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Thursday, September 3, 2009

I'm a Doctor! I Save Lives!!!


“Where u dey?” Seye asks as I answer the phone. This is now our customary greeting. After 3 years of dating we no longer use terms of endearment like darling or sweetheart. Come to think of it we never did. The closest Seye has ever came to this was this period when he took to calling me “boo”
“Hi yourself” I say, “I’m at a party.”
“I called the starcomms phone and the maid said you guys were out.”
I remembered that Seye was one of those people that took advantage of the free weekend calls to call and tell me exactly what had happened in the last episode of Prison Break he’d seen. “What are you up to?”
“I’m at Debo’s. we’re just hanging.” He replies. I take this to mean that they’re watching a game, bottles of cheap wine and Jack Daniels littering the place and thick smoke hanging in the air.
“sounds fun” I say dryly.
“So whose party is it anyway?”
“it’s for a one year old called Mercedes.” I say with a giggle and quickly glance to make sure no one can hear me.
Seye laughs, “What? Are her parents called Prado and Volvo.”
This time I laugh and remember why I love my boyfriend. Our relationship is just easy. We understand each other, he makes me laugh. Well this is apart from the fact that he makes me so angry sometimes I’m literally pulling out my hair. We met at a party for his friend, one I wasn’t actually invited to. Like he said he’d taken one look at me and decided he had to “shag” me. His exact words. The irony of this is that we haven’t had sex yet in the 3 years we’ve been dating. I’m a firm believer in saving myself for marriage. Seye jokingly, says I’m only trying to keep him hooked. I mean he didn’t exactly get the short end of the stick. We just kind of got serious along the line, surprising ourselves and all the people that said we wouldn’t last. I’m not sure Seye has been entirely faithful in the past but I don’t allow myself to dwell on it. It’s not like I have any proof or basis for my suspicion apart from the fact that he is a hot blooded male with sex on the brain. Sex, he is not getting from me.
“so when am I seeing you?” his voice is suddenly deeper and lower. I smile inwardly. My butch man doesn’t want his beer buddies to know he’s missing his woman during their male bonding session.
“when do you want to see me?” I say in my best sexy voice.
“Now.”
“well I’m at VGC, you could come pick me up.”
He groans, “Vee! Take a cab now.”
“Obviously you don’t need to see me that badly” I tease. I don’t actually expect him to say he’d come. I have to have the laziest boyfriend in the world. “Look I’m not on call till 2 tommorrow, I’ll come see you in the morning.”
I hear the smile in his voice as he says, “That sounds nice doc, I’ve got this ache that I’d like you to check out. In fact I’ve had it for 3 years now.”
“Seye Oguntunde pull the shreds of your mind out of the gutter. I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.”
“Yeah, me too.” He mumbles.
“say it” I press more to embarrass him than out of a need to hear him confirm what I already know. He mutters a barely audible reply and I hang up.
I’m about to head back into the party when I spot the Danjuma brood heading out. Nissah waves excitedly as she sees me, she hooks my hand and starts gabbing excitedly about some guy. I’m not paying much attention, as I glance back I spot Raymond. He smiles and gives me a little wave, I smile back and all of a sudden I don’t want to leave.

Seye calls me as early as early as 6am the next morning. I’m half awake as I answer the phone. We speak for less than a minute, then I mutter “Thank God” and pull the covers over my head. “what?” Nissah asks, “the three hour makeout session has been cancelled.”
“Yep.” I mumble, “his Dad sprained his ankle this morning so he has to drive him to some convention in Ilorin.”
“Talk about raining on your parade” she says
“Good thing then that your float is rolling out” I mutter. Since the party she has only been able to talk about Dayo Oderinde. Well he put her out of her misery by calling her and asking her out to lunch. Which is why my friend a new suit and shoes from her "emergency wardrobe" Like he"s gonna ak you how old your shoes are" I’d said when she’d told me. Well, one had to be prepared, Nissah is your typical girl scout. She’s been scouting for her Mr. Right ever since I’ve known her. After a string of Mr. Never-Do-Rights, Nissah had started worrying about her biological clock. I’d come across her filofax once and discovered that she wanted to marry by the time she was 25 and have her 2 kids, a boy first when she was 27 and the girl two years later. i didn’t want to tell her that marriage and family life were not stuff you penned down like you were planning a dinner for 10. She had been my best friend for about fifteen years but Nissah Danjuma never failed to surprise me.
“Aunty Nissah, Oga don ready oh!” the driver called from a safe distance. Ever since Nissah’s aunt had accused him of being a peeping tom, he never came within twenty feet of our flat.
“See you babes. It’s your turn to buy breakfast stuff” she flung over her shoulder as she hurried out in her brand new Steve Madden pumps. I couldn’t help the smile that curled my lips as I drifted off to sleep again.

I decided to be a doctor when I was 7 years old, however then it was borne out of a need to be the other person that wasn’t on the receiving end of a ten inch long needle. My parents had been thrilled of course, because before then I’d wanted to be a dancer, and before that a ninja. My Dad was a pharmacist and owned a popular drugstore in Port Harcourt back in the 90’s. These days he worked with a leading oil company. He had pulled a few strings to get me this housemanship with St. Serenity. The CMD was an old friend and he’d been happy to take on Dr. Greene’s precious daughter. Anytime Dr. Ngeri stopped by when we were on rounds, I have expected him to pull my cheeks and coo at me. The man was more excited than my father had been at my induction. On my first day he had regaled the entire hospital staff with tales of how I used to come to his office with my Dad and play with his “teposcope.” As if that hadn’t been enough, he had pulled me into his arms and given a heart-warming speech about how proud he was of me and since none of his kids had followed in his footsteps (Oh he had three, his first daughter was a hotelier, his only son was an unsuccessful artist waiting to be discovered and his last daughter had ditched Cambridge for modeling) I was basically the daughter he’d wished for. Within the first few hours of showing up the man had managed to tarnish my reputation. All the nurses hated me already, the residents asked me questions all the time hoping to catch me at my worst and my colleagues sucked up to me. Maybe they could make residency if they were friends with the CMD’s pet.
So when I rushed in that afternoon a few seconds past 2, the Head Nurse rolled her huge eyes at me. I couldn’t be bothered, an hour stuck in traffic and the last 10 minutes on an okada where the rider smelled like he’d never heard of soap led to the conclusion that my day couldn’t get any worse. She thrust a file in my hand, “Dr. Adisa wants you to follow up his patient in Room 45. He’s going to be in theatre for the rest of the day.”I opened my mouth to tell her that I was supposed to be in the theatre as well. A neuro-specialist had been flown in for an operation to remove a tumour from a patients brain and it was such an uncommon procedure that I’d be lucky to see another one before the year ran out. Instead I took the file without another word. They hated me already, there was no need to make things worse. By the time I left Room 45 I realized that the nurses really had it in for me. The patient was a lascivious 77 year old man that had had his prostate removed and was attached to a catheter, still that didn’t stop him from trying to play grab-ass with me, which was no easy feat while I attempted to change his catheter.
I was sweating by the time I left the room. I flung a dirty look at HN as I passed, I couldn’t even remember what she was called. At this hospital nobody was called by their names, well except me since I’d always been addressed by an initial. Feeling ravenous I headed to the cafeteria, I took a seat by the glass partition so I could catch a bit of eye gossip. My one friend at the hospital, a male nurse called Sergio (yeah, I’d laughed too) wasn’t on call till evening so I was alone. At least till Dr. M sidled into the seat across me. Now the thing with Dr. M was he was so annoyingly aware of how good looking he was that it had put me off instantly. He smiled constantly and his eyes twinkled genuinely when he laughed. The running story was that within two weeks he managed to bed the entire new intake, I was his latest challenge and quite one at that, seeing as I’d been at St. Serenity for 3 months.
“Miss V.” he drawled
“Hi Dr. M, any hot surgeries today?” I asked hopefully. He normally let me in on his operations. He’d even let me make the first incision once.
“Nah. It’s been a slow day. The most interesting thing I’ve done is writing a hypochondriac woman a prescription for the flutter in her heart.”
“Oh Mrs. Dina” I said as I remembered the first time I’d been saddled with the middle aged woman who came in almost every week certain that whatever ailment she had this time would certainly do her in. “Well her husband’s company will either sack him or cancel their health benefits” I added and Dr. M laughed. At a consultation fee of ten thousand naira and a yearly private membership of about three million naira, St. Serenity wasn’t your average malaria-pop-in clinic. Most of our clients where multi-national corporations and filthy rich individuals.
“So how was your weekend?” Dr. M asked.
“definitely not as interesting as yours.” I replied.
He laughed and his eyes lit up, “I wonder why you have this preconceived idea about me, which by the way is totally wrong.” He said.
I raise my brows, “Really? So you’re telling me you didn’t hang out Friday night for drinks with the guys, meet a nice girl, took her out for lunch on Saturday and to see a movie on Sunday.”
He smiled, “Are you having me followed Vee?”
“Call it intuition Dr. M” I say as I pop the last piece of meat into my mouth, “I gotta run in and check up on Mr. Grab-ass in Room 45.”
“Hmn, now I envy Mr. Grab-ass” he said giving me a wink as I stand up. Dr. M was nice and actually fun to be with if only he’d stop flirting with me.The rest of the day goes on rather uneventfully. I find myself doing the mundane tasks that I’ve become used to, checking blood pressure, filling charts, that sort of thing. I call Seye just to check up on him, he’s upset. Turns out they might have to sleep in ilorin. I’m too busy to hold his hand right now so I feign an emergency and hang up. I love Seye, honestly but I don’t have the girlfriend-maternal instincts he’s constantly trying to drag out of me. I’m tempted to call Nissah and see how she’s doing but I decide to save my call credit and wait for the juicy details when I get home. Besides a lunch date is just an opportunity to plan something more interesting for later. My shift ends at 8, which is not bad, we have a hospital administrator Mrs. O who has a running policy that doctors are more productive when they are less stressed. I love mrs. O I think happily as I skip outside. I mean I have friends on housemanship who practically run the hospitals and work on less than 2 hours sleep daily. I mean it’s all very Grey’s Anatomy minus the dishy doctors and scandalous sex trysts.
To be continued..........

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have a really refreshing writing style. I love the lackadaisicalness of this piece. Lol at a lunch date being time to just plan something better for later. I'll be back here...

Neo said...

Thanks MHD!

"lackadeisicalness"??? LOL!

Original Mgbeke said...

Love love it. You are quite heelarious with your writing style. You need to UPDATE. :-)

Buttercup said...

Gosh, I'm loving this, Neo.. I really am!

Myne said...

Being away for even a few days sucks on blogville. Nice update, when is the next? You really write well.