The Free Spirit

A Doctor's Worst Patient; 1977 (Part One)

My first days of the year 1977 were spent having a nice relaxing spa day at the London Hospital, and by 'spa day', I mean being forced to lie down in a bed for hours on end with a catheter up where it has no business being unable to keep my mind occupied. I tried reading, I tried writing to my father, brothers, anyone to keep my mind occupied, I tried even sleeping, but nothing was doing it. "You know you have to rest, Catherine. How many times have you sat by the bedside of a woman who had to have a hysterectomy?" Trixie asked me, having come to visit on her day off.

"Plenty of times but I'm not like those women, I actually know what I can and cannot do, and I can definitely do more than sit here in bloody pain!" I moaned.

"Doctors are always the worst patients, aren't they?" Trixie said with a cheeky grin, and I rolled my eyes and groaned.

"I just want to go home and get back to work more than anything," I said, laying my head back on the pillow.

"You won't be able to go back if you don't allow your body to rest, Catherine. You've just had major surgery!" Trixie exclaimed. We were both silent for a moment, then she reached into her bag and pulled out a magazine.

"I've read enough fashion magazines to make my mother proud, Trixie," I told her.

"This isn't a fashion magazine, it's Life, and I think you'll like the featured story in it," Trixie told me, handing me the magazine. I was shocked by the front cover — there, staring back at me, were the familiar eyes of Ginger McAllistor and Elton Macfadyen embracing shirtless, with anything classified as 'inappropriate' creatively hidden. The headline said 'Married At Last'. Almost as quickly as I had the magazine in my hands did I have the telephone pressed up against my ear dialling collectively to Arizona, where Ginger's last place of residence was.

"Hello?" Ginger said, picking up the phone and answering in her familiar high-pitched, childlike Welsh accent.

"Oi, when were you planning on telling me you and Elton got married you wee bitch?" I exclaimed, and she laughed into the phone.

"I'm sorry, it was on a whim!" she said cheerfully, highly amused.

"The article says you twats got married in December!"

"Yes, shortly after Christmas in a court! It was nothing fancy, and besides, I heard you were ill! I called Don and told him to send you my well wishes!"

"Aye, I got those, but not news of your marriage!"

"I didn't want to shock you, I promise! I'd have invited you if we hadn't just decided to do it on a whim! Hell, even we didn't know we were doing it!"

"Oh, can it! When did this all come about? I thought you were avoiding him?"

"I suppose I was for a while, but I thought about it and realised it wasn't him I was avoiding, it was my own feelings. So once I realised it, I called him and we talked for hours in the middle of the night. I asked him to come over for Christmas and he did, and we made love that night and on the day after Boxing Day, we decided we wanted to get married, so we did!" I heard a mumble at the other end of the line. "Catherine, my love. She saw an article in a magazine about our marriage!"

"Is that Elton? Call him a fuckhead for me," I said.

"She says you're a fuckhead," I heard Ginger say, and I heard two sets of laughter. "He says ditto and asks how you're feeling!"

"Oh, miserable as can be. I've never been one for bed rest but here I am, unable to get up not even to use the lav. I've got a tube in me taking care of that. The incision hurts and is itchy as hell but is otherwise healing nicely. I won't be able to go back to work until, the earliest, late February, but more likely early March, which pisses me off because it pushes back my residency. I've got another four and a half years before I'm allowed to really do anything on my own."