There are upsides too

The Staff Nurse supervising the op-prep was everything a nurse should be: skilled and articulate (Neatly summarising every procedure for a Student Nurse present in the room), attentive (Agreeing she had experienced my specialised form of anaemic breathlessness when she was pregnant), a Hereford local (Who called me My Lovely without a trace of self-consciousness) and unembarrassed (When I asked her to swab my crotch rather than have me do it myself).

Also politically leftwing. I mentioned her department’s patient-registering device was bust. She shrugged: “It regularly doesn’t work. I call it Boris.”

Also willing to share professional secrets. I lay waiting for an ECG test and asked, “Are the sensors placed randomly round my torso?” She shook her head. Identified a bony protuberance in my shoulder, then fingered a string of minor protuberances counting to four. “Here’s where the first sensor goes.” 

What could have been a dull exchange of data became a lively and entertaining conversation. VR was in the waiting room; I told her, “I’ve just been handled by a terrific Staff Nurse.”

A by-now familiar voice sounded from behind. “I loved ‘handled’. It made me laugh.”