It should come as no great surprise to many of
you when I admit that I have slept in some weird and wonderful places, from
snow holes to ditches and back again.
One I remember was a purpose built room where the bunk beds accommodated
six people at a time. We had come in, as
you do, a little bit exhausted and dined on babies heads followed by a decent
cup of coffee with possessed cheese on rolled oat biscuits. We were then instructed to line up by the
door that led into the bed room and wait for a bed to become empty. The moment you were next in line and saw
someone pull themselves off a bed you made your way to it, rolled on to it and
slept. There was no messing about. We were still in full combat gear and would
even have cuddled ourselves around the rifle, or machine gun, we carried. In such a macho, methane flavoured,
environment I had one of the best sleeps ever.
I can now assure you that one of the most
uncomfortable night’s sleep I have ever endured would have been my first night
in an NHS hospital next door to the duty drunk Scouser. A slushy, dripping, snow hole would come a
close second but at least I didn’t have someone waking me up every thirty minutes
taking my blood pressure, sticking something in my ear and putting a plastic
clothes peg type thingy on the end of my finger. Gary proved that not only was he a decent
fellow but that he wasn’t a liar as he arrived in the middle of the night to
take me off for an x ray. The only good
thing about this was that I was encouraged to remain on the bed which he
expertly wheeled along the dimly lit corridors.
It was obvious that the technician at the x ray department had been
roused from her sleep as she yawned and scratched her way around me. For some reason I was asked to stay on my bed
and was x rayed there.
Gary brought me back to my ward where our
friend The Scouser was hanging over the side of his bed throwing up. Of course he wanted to tell everyone in the
hospital that he had thrown up and was yelling at the top of his voice, between
wretches, “Nerse!! Nerse!!” Gary expertly navigated my bed away from the
spreading pool of vomit and parked me up an extra two or three feet away from
The Scouser, who I think had begun to wonder not just where he was but who he
was. Then there was the pain from the
stab wounds which allowed him to roll back on to his bed and begin to whine for
someone to attend to him as he was a very sick boy indeed. He plugged his ears back up again with the
television headphones and stuck his face in front of the television screen, it
really was Orwellian. I knew that I was
exhausted as the constant waking up, with people sticking needles in me, or
taking my blood pressure, and the noise from the others area was just too much.
It was as dawn was poking through the windows,
and I don’t mean that blond girl from Hazelhurst, when Gary arrived again to
inform me that I was to be taken to another ward. In a way I was quite interested to experience
the working of an NHS hospital as it was so often talked about in the news. You had the likes of the Commonwealth Fund, a
very highly respected organisation, which produces analytical reports on the performance
of different countries’ health systems, declaring that the NHS is the world’s
best healthcare system. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/17/nhs-health?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2 And then you have the Tories selling it off
piece by piece, lining their mates pockets and robbing the British tax payer
blind, as normal. But let’s not talk about politicians as that would start a
rant you would probably never hear the end of.
Once again it was a six bedded ward and I was
slotted in to a central position. It was
bright and busy and more people were surrounding me and sticking things in me. I wasn’t sure if I should have accepted the
breakfast I was offered as I couldn’t guarantee that it would stay down, so I
declined the cereal and orange juice and opted for the safe option of toast and
tea. They even gave me some little pots
of marmalade. Someone was selling
newspapers from a trolley while another person was offering every patient towels
and soap, with toothbrushes and toothpaste.
It was like market day in Norwich, except there was no sheep. A nurse came in and wrapped the curtain
around my bed, not in a parcel type of way; she enclosed the area so that I
could have a bit of privacy. She then
went off and returned with a large bowl of hot water. I assured her that I could perform my own
ablutions and would not require her bed bath.
She left me alone so I stripped off and began to scrub myself from top
to bottom.
It was
as I was at the bottom part, and I don’t mean my feet, when a young nurse came
in and I am sure, from the way I was contorted on the bed, was probably put off
her lunch. I hurried up with my
ablutions as they tended to enter through the curtains like they were pantomime
capes, swinging them wide open so that the bored patients dotted around the
ward could have something different to gawp at.
Eventually I found myself clean, dry and dressed in fresh pyjamas
sitting on the edge of my bed, enjoying the anonymity the closed curtain gave
me when it hit me. Nothing physical, it wasn’t
a flying bedpan or the like, but the sensation that I needed the toilet. Now for normal people this is usually no
great problem, you experience the sensation that suggests you should consider
making your way to the nearest toilet, you go to the toilet and perform whichever
function you need to. With me I knew
that from the moment I got the sensation, to needing to be firmly positioned on
a toilet bowl, was three seconds.
I launched myself off the bed and flew through
the curtains. I didn’t know where the
toilet was, so wasn’t sure if I could make it and was so pleased to find that as
I moved along my toast and marmalade were coming back up. “Toilet?” I asked a passing nurse who looked
at me and she pointed to a door which I made a beeline for. More came out of my mouth than my bottom. In fact it would be safe to say it was all a
case of nothing more than hot air, but we all know, many from experience, that you
can never trust a fart, especially in company.
Normally I would have been mortified in case anyone passing outside had
heard the rumblings but I was in no real state to care. I cleaned myself up, had a wee rest and then
made the return trip to my bed. The
other patients were being moved about like pieces on a draught board. The commotion on the ward seemed to phase
itself out and it became calm and quiet.
I could feel myself begin to drift off to sleep when none other than The
Scouser was wheeled in to the bed space next to mine.
My fears that I was to be hounded by this
fellow, for my remaining time in the hospital, didn’t last long as a male nurse
arrived to take me, my bed, and my possessions to a new ward. There were only three fellows in this new
ward, all of whom were sleeping so I decided to join them and allowed myself to
drift off. Despite being in a new ward
and drifting in and out of sleep I could still hear The Scouser complaining
away about the fact that the television had eaten his five pounds when he hadn’t
even watched the thing. It did cause me
to smile but at least I was in a relatively quiet corner of the unit. Next I was woken by a gaggle of doctors who
wrapped the curtain around our little gathering and began to fire questions at
me. Had I noticed six pints of blood
pouring out of my body? Not only do I
think I would have noticed such an event but I may have made a note of it and I
am sure Irene would have told me off if I got any of it on the furniture.
It was decided that I should be tested; this
unfortunately had nothing to do with MENSA but was more along the lines of a
gastroscopy, an ultrasound examination and a flexi sigmoidoiscopy. Flexi Sigmoidoiscopy is not something I had
come across before so I had to ask. One
of the doctors translated it for me and said, “Colonoscopy,” a term which I didn’t need any further translation
of. I was still slightly uncomfortable
with the notion but knew it was the right thing to do. The curtains were swept back and the doctors
moved on to the fellow in the next bed.
I couldn’t be bothered listening in to what was wrong with the fellow
next door as I was more concerned with my upcoming photo session. It was nearly three o clock in the afternoon,
I had almost been in the hospital twenty four hours, visiting time was almost upon
us so I did the only thing any decent patient would do and went to sleep.
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