Tom Reynolds - More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea

MORE BLOOD, MORE SWEAT

and ANOTHER CUP of TEA

Tom Reynolds

More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea is not authorized or endorsed by the London Ambulance Service. Opinions expressed in this book do not necessarily reflect those of the London Ambulance Service.

The Friday Project

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by The Friday Project in 2009

Copyright © Tom Reynolds 2009

Tom Reynolds asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9781906321406

Ebook Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780007332694

Version: 2016-08-08

Without my patients I would not be the person that I am today –and ultimately it is to them that this book is dedicated .

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: A Good Job

Introduction

Chapter 1 – Taxi

Chapter 2 – Leaving My Job

Chapter 3 – Zafira

Chapter 4 – NYE Night

Chapter 5 – Ten Deep Breaths

Chapter 6 – Taxi?

Chapter 7 – Chickenpox

Chapter 8 – Rough

Chapter 9 – The Black Dog Has Been Taken Outside and Shot

Chapter 10 – Complaint

Chapter 11 – Snapshots

Chapter 12 – Repeat Offender

Chapter 13 – Algesia

Chapter 14 – Back on the Car…

Chapter 15 – Wee-Wee

Chapter 16 – Swagger

Chapter 17 – Scent

Chapter 18 – Betting Shops

Chapter 19 – It Says ‘London’ on the Side

Chapter 20 – Good Job/Bad Job

Chapter 21 – Valentine’s Day

Chapter 22 – Tagged

Chapter 23 – Lost Words

Chapter 24 – Bleurgh

Chapter 25 – Free-Market Oxygen

Chapter 26 – Uniform

Chapter 27 – Abuse Your Ambulance Crew

Chapter 28 – Slow Suicide

Chapter 29 – I Wouldn’t Trust Them with My Dog

Chapter 30 – Laughing Policeman

Chapter 31 – Structural Collapse

Chapter 32 – Shorn

Chapter 33 – 12th November 2046

Chapter 34 – On the Power of Blankets

Chapter 35 – Friday Night’s All Right for Fighting

Chapter 36 – Gassed and Splinted

Chapter 37 – More Crap GP Work

Chapter 38 – Wasting the Time of a GP

Chapter 39 – Small Observation

Chapter 40 – (Another) Nan Down

Chapter 41 – More Madness in East London

Chapter 42 – Ethnic Relations

Chapter 43 – Lying to Patients

Chapter 44 – Patientside

Chapter 45 – Hit and Run

Chapter 46 – Happiness Is

Chapter 47 – Offering the Chance

Chapter 48 – Shaken Baby

Chapter 49 – On the Strange Thoughts that Assai I You at Five in the Morning

Chapter 50 – Taxi Driving

Chapter 51 – An Upsetting Job

Chapter 52 – Being Lied to

Chapter 53 – Clockwatching

Chapter 54 – Thank You Taxpayers

Chapter 55 – Helpful Demons

Chapter 56 – Absurd Council ‘Thinking’

Chapter 57 – Last Night’s ‘Off Job’

Chapter 58 – Wild Geese

Chapter 59 – Why You Should Pull Over and Let Us Pass (Or Hahahahahaha …)

Chapter 60 – Arranged

Chapter 61 – Sugar

Chapter 62 – F-off

Chapter 63 – The Standard Weekend Night

Chapter 64 – Moped Madness

Chapter 65 – Sucking Lungs

Chapter 66 – Persuasion

Chapter 67 – The Jobs We Do…

Chapter 68 – On Dealing with a Brain Surgeon

Chapter 69 – Forgetting Your History

Chapter 70 – A Warning

Chapter 71 – Bloody CPR

Chapter 72 – Stabbings and Sex Politics

Chapter 73 – New Terms

Chapter 74 – Rioting and Waiting

Chapter 75 – Not with Your Ten-Foot Barge Pole

Chapter 76 – Not All Bad

Chapter 77 – Minimalist Blogging #1

Chapter 78 – Minimalist Blogging #2

Chapter 79 – Minimalist Blogging #3

Chapter 80 – Minimalist Blogging #4

Chapter 81 – Minimalist Blogging #5

Chapter 82 – Community Care

Chapter 83 – Things that Make Me Want to Go Stabby

Chapter 84 – Why I Keep Telling My Mother that I Would Rather Wear Glasses to Work than Contact Lenses—Namely Their Protective Quality

Chapter 85 – The Usual Suspects

Chapter 86 – Maybe

Chapter 87 – Heatwave

Chapter 88 – Blue, Blue, Blue and Blue

Chapter 89 – Armed Siege

Chapter 90 – Working for Your Pay

Chapter 91 – Boating

Chapter 92 – Intermediate Tier

Chapter 93 – Double Fall

Chapter 94 – Fall-Not As Given

Chapter 95 – Faux Pas

Chapter 96 – ‘Cheating’ to Get Care

Chapter 97 – Oh FFS!

Chapter 98 – Shattered

Chapter 99 – Tilt

Chapter 100 – The Truth *

Chapter 101 – Why Your Train Yesterday May Have Been Delayed

Chapter 102 – Three Glass Stories

Chapter 103 – Hit

Chapter 104 – Allergic Reaction

Chapter 105 – After the Epilepsy Comes the Work

Chapter 106 – Snails

Chapter 107 – Mugging

Chapter 108 – Danger Bus

Chapter 109 – Dog (Or, Why I Like Animals More than Most People)

Chapter 110 – Thursday Night

Chapter 111 – Thank You West Ham

Chapter 112 – My New Plan for Hoax Calls

Chapter 113 – On TV Dramas and Documentaries

Chapter 114 – Dotty

Chapter 115 – Unknown Aggro

Chapter 116 – Church

Chapter 117 – Saviour or Service Abuser

Chapter 118 – Possession

Chapter 119 – The Humanity of the Officer of the Peace

Chapter 120 – Abandonment

Chapter 121 – Both Boxes Ticked

Chapter 122 – Cynical Minds Thinking Alike

Chapter 123 – Veil

Chapter 124 – A New Kind of Stupid

Chapter 125 – Forked

Chapter 126 – Hypo

Chapter 127 – Parklife

Chapter 128 – 9010

Chapter 129 – The Things that We Do

Chapter 130 – Helpful Passers-By

Chapter 131 – Government Targets

Chapter 132 – Hectic

Chapter 133 – Beaten

Chapter 134 – Beaten II

Chapter 135 – Inter-Service Relationships

Chapter 136 – Ghosts of the Past

Chapter 137 – Pitch Black

Chapter 138 – Google Health

Chapter 139 – Another Monday Night

Chapter 140 – Is It Wrong?

Chapter 141 – The Right Choice

Chapter 142 – The Slow Attrition of the Soul

Chapter 143 – Knee

Chapter 144 – Extended Role

Chapter 145 – The Stanford Experiment

Chapter 146 – Da Boss

Chapter 147 – Standing Back

Chapter 148 – Two in Two Nights

Chapter 149 – MHU Transfers

Chapter 150 – No Boom Today, Maybe Boom Tomorrow

Chapter 151 – A Little Good