For the last two nights, I’ve been aquainting myself with the refurbished (public) Austin Hospital. Kim’s stomach issues of the past few months have gotten more severe so we found ourselves in a lightly populated Casualty room amongst the other triage victims. Normally (and mercifully) sheltered from the general public by the controlled uniformity of my workplace, these emergency rooms are quite a reality check, and I wondered how my mum and sister managed to survive as the people on the other side of the glass in their everyday jobs. You’d have to develop quite a thick skin and put up with some gruesome sights. We were lucky that no-one wandered in with a half-severed arm or frothed about wanting to be seen RIGHT NOW, but on busier nights I imagine it could get ugly. 
Most hospitals look the same. Anyhow, she’s now been admitted, has her comfyest P.J’s close at hand, and has undertaken a gastroscopy, an ultrasound, a CAT scan, the usual blood tests and was dosed up on morphine when we last spoke this morning. It’s not gallstones either. She’s in too much pain to go home, so we’re in limbo land whilst they try and work it out.