Hospital Blues
I write for my own amusement usually, or maybe to clarify my thoughts. I offer the results in the hope that they will either amuse or provoke. This piece, describing my recent hospitalisation, was written as catharsis. Don’t know why I’m offering this one. It certainly won’t amuse.
Hospital Blues
I wrote the following in the earlier days of my stay at the Royal Preston Hospital:
“You know those dreams where you lose the car, with the dog in it and all the passports and then wander the unfamiliar streets in panic. And then you wake up, realise it’s a dream and feel wonderful. Well last night I had one of those dreams but when I woke, once I’d got over the, “Phew, it was only a dream!” feeling, things started to go badly off script. The place I woke up into was the wrong reality. It certainly wasn’t home, it was a room in the Lubyanka where somebody was being tortured, on repeat. Something, my still sleep befuddled brain decided, had gone wrong with the Matrix. I’d woken up into the wrong reality. I managed to pull back from it and hover over a landscape in which other realities were vaguely discernible, as rectangular holes in a flat plain. In mine, the Lubyanka one which wasn’t mine, all that I could see was a couple of strip lights. None of the others looked particularly inviting – I remember one had arrows and spears flying out of it suggesting an ongoing battle.
I eventually woke up enough to work out that the hole with the strip lights was my reality. The lights were in the ceiling of ward 18 at Royal Preston Hospital and the man doing the screaming was in the bed opposite; an 89 year old who was having his bottom wiped.”
The foot of the screaming man’s bed (his name was Joseph) was about 3 metres from mine and we stayed in that proximity for over a fortnight.
Next to me was 60yr old John, an ex nurse of fourteen years experience and currently a member of the Roman Catholic priesthood. He had been there for a few days by the time I arrived and had no time for Joseph whom he considered to be an attention seeking, half mad charlatan.
The near nonagenarian Joseph could be charming when he was getting his own way but when a couple of nurses or carers attempted to do anything for him he would start complaining vociferously, cursing and insulting them before moving on to screaming at a volume no sick 89 year old should be capable of. Even when whatever procedure, like changing his incontinence pad, was complete he would often go into an extended rant, complaining about how much he’d been hurt and bemoaning the incompetent and/or malevolent intentions of the staff who’d caused his discomfort. Often, these loud, repetitive and increasing nonsensical tirades went on for two hours or more, sometimes in the middle of the night.
This was the reality I’d thought wasn’t mine.
I’d arrived at the hospital with an infection in my blood. I spent almost two days in A&E, most of it (27hrs) on an examination trolley. During this period I was diagnosed, not only with the blood infection but with a serious heart murmur, which is how I ended up in ward 18 under the watchful eye of the Cardio Vascular department. The main priority at the beginning, though, was the infection for which I was being fed antibiotics intravenously. I was still having hallucinations at this stage. When I closed my eyes I was treated to a kaleidoscope of film clips, morphing static images and even drawings, most of which were fairly entertaining; any that weren’t were easily got rid of by the simple act of opening my eyes and closing them to get a new set. With eyes open my fevered brain simply manipulated what it saw, adding gently changing the texture of the ceiling tiles for example – here a moonscape, there a monochrome city plan or a flattened cube of buzzing insects; except that they weren’t insects but small wriggling pencil marks of the type I use when adding texture to a drawing. At the time I rationalised it all as being my brain’s response to the sensory deprivation of being in a visually barren hospital ward. I decided my brain was just entertaining itself.
Once the intravenous antibiotics had begun to work on the infection these hallucinations all disappeared of course leaving me with a reality that was anything but entertaining. Apart from Joseph’s twice or thrice daily renditions of grumpy old man being tortured, my main preoccupation was getting one of the overstretched nursing staff to detach me from the drip feed, once it had delivered its bacteria killing largesse, so that I was free to go to the toilet. The only real entertainment was being whisked off to have my heart scanned, via X-ray, ultra sound, CT scan and one process (an angiogram ) involving dyes. The methods of approach of these investigations were often quite amazing. One ultrasound probe started its journey towards my heart by being inserted down my throat, another probe – the angiogram – started at my wrist. I even had my teeth scanned and X-rayed, in search of the source of infection.
Other than that it was back to Joseph. The only antidote to his eardrum splitting awfulness at its worst were my IPods, feeding Mozart, Mendelssohn or Mahler directly into my eardrums at maximum volume. At quieter times I listened to podcasts or, when the internet was up to it, episodes of Veep on Sky or series 5 of Goliath on Amazon Prime. When the internet was up to it, which it often wasn’t.
There came a point, just over two weeks in, when all the investigations were complete, the antibiotics reached the end of the course and my consultant declared that all that remained was surgery. I eventually saw the surgeon, visiting from Blackpool, who explained how he would be replacing the dodgy valve in my heart and might even be able to sort out the atrial fibrillation I’ve been suffering from for over a decade.
That would be after Christmas, there being a waiting list of course. And even that was conditional on the infection (the source of which was still unknown) being eradicated completely.
I did finally escape, back into the care of the lovely Judith. It took a couple of days following a mix up by the pharmacist and these were two of the most difficult days of all. But even they came to an end and I’m now writing this from home. I’m a long way from being back to full fitness but there is a light ahead at the end of this particular medical tunnel and hopefully a brighter one than there’s been for years. Fingers crossed.
NB. This has been an abridged version. I’ve left out much, like mention of Michael in the opposite corner of our four bed bay who was given to calling loudly for his wife in the middle of the night amongst other times. Or the couple of extremely sick individuals who consecutively replaced priest John when he went off to pastures new.
Left out too is Joseph’s wedding, schedule for my second Saturday. It didn’t happen because he kicked off as usual when a dozen or so carers, nurses and sisters tried to get him ready to be transported to the ward’s entrance where his would be bride, the registrar and her assistant and various guests awaited. God knows why anyone would want to marry the mad old bastard. Has to be money, surely.
