Artwork by Louise Derley

The Tissue Typing Soliloquy
Written and First Performed at ASEATTA
By Graeme Woodfield, 1990

HLA or not HLA, that is the question?
Whether it is nobler to mind the slings and arrows of outrageous clinicians
Or to take arms against their sea of troubles and by opposing, offend them
To type, to sleep, no more
And with no sleep we start
The belly ache and the thousand unnnatural problems that we are heir to
This is consumation devoutly to be missed

To type, Class I, Class II
No chance to dream, ay there's the rub
For in that lack of sleep what dreams may come
When we have shuffled to the cafe,
Must give us pause
Where's the repeat that gives us courage in this long life?
For who would bear the jibes and scorns of Transplant Co-Ordinators
The oppressor's inaccurate forms. The proud Consultants contumely
The pangs of shattered tubes. The MLC's delay
The insolence of office clerks
And the spurn that patients regard our unworthy tubes
When I myself might, my quiet test make
With a bare bodkin?

Why do Technicians bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life
But that the dread of something after work
That undiscovered country that some call leisure
To which we seldom return
Puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those we serve
Than fly to others we know less well.
Thus conscience makes cowards of us all
And thus the native hue of our complexions,
Is sickled over with the pale cast of work
And enterprises of great
Pith and moment with this regard we transplant
And Know the name of action.

Ah fair Ophelia, your heart was ours, but long ago.
Your kidney too, and now your liver
I pray you now, give me your bones,
And I will deliver blood and judgement mingled
Prithee thee now, seal thou my lips
And let this damned ghost rivet my tongue
Before I face tomorrow.