MEDICAL EMERGENCY

It was well after dark.  We were snug on a mooring in Cateran Bay.  The gourmet meat pies to which I had been looking forward were ready for serving.   Then we heard a muffled hail.  From the cockpit I could make out a dinghy with outboard rumbling, standing off our stern, two people dimly discernable. 

Over the sound of the outboard motor I couldn’t make out all the words, but a youthful female voice with a marked English accent shouted. “Muffle muffle …you have any … muffle muffle muffle ….bandages? My sister has cut herself”.

A medical emergency!  I shout: “We have a first aid kit. Come and get what you need.”

The young woman clambers out of her dinghy, picks her way around hanging wetsuits and into the cockpit and thence into the saloon. I dig out our largish first aid kit, of which I am proud.   I indicate that she can take what she needs from it.  She dives in.  “My sister has cut herself on the coral and we are worried about scarring”.  Visions of horrific coral cuts flash to mind.  I hope it’s not on the face. 

There is a touch of hysteria in the way she quickly pulls out and discards item after item, and our lounge is soon covered by the things she doesn’t want. “Do you need antiseptic or antibiotic ”?  I ask.  Short response: “No we have that”.  “Do you need bandages?” I ask,  ineffectually watching as our substantial stock of sterile bandages and tapes hits the lounge. Impatient now, she said: “No. We need butterfly clips that pull the wound together so there is no scarring”.

I am doubtful now.  I don’t think we have any. I feel as though I have let the side down. I ask how bad the cut is.  “It’s about a centimetre long, on her foot”, she explains. 

A centimetre? The sister must be a famous foot model? I hold my tongue.

Having rooted through the whole medical kit and confirmed that there are no butterfly clips, she heads off, the contents of our kit by now fairly well distributed.  “I’m sorry,” I apologise abjectly as she clambers into her dinghy.  She turns back and mutters “It’ll probably scar now”.  Do I detect an accusatory tone?

I respond mildly: “Perhaps she can wear the scar as a badge of honour? ” The girl pauses:  “That’s what Dad said”. Then I notice Dad sitting patiently in the dingy. I can’t see him clearly but he is quite hunched, probably a sensible man but unequal to asserting control over his self-absorbed offspring.

As I go back down to pack away my wonderful first aid kit, I realise that there are two items I need to add to it.

First addition will be butterfly clips, in case another foot model stubs her toe.

But more importantly I need a bottle of those pills the army dole out to the injured and sick.   They go by the trade name TTFU Pills, and apparently work wonders when dispensed to young recruits when they feel that they just can’t go on. The recruits open the bottle to find no pills, but on close inspection the label is more helpful: TTFU (Toughen-The-Fuck-Up)*.  I need some of those pills, again in case another foot model hoves into view.

*I am indebted to Carmel and Nick from Thistle who introduced me to the concept of TTFU Pills, which were indeed dispensed to their son in his initial training. He went on to become the winning skipper of the Round the World Clipper Race, so I suspect they really work!