This week I have spent quite a lot of time in hospital, not as a patient, but with our dearest chum J who pinged in and out of A and E like a yo-yo last weekend, before finally being admitted and diagnosed with a nasty dollop of pneumonia and a lung infection.
I have him to thank for providing the inspiration for my last writing module of the university term. We had to produce a segment as if from the middle of a science fiction novel. I don’t really get science fiction, and was on the bus home trying to think of a character , when he texted to say that the lung people were on their way to visit him. You can’t really get more early Doctor Who than that very sentence, and so the seed was sown. As I sat on the 68 bus I imagined what sort of baddie a lung person would be. Perhaps their arrival would be heralded by a puff of putrid green mist? What would it be like to shake a lung person’s hand ? Similar to touching a slimey mushroom, a bit like the house I stayed in once in Limerick, where the bedroom wall was actually wet when you touched it and the sheets had tiny little spots of mould on them that sprouted as fast as they were laundered, dried and put back on the bed.
Hospitals are weird places at the best of times, but A and E on a Friday night ( and a Saturday night as it happens) are like hell on earth. Things always start off with a feeling of optimism when you arrive, there doesn’t seem to be much going on and you start to think that you might even get home to get the supper on. You are seen fairly quickly by the nurse who has taken notes from the paramedics (who themselves are saintly fabulous human beings) and then things start to go downhill. The queue that you thought you were at the front of gets swallowed up as more and more people come in, some in handcuffs with tight lipped police escorts, some on trolleys, in wheelchairs, some hobbling. A jumble sale of hurting humanity arriving with a beep as the automatic doors whooshed open and shut, sucking the last vestige of fresh air from the room that smelt of sweat and disinfectant.
Once through registration, we took up residence on a row of scuffed plastic chairs in a custard yellow corridor with unforgiving strip lighting, and I ventured off to M and S for supplies. I lost interest in my cheese and pickle sandwich when the man opposite, who was wearing slippers with Fuck on one foot and Me on the other, started vomiting violently into one of those cardboard bowler hats. The staff were, as ever, patient and kind, but they are simply overwhelmed by the sheer multitude of patients who flow in like a never ending tsunami of broken bodies and minds. How anyone manages to do this job and remain smiling is totally beyond comprehension.
We read the paper and did the crossword. We talked about our summer holiday and whether or not this might be the year when it doesn’t rain most of the time. J tried his best not to laugh because it really made his chest hurt. Every now and then one of us would go and see if his name was still on a list somewhere. A nurse came and gave him some morphine which he sucked through a syringe like a baby bird. A nice old couple came and sat next to us and were shocked to hear we had already been waiting for four hours. The wife was bright eyed with worry and held her husbands hand tightly. He was silent and confused. I gave him the other half of my sandwich and he thanked me in a tiny squeak like one of those build a bear voices. Then a doctor came and showed us into a room that was usually used for Ebola patients with posters on the wall telling you how to undress without contaminating anything. The doctor was ginger haired and funny and J tried his best not to laugh.
We decided to leave him to it and went home where we had pea and ham soup and watched an episode of ” would I lie to you”. The phone rang at 2.30am and it was J saying he had been discharged. I got into the car in my pyjamas and drove him home. The following afternoon we had to call an ambulance again and once again we found ourselves back in the custard yellow corridor. This time J was not laughing. He finally got admitted to a ward at 2am.
Almost a week later he is well enough to venture out from his ward for walks around the park, carrying his drainage tube and bucket under one hand. The sun warms his skin, and each day he walks a little further. We talk about the trees and look at the goslings who waddle like lanky teenagers through the gap in the fence. The bees are nuzzling the lavender and the roses heavy and full like papery pom poms. We sit on the bench and look at the arch where the man sometimes plays bagpipes and talk about how you rarely see butterflies any more. The gardener scorches the weeds with a flame thrower and a woman runs past shouting for her dogs who are chasing squirrels.
And then it’s time to go back. Back to the stuffy room where its impossible to tell what the weather is doing as the only window looks out on to a concrete wall, but they are looking after him and making him well, and fingers and toes crossed, he will be back home soon.
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