Robots in London

More and more cases of SLE are appearing; it’s like some kind of convention for the disease has visited town. I’ve dealt with half a dozen cases in the past few months and today I went to the aid of a woman suffering chest pain in a bank. She was a member of staff and the first aider laid her down and put her into the recovery position – people who know me will be rolling their eyes to heaven because it’s a pet hate of mine. What first aid training company is telling people to roll perfectly conscious patients into the recovery position? And why are they being laid down with chest pain? Nuts I tell you.

This lady had been diagnosed with SLE thirteen years before but her doctor had neglected to tell her of its affects, which she'd feel...sooner or later. She was having a ‘flare’ with associated headache and muscular pain in her chest. It was painful for her but there’s not a lot we can do for it except provide analgesia and take her to hospital.


There’s a robotic centrepiece in Traffy Square at the moment (I don’t know how long for, nor what it’s called) but eight autonomous robot arms move at random on top of a video display stage. Each arm has a light on the end of it and I’m sure it looks pretty cool at night, although kind of creepy at the same time. Names, and I’m assuming it the names of the robots, appear on the matrix screen. One of them is called Jesus. Or maybe the thing is designed to teach religion.


During my standby period on the Square, two men passed by and one of them pointed at the car. He then referred to his friend and said ‘just in case’ – most people think I am there to help anyone who falls off the lions (but I’m not). His friend looked at him, shrugged and replied ‘why bother?’ There was more than one robot on the Square.


Running calls occur commonly and my peace and quiet was disrupted by a panicking , sweating man who ran up to the car, said ‘You must help my friend – she’s bleeding somewhere’, then he ran off without another word. He was holding a mobile ‘phone, so I assumed he was in contact with the bleeding friend. I watched him run away and frantically wave at someone at the bottom of the Square. A private medic was there and so he got help for his girlfriend. But I still had to go and check it out, so I called it in and was told an ambulance had been despatched to a PV bleed.

The Spanish girl had bled as the result of an operation she'd recently had (from her broken-English description it sounded like a biopsy) and her jeans were soaked and red around her groin. She sat in the first aider's car whilst I gave her pads to stem the flow. In such a public place, there wasn't much else to be done - her BP and other vitals were normal, so nobody was panicking about it.

The ambulance arrived soon enough and I gave my handover. The girl was taken to the vehicle in a chair and appropriately covered up to save her dignity.


This was my last shift for a while; I'm going to have a holiday and try to finish writing the novel - it's almost there but needs a bit of attention. Mr Tonsilpus is about to go away on his tour of the UK before he leaves to tour the rest of the world, so I am also occupied with that for the moment. Once he's gone, Lottie will take over with most of the admin and communications. I'll come back after a few weeks to another couple of shifts and then things may change for me; I will let you know what that means if it happens - but don't panic!

In the meantime, keep reading and donate to the Tonsilpus cause!

Be safe.