Dame Edna

Many of us who work in the northern suburbs have met Dame Edna. Now I should immediately point out that despite appearences, this is not the real Dame Edna. She/he is a familiar sight at a certain hospital and many of us have picked her/him up. Edna is a colourful character both literally and figuratively speaking who doesn't seem to mind ambos, but really doesn't like hospital staff. So he/she can be nice as pie on the way to hospital and then drives the ED staff mad for the rest of the day. I might have him for twenty minutes. They can have him for their whole shift.

The first time I picked up Dame Edna I was a little shocked. Here was a six foot hairy man (woman?) wearing a dress, the purple wig, stylin' glasses, waving a glowing plastic flower in one hand and a fag in the other. Rumor also has it that he tried several other personas, including a certain superhero before finding "the One". Edna has a nasty tendency to take a lot of a close relatives medication resulting in the need to go to hospital for observation.

Last time we picked her up, she (yeah, I'll just say she, it's easier) ... she had absconded from hospital before they could monitor her blood levels. My partner was a little stunned when she charged out of the house towards us. Fortunately the Dame was in a reasonable mood. We dropped her off, they took blood samples and she had stormed out in a rage, waving her flower and scaring the entire waiting room to death long before I had finished my case notes.