This time last week I was sitting in the corner bed of a small surgical ward (six of us) wondering what came next,
framed with polyester blankets, imaginatively designed light fittings with not enough light for anyone with sight difficulties to benefit from, a television and a telephone, neither of which worked, wafted by overhyped air conditioning which was cold at night and dried the eyes. The nurses were busy, attentive and apparently effective. I was there for inside of five days and I shall resist the temptation to hitch a matronly breast and speak confidentially about what was wrong with me. Dramatic and not much.
I went out very carefully in the cooler bit of the hottest day (Friday) to buy more Dioralyte on the instructions of my GP, took a bus two stops there, decided (erroneously) to walk back, faltered on the home stretch. I reached to put the key in the lock, it balked with the heat, I sat down in a heap on the first bin and fell back fainting on to the second.
My friend and neighbour AJ heard the noise and fell downstairs to rescue me. He opened the door and took me in (approved hold under armpits) to the short distance to the kitchen where I fainted again. He put me in a chair, gave me a large glass of cold water, rang the community ambulance, found and began to put useful things in a small bag. .
I was slow but I was myself and I wouldn’t have missed the ambulance crew for anything. I have never “had” to be taken to hospital before and said so. They said “But you’re 82 … how did you manage that ? “ John told me it’s the best job in the world “you get to help somebody and get a terrific adrenaline lift” (see Breath by Australian writer Tim Winton)
The hospital photo’d my head and my gut – and sent me to bed. Between Sunday and Wednesday, they’d do a sigmoidoscopy,
give me bed rest and light diet and nurse me – I felt like a fake for never producing any significant problem.
I was to be allowed home on Wednesday at 1.00 – they needed my bed (I’m not surprised). It took till 5.20 to leave the building, drugs had to be made I knew nothing about, papers had to be cleared – like going across the Berlin Wall. I had warned everybody to stay away because the NHS, however much I appreciate and respect it, eats time. God bless the Black Cab
and its driver, I came home.
Hardly was I in than AJ came to check on me (imagine the telephone between him/me/my son – nothing if not practical) with messages and Sarah came from the other side to go through the fridge with me and make sure I had food for supper and overnight, she would go and get it. (She had watered the garden while I was away).
I kept saying thank you and being grateful and once alone, emailed my son, my dearest friends none of whom are nearby and thanked heaven. (Especially when I subsequently discovered that a neighbour I do know has sold up and is gone, in those few days – she was here when I arrived … the world moves on and you don’t know what happens.) I shall be grateful for my neighbours for the rest of time. Just think … and you keep reading articles about how we don’t have them any more.
I couldn’t write. I felt very old and very light , a bit unreal. There was something from the hospital on the computer, I had papers tucked firmly into my handbag. None of these will receive attention until Monday 24th. Can’t do what you can’t do.
At the moment, I feel I shall not be much use at anything ever again but this is highlighted by not being able to read for one of the few occasions in my life and by a long long summer, a newspaper full of not very much – what my parents used to call “holiday editions” – and the endless preoccupation with bad news. And latterly, with having seen dramatized last night by a knighted actor an idea which should have been left as a book. And the journey to recovery being more than a bus ride.
Annalog 