during those twenty-three years. I have been studying the publications of other people with experiences similar to my own, albeit in the civilian world, and I think the only option when you cannot overcome a painful memory is to perform a trick of spiritual alchemy, which is a phrase one of these people used. It's like being shot with a depleted uranium bullet which you cannot remove. It will sit there forever inside your body, poisoning your system. However, there is something you can do. Rather than trying over and over in vain to extract the bullet; find something that will transform that bullet into gold. Performing that miracle for myself and all readers is one of the prime objectives of the HPWA.