She’s already loading ‘Crazy in Love’ onto the Wii. I told my parents I didn’t want any fuss for my birthday, but I’ll forgive Ava. She loves parties and I missed her ‘epic’ eighth birthday do last November, along with most of her previous ones, Mum and Dad’s thirty-fifth wedding anniversary extravaganza and countless other dos. My family have stopped giving me a hard time about it, though I’m sure Marilyn thinks I do it on purpose.

Maybe I do . . .

It’s not only the unpredictable hours that separate me from normal people. Sometimes I feel like a soldier coming back from the war, unable to explain what I’ve seen and incapable of taking pleasure in the everyday routines of the rest of the Smith family. How can I tell them that as lovely as it is being at home, it seems monochrome compared to the work I was born to do?

I could try to tell my family some of the day-to-day details: wounds debrided, X-rays read, bleeding located, clots busted, mysteries solved. They’d laugh at what we’ve called the Fifty Shades effect: the increase in chafing injuries each weekend, caused by patients trying to improvise handcuffs from household supplies.

With a little more effort, I might even be able to remember some of the people behind the symptoms. The drunk man, younger than my father, whose swaying turned out to not be the alcohol but the subtle pressure of a tumour inside his brain. The woman my age who had chosen the wrong pills for her cry for help and was sent to HDU to see if they could keep her comfortable while her organs failed, one by one.

It was a deliberate choice not to let emotions cloud my judgement, but even I never thought I could be this effective. It’s given rise to my latest nickname: instead of Vampire, I’m now Robodoc. I pretended for a while that it was affectionate, but who am I kidding?

Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me.

‘Crazy in love!’

‘Crazy in love!’

But as Ava and I build to a tuneless finale, I glance back at the bungalow as the wrecking ball takes away a corner in a powerful blow. It reveals the garden behind, with the swing Tim’s dad erected a few months before he buggered off, leaving his son as Elaine’s sole carer and emotional punchbag.

And I experience the unfamiliar pang of something lost. Tears are building behind my eyes and I have to cover the break in my voice with a yell.

Turns out I can feel something after all.