There is a song with those lyrics in it somewhere. "Happy or not, here I come" by some group I don't know and can't name. Or is that my suffering mind putting words into lyrics that are not there really. Oh, the power of negative thoughts! I think the song is actually something like, "READY or not, here I come". It doesn't make a difference, so little does in this profession. The fact is the sentiment is the same. I live with madness and today is just as telling as yesterday.

I have sat in a clinic room wondering how I could make a fortune doing something else. Six patients in 2 days decided not to come to their appointments. The endless, "I need help doctor, but I'll be damned if I'm going to do anything about it" syndrome that afflicts so many with mental illness, was proving yet again its effectiveness at wasting everybodies time.

Today something happened that makes my reality even more absurd.

I arrived at the clinic, expecting more no shows, to see the nurse in charge looking apprehensively in my direction. Finally coming to me to plant her best blow to my brain, she said in nursy tones;
"Ah, doctor, your 9:30 is here and ..."
AND is a nemesis. It makes you hold your breath and think of bad things.
" ... and your 9:30 for tomorrow is here as well."
Clearing her throat, she then added, "AND .... those two policeman are with him AND he is in chains, don't you know." Nurses always smile when they know you are in the deep end of the pool of sh_t and they won't help you. Smile and walk away. They learn that within the first week.

It doesn't happen if you are an anaethatist.
"Oh doctor, please put this patient out so we can do a bypass and by the way, the police are here with another man who they want you to put to sleep so that can retrieve their bludgeon from his large intestine. How it got there, nobody knows? But could you do it at the same time as the other man. Just to see how you manage the impossible".

Everything has a solution and I managed a way around this. Ask the police to wait with the chained man. After all, he isn't going anywhere. Re-shedule everybody. Nobody will be happy, but so what! None of them were happy in the first place.

That should certainly be enough problems for a Wednesday morning, 9:45am.
No.
I'm looking for notes for the chained man back in my department. To be hunted down by a clerk, shouting ...
(Non medics always get excited about trivia like this. What is it? Clerical staff whatch too much ER, Hobly City, St ELSEWHERE and any other medical trash on the television and think your life is glamorous.)
"Doctor, an urgent phone call. The liason team are trying to find you"
"Great," I think. I don't work for the liason team. I have nothing to do with the liaison team at the hospital, except a casual, "Hello how are you." The type where you really do not want to hear the reply to. I can't spell liaison without thnking very hard.
They are looking for me? On top of the disaster that is already my day? Are they crazy? "Things could only get better?" pops into my mind, laced with poison. Hell, lyrics are coming think and fast today?

"I am very busy at the moment sorting out my clinic, did they say what they wanted?" Questions like this, I have come to know, are always retorical in a hospital. In a culture where "turfing" a patient to the next speciality is a must-know skill. Nobody ever answers questions like this. If they did, they would know to much and that would make it their problem. So nobody ever knows anything. If you don't know anything really, what can you do about it? So, no ... the clerk had no clue. I am just being sought by a phantom liaison service for something that nobody knows anything about but it is urgent. It always is. A phone is thrust into my hand and the next thing I am talking to the voice of liaison. I will paraphrase the conversation as such;
"Doctor? So and so is on leave today and we don't know who is covering for him so we thought - you are having a great day so we want to make your life better. Hold you head under that pool of sh_t we can already smell you are in. The police have brought a man up to the accident and emergency department on a Section 136. (That is, the police have decided someone is crazy and want you to tell them they got it right .... not wrong .... right .... you see; the police know the art of turfing too. Being right, means the man isn't their problem anymore. Doughnuts calling.)He needs to be assessed, you can do it?"
Why?
It doesn't make any sense. Would you go up to a postman and say, look, don't deliver letters today. Here is a shuttle, be an engineer and fix these tiles. Yes, the black ones - the ones that heat up to thousands of degrees and are pivitol to the lives of those on board. Not you job? Does that matter? Post, tiles, tiles or post .... close enough, you can manage. See you later."
SO why should I do something I am not employed to do?
Oh. I'm a doctor. Walk over me. Here, have my blood, I don't need it. I'm in a caring profession, you come first. Take this chainsaw and use it on me, three pieces? Yes, that will do. Three pieces of me, doing three things all at the same time.
And my wife thinks I cannot multitask.
I was as polite as I could be. I was really polite. Pol-lite, with a capital P.

They say that you should start the day as you mean to go on. Happy or not.
I'm telling you, they are crazy. I know. I am a professional.