As a fan of the BBC series Being Human, I might be forgiven the odd flight of fancy about the ubiquity of vampires and other interesting species. But in fact I have never thought twice about any such thing - until today. For today I had a phone call from the surgery, where last week I had a specimen of blood taken for analysis to find out why I had such a painful Christmas day.The receptionist was apologetic. Could I, she wondered, come back to the surgery on Friday - and give them some more blood? Slight panic. Had my last lot thrown up some weird symptoms which required further analysis? No. Instead they had had a letter from the lab "on the other side" (not another allusion to vampires, but the local parlance for Inverclyde Royal) to say no specimen had been received.
Now, I reason that if the lab is writing about my blood, then they must have expected to have found some. Otherwise how did they know I even exist? And I certainly saw - and felt - the syringe full being withdrawn and carefully bottled and labelled. I should have suspected something when the practice nurse said cheerily "See you soon" - and been properly pessimistic when she added "There's been a lot of this stuff for the lab going missing recently."
The receptionist who rang today tells me that the labs have been supplying new bottles for samples in transit, and they seem to be the problem. But I think that's a truly lame explanation. No, I'm pretty sure there must be vampires in Inverclyde, vampires of a squeamish disposition who prefer their blood in bottles. Or maybe bottle-fed vampire infants.
Meanwhile I have to part with more blood. I'll have an empty arm at this rate. But I'd be fascinated to find out if anyone else has come across this most recent nonsense. Or even a better explanation.
It's pretty common, I'm afraid. My late mother contracted Hep C from a contaminated blood transfusion and had to undergo a liver transplant. As a consequence she had regular liver function tests and the blood samples taken often would go missing in transit.
ReplyDeleteI would be careful where you buy your black pudding from.
PS Don't you think Mitchell could do with a haircut?
Maybe theres a Time Lord vampire out there with access to a TARDIS, who is sneakily diverting so many bottles of blood per day to feed their habit and disappearing off to another place and era (say Transylvania) to consume.
ReplyDeleteEpiscopal blood is highly sought after by Scottish vampires because it has quite a low alcohol content compared to other Scottish sources.
ReplyDeleteIs this a job for Buffy? Or have you been watching an old Hancock's Half Hour?
ReplyDeleteHancock for sure - but it's by memory of the first showing, ancient one.
ReplyDeleteI was in Inverclyde Royal today - they denied having vampires on the staff but the ones in Being Human work in a hospital and people don't know about them, so I didn't believe the lassie.
Oh my! Vampires in Scotland? Might rethink visiting Scotland!
ReplyDeleteA couple years ago, I was feeling pretty badly, so the Dr's. office insisted I come in for a "swab" of my throat....strep was "going around". After nearly GAGGING as the nurse practitioner stuck the swab in my mouth, I discovered a few days later that she forgot to label the sample with my name, so it was rejected by the lab. Talk about AGGREVATION! I had driven to the office with a fever and feeling like I'd been run over by a truck!!! I learned a valuable lesson...NEVER call the Dr when I am feeling badly!