Well, I finished writing Foreign Bodies last year. You can read it here on the website, and if you like it and want to do me a solid, you can buy it from me or Amazon. After finishing the book, I enrolled in a writing and editing course, which has taken up a lot of my time. It’s also helped me get a new day job as a medical writer, which has taken up most of the rest.

Part of the work I’ve done for my classes has involved partial re-writes of Foreign Bodies. Since I’ve learned a lot as a writer and improved parts of the book, I’m now working on a gradual re-write of the whole novel. When it’s done I plan to post a couple of sample chapters here, with the full revised book available to purchase as an e-book and paperback.

Watch this space for more news later. Drop me a line if you feel like it at lakes.sj@gmail.com.

My home in Brisbane was safe, but some of the areas nearby were flooded to varying degrees. You can see a few of my photos (such as they are) here.

Dave Sterling never really wanted to specialise in emergency medicine. He’s always been interested in surgery, and until midway through his internship, that’s what he thought he’d do. But surgical residencies are highly competitive, as it turned out, and there were other young doctors, with more advanced skills and better resumes, who beat him to the few available places.

It’s not so bad, his second-choice placement. He’s happy enough in emergency now, in his second year of residency, and expecting to start his specialist training next year as an emergency registrar. There’s not too much overtime, and once in a while he gets to perform minor procedures.

This morning he’s being given his first small group of medical students to supervise. They’re third-years, about a year and a half from graduation. Some of them will have spent time at this hospital already, but most have probably been placed elsewhere for their previous rotations. They will be assigned to Dave for two daytime shifts a week for the rest of the semester. He’s already decided he’ll call the students Doctor, like he’s heard some of the older specialists doing.

He meets the group for the first time at ten o’clock. Christ, he feels like a fraud; barely out of uni himself, really, and he’s supposed to teach these kids? He takes a few deep breaths to calm himself and hopes his nervousness doesn’t show.

He looks over the eight students and decides they don’t seem too threatening so far. They mostly look about his age, probably in their mid-twenties, except for one guy who might be a decade older.

“Well,” says Dave, “First things first: I’m Dave Sterling. I’m an emergency resident, and I’ll be supervising your rotation here. Who’s been placed in this hospital already?

Three hands go hesitantly up.

“Okay,” he nods. “Most of you don’t know the place, then, so let’s start with the cafeteria. Anyone not drink coffee?”

No hands go up. Exactly what you’d expect from students.

“Well, let’s all go and have a coffee together,” he says. “I need to learn all your names, and you guys can ask me any questions you have so far.”

Dave is still pretty nervous but thinks he’s hiding it decently. He has no idea how charming he actually is, with his outwardly easy manner and his lopsided grin. Five of the students already have the beginnings of a crush on him, including one straight guy, who will be mildly troubled when he realises it.

They take a long table in the cafeteria and chat over their coffees. Dave makes a note of all their names and vows to use a mnemonic trick he’s read about to remember them all. The bespectacled Indian woman is Linda, and the short pale one with red glasses is Lucinda; he must try not to mix them up.

“Call me Lucy,” says Lucinda.

“Okay,” says Dave, writing it down. He thinks she looks like she’s blushing lightly among her freckles. He guesses the students might be as nervous as he is after all.

After taking some time for introductions, Dave escorts his students to the emergency department. He leaves half of them with Kelly, the new triage nurse, to learn about admissions, and takes the rest with him to an exam room to observe some consults. In the afternoon they’ll swap over.

Their first patient is a man with abdominal pain. He’s already been medicated by the paramedics, so he doesn’t seem to be in serious pain, but needs to be assessed and possibly admitted.

“Hi, Trevor,” Dave greets him as he checks the chart. “I’m Dr Sterling. These guys are student doctors – is it all right if they observe while I check you over?”

Trevor nods. “Fine,” he says.

Dave asks him a couple of questions about the pain and his medical history, and shows the students the clinical measurements the nurses have noted on the chart. He looks to the one with the freckles – Lucy – and says, “What would you check next, Dr Proctor?”

Lucy blushes again and looks startled. “Um, I’d ask about recent diet and, um, bowel motions,” she manages.

“Good,” says Dave. He asks the patient and makes the relevant notes on his chart. “What now, Dr Benson?” he asks another student, shifting the focus from Lucy, who looks flustered.

“Visually examine and palpate the abdomen,” suggests Benson.

“Excellent,” says Dave. He asks Benson to do so, and talks him through it.

It’s a fairly straightforward case of probable appendicitis. Dave shows the group how to order an x-ray to confirm, while cautioning that an inflamed appendix might not show on a plain scan. “But unless we see something else,” he says, “the next step is a laparotomy to remove the appendix.”

Dave authorises the admission and tells the students to take a five minute break. He quietly asks Lucy to wait when the others go.

“Are you all right?” he asks. “You seemed upset in there.”

Lucy looks at her shoes. “Fine,” she replies. “I’m sorry about that.”

Dave is still a little concerned. “You’re sure?” he prompts.

Lucy looks sheepishly up at him. “I’d just never heard my name out loud like that before – Doctor Proctor! Ridiculous!”

“You’ll never guess what I got to see in gynaecology.”

Kelly raises her eyebrows and draws on her cigarette. “You’ll see plenty of them before your rotation’s over, newbie,” she tells me.

I blush. “No, not a… not that,” I say. “Actually, it was amazing! This woman with a pelvic mass – it’s an ectopic pregnancy that calcified. Huge! They’re taking it out tomorrow. I might get to scrub in and assist.”

Kelly’s eyes widen a bit as she exhales smoke. “Oh, shit!” she says. “That’s awesome. Won’t see better than that, maybe ever.”

“I know,” I agree wryly, buttoning my jacket against the cool night air. Kelly finishes her cigarette and we walk away from the hospital building to the car park.

“Is your car near here?” I ask.

She snorts. “Yeah, in the special nurses’ parks, right next to the doctors. How long have you been here?”

I shrug. “All I know is there’s no reserved spots for interns,” I say. “I get the train, or I park three or four blocks away if I drive.”

“There you go,” she says.

The car is not too far: it’s three blocks. We’ve both just done a ten-hour shift on our feet anyway, so I’m not too upset about the walk. Kelly and I have chatted a few times since I started working on her floor a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t made many friends at the hospital yet, so I was pleased when she offered to give me a ride home tonight.

“So where are we going for dinner?” says Kelly as she starts the car.

“Dinner?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m not just driving you home this early.” She winks.

“It’s after one,” I mumble, blushing again. Stop it, I scold myself. I haven’t had a date in months, and my legs are unshaved, but I could stop acting like an idiot.

We go through a drive-through and get some burgers. Kelly suggests we go somewhere else to eat them. The streets are quiet this late on a weeknight. While we drive I pick at some fries from the paper sack.

“Oh, they smell great,” Kelly almost moans.

I feel a little thrill of excitement at her voice. Quickly, before I can change my mind, I grab a couple of fries and hold them up for her to eat as she drives.

“Thanks,” she says, eating the fries from my fingers.

“So what’s the place you wanted to show me?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.

“It’s a lookout up near my place,” she says. “You can see all the way to the city.”

“Sounds pretty,” I say, eating another couple of fries.

It’s not far to the lookout, and it is pretty. We’re somewhere out near Mount Gravatt, I think. We stop in the parking area at the top of a hill. There’s another car parked at the other end; I can’t see if anyone’s inside.

“Isn’t this nice?” says Kelly. She takes a scrunchy from her pocket to tie back her blonde hair, before taking her chicken burger and one of the bags of fries from the sack on my lap.

“Yeah,” I agree softly. I unwrap my meatless cheeseburger and start eating. I’m glad they remembered to make it right.

“It’s a romantic spot,” I venture.

“I guess,” Kelly says indifferently, around a mouthful of food. “Ben brought me up here once. Might have been our first or second date.”

That’s a weird thing to mention on a date.

“Ex?” I ask.

“Current,” she says.

“Oh, sorry,” I say hastily.

“S’arright,” she says, finishing her burger and balling up the wrapper.

I pretend to be very interested in my remaining fries, hoping she can’t see my mortified expression in the dark.

Kelly belches. That confirms it: this is definitely not a date.

“This shitty greasy food always clogs me up the next day,” she says.

I laugh. “Get a fibre supplement,” I say.

“I will,” she says. “Let’s call it a night, yeah?”

We do.

I usually feel self-conscious about how my complexion looks under fluorescent lights, but right now it’s not foremost in my mind. I’m still getting used to the smell of formaldehyde in here, and I’m a bit grossed out by the implications of the bug zapper lights.

“Welcome to your first lab session for Human Dissection,” says the professor, voice echoing off the tiled walls.

I quietly note that the class is actually now called Biomedical Anatomy, but the professor looks like she might have been teaching it for a long time. I recognise her as the same teacher who takes the lectures for this class. Her short, steely hair gives her a slightly stern appearance.

As she announces the mandatory health and safety stuff (here there be scalpels, so wear closed shoes) I glance around at my classmates. They are all wearing gloves and clean lab coats like mine. I know a couple of people from my other subjects, but most are new faces to me. This is a final-year undergraduate class, so I suppose everyone here is serious about studying anatomy; probably most are aiming for entry to graduate medical degrees.

I’ve registered to sit the admissions test myself. It’s in a few weeks, and lately I feel increasingly like my head might implode from the stress of studying for that as well as my exams. Assuming my scores are good enough, I’ll be applying for medical school here in Brisbane. The next closest graduate program is way out at the University of New England, which I guess will be my back-up school. I’d rather not have to move, though, so I’m studying as much as I can to try and get in at UQ.

“Has anyone not seen a cadaver before?” asks the professor. “A body?”

About half the people in the lab raise their hands. I hesitate for a moment before raising mine. I’ve seen, well, parts, preserved and displayed in the anatomy and pathology museums. But I’ve never actually seen a dead body as such.

We are shown to a steel table, covered with a sheet, at the back of the lab. There’s obviously a cadaver underneath. The professor talks about respecting the bodies, the donors, and I realise I feel just a little anxious. I’ve overcome my squeamishness before to dissect organs in other classes, but this is different.

“The bodies do have genitals,” the professor says. “Please be adults.” She repeats her earlier warning that anyone showing disrespect will be asked to leave the lab. She removes the sheet, and then we’re standing around the table looking at a naked dead man.

He’s sort of fat. Skin discoloured. I’m mildly surprised to notice there’s still hair on the body, although I suppose there’s no reason why there wouldn’t be.

I look around again at the rest of the student group. A few people have gone a bit pale, and I think one has left. I feel all right; maybe the butterflies in my stomach were just excitement. I am looking forward to seeing what I’ve learned from my anatomy books in a real body.

The professor answers a few questions from the class. Someone asks about how people come to donate their bodies to the university. I hadn’t even thought of that.

“The anatomy school has a register of people who have volunteered as potential donors,” she tells us. “Mostly alumni or other people closely involved with the school. Once they die, as long as it’s in Brisbane, we’re notified. The school can only use bodies under certain circumstances, of course. Sometimes the body is not in a condition to use for teaching, depending on the cause of death.”

Everyone looks very serious now. The lab tutors divide us into small groups and assign us to our tables.

“Four students to a table,” says the professor. “You’ll take turns dissecting. You may take off the sheets when you’re ready.”

We introduce ourselves and I try to commit to memory the names of the others in my group.

“Brisbane is a small city,” the professor says. “We have had the situation before where a student has known someone whose body was being used in this class. So, if you should happen to recognise your cadaver, please tell your tutor.”

A couple of quiet, uneasy giggles go around the lab.

I clear my throat softly. “Okay,” I say, picking up a corner of the sheet. “Let’s see who we’re working with this semester.”

Human skulls are heavy, Josie realises, as she shifts the weight of her backpack on her shoulders. The skull is nestled inside, packed inside folded shirts to protect it from the heavy books in the bottom of the pack. It’s been one of Josie’s most treasured possessions since she bought it from a medical teaching supply company a year ago, but her mother hated it, and it had been quickly moved into a cupboard and out of sight. Now, Josie realises with satisfaction, she can put it wherever she wants in her own place. It really deserves to be displayed on a desk, not hidden away somewhere.

She picks up a large duffel bag, bulging with clothes and CD cases, and with the other hand takes the handle of a small suitcase. This is the last of her stuff, aside from the two cardboard crates full of books. She can barely lift those, let alone carry them on a bus, so moving them today is out of the question. I hate getting the bus, she thinks with a frown. She wishes, not for the first time, that she could go long enough without a seizure to get her learner’s permit.

Josie carefully makes her way down the stairs, moving slowly so as not to overbalance. Every time the boards creak beneath her she winces guiltily. Ridiculous, since nobody else is home. Her parents – the parental units, as she increasingly thinks of them – won’t be back for days. There’s plenty of time to get out.

Coming to the bottom of the stairs, she looks around and tries to feel something like fondness for the house. It doesn’t quite work: she’s only lived here for two years, and those have been as unpleasant as her years in the family’s prior house before they moved to Brisbane. To be fair, she thinks, that’s not the house’s fault. No, it’s the infuriating, miserable excuse for a family that has made all her memories of this place unhappy ones. She drops the heavy suitcase and glances around again, reflecting that the house itself is actually nice. It’s big, roomy; she imagines she might come to miss her spacious bedroom, which is the size of her entire new apartment. But the remaining occupants of the place? Well, those two deserve each other, Josie decides.

On her way out the front door, she feels like she’s forgetting something. Not the books upstairs; she’ll return for those, and her disassembled bookshelf, when she can get someone to drive her across town with them. It feels like there’s something else she needs from this house before she leaves.

Of course. She sets down the bags and walks into the big galley kitchen, sneakers slapping on the tiles. She stretches to retrieve a recipe book from the shelf over the microwave. She smiles, briefly considering just stealing the book, before taking it into the study across the entry hall. She uses the printer on her father’s desk to make copies of some of the pages, which she tucks into the front of the suitcase. She returns the book to its shelf, and on her way out of the kitchen, grabs an oversized coffee mug from a cupboard. It’s a huge red mug that doesn’t match any of the other crockery in the elegant kitchen. Josie places it with care inside her backpack, wrapping it in a shirt to protect it. The pack is very full now, and she struggles a bit to zip it closed again.

Satisfied, she puts the backpack on, checks that her wallet is still in her jeans pocket, and picks up the other cases again. She manouvres out the front door and lets it swing shut behind her, waiting to hear the lock click before she leaves.

She makes her way slowly down the street to the bus stop in the hot afternoon sun, weighed down by her possessions but feeling light on her feet. A new start, she thinks.

It’s almost two hours, and two bus changes, before she is in her new home. She has already made one long run across town with bags packed, so some of her stuff is already here; a couple of posters are up on the walls. She sets her bags and suitcase down in the tiny bedroom and collapses onto the bed, exhausted. She soon falls asleep there.

In the early morning she is still sprawled there on her back, snoring lightly, one sneakered foot hanging over the side of the bed. Her mobile phone rings, and she stirs. Gradually realising where the ringing is coming from, she reaches into her back pocket to retrieve the phone. No caller is displayed on the screen. She presses the button to answer and sleepily says, “Hello?”

Her eyes widen and she sits upright on the bed, the blood draining from her face. “What’s happened?” she asks the police officer.

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