The Silver Protector And Me

An Unexpected Patient

The alarm clock sounded at five o'clock in the evening.

Groping blindly, Jazzie reached over. She fumbled for the release button. The damn thing kept trilling, so she threw it across the room, where it continued to rattle and ring, until she moodily got up and figured out how to turn it off, seeing as no one else was going to! "Girls! Time to get up!" She grumbled.

"Mrrr!" Groaned Lucitana. "It's too early!" But then got the covers pulled off her by Hortenseya.

"On the contrary, we're going to be late if you don't get your lazy backside out of bed!" She told her. "Now come on. It's our first day."

After a quick wash and brush up, the queens shared out the last of the meat for breakfast and then hurried on up to the office. There to greet them were Sister Jellylorum and Matron Jennyanydots, looking as though they'd already been up for hours. "Evening, girls," Jelly greeted briskly. "All ready and raring to go I see. Which is good. We have a busy night ahead of us."

Each queen was given her own bag of equipment, uniform and name badge, Jazzie's garb marking her out as a doctor by being a simple white shirt dress, rather than a blue Newcastle dress, with a dark blue belt. Next, there were a number of forms to fill out, then a quick breakdown of patients within the 200 bed premises and what to expect. They got to meet the small team of student nurses and volunteers who carried out all the menial tasks, and then finally, were handed pagers and sent to work in different areas of the Infirmary. Lucitana and Norstara were to assist in the Labour Ward out the back, Hortenseya to deal with accident and emergency cases and Jazzie was sent to the General Practice on the ground floor.

Jenny led her through the busy waiting area and into a small consultation room, explaining and articulating as she went. "This will be your surgery, until you get used to things." And showed the young queen around the room, with its chequered linoleum floor and white-washed walls, pointing out where everything was, even though it was pretty obvious really, since the area was quite small and simple in its layout, and had everything Jazzie needed, including an examination table, a sink, a bureau and a formica counter, upon which was a sphygmomanometer and an array of other clinical equipment. "Here is your stethoscope, dear," the Matron said, hooking the instrument over Jazzie's neck. "Be sure to keep that on you." Then she looked curious. "Out of interest, do you have any other skills?"

The Snowshoe replied readily, "I've always been passionate about surgery. I always dreamed of being one, but... I ended up practicing internal medicine instead."

Jenny was intrigued. "Have you actually done any surgery?"

"My mother is a very fine surgeon. I studied under her guidance for two years at the Pitié-Salpêtrière and then for a year at the University College London. Then, whilst in captivity I had to do all manner of things. I removed glass from a patient's foot, closed a hole in a tom's abdominal cavity, set broken bones and such. I even performed several cesareans."

"So, you've had some practice, but no documented credentials or anything?"

"My mother has them. I can ask her to send them if you like?"

"Yes, if you could, as soon as you can. Then we shall see about the surgery." The Matron looked thoughtful. "A surgeon is something we definitely need. A lot of the time we have to send cases to the humans, or if the cat's owner can't afford to pay…" she trailed off sadly. "We used to have a surgeon in actual fact. My own mum, bless her dear soul. She was actually a witch, but had a passion for dentistry and did surgery on the side as well. We have plenty of books in the library, if you ever wanted to read them?"