Hospital Chronicles

There is no place like the hospital. At times it was
like being at a comedy show, but this time I had front row seats.

You have the fellow patients, being in an oncology general ward, the nurses treat you with their special "death voices" meaning extra sympathy and it is presumed that you are incapable of doing anything besides testing how many times your bell can ring in one minute.

My legs were completely lame, they lost all ability to move or walk and yet I struggled against advice to keep them still and the use of toilet pans, as a trip to the bathroom would involve a mobile toilet and an additional nurse.

so I struggled against the odds, determine to make my own way to the bathroom and secretly wiggled my feet vigorously to circulate the blood in my legs. After a few days I was able to move my left knee and with effort my left leg.

I remember waiting until the evening when nurses were not around to drag myself out of bed, pulling my right leg with me to the bathroom. Me not being able to walk was something I could not make peace with not yet. For I have made peace with many things over the last two and half years, but this I was not ready for yet.

Upon the discovery of my eight year old that I could not walk she matter of factly told me "not to worry we have a wheelchair, its fine" and somehow in almost an instance I knew I would be fine, no matter what I was to deal with

The nurses aided my slow walk to the toilet with the greatest of patience, I guess it was better than trying to convince stubborn me to use a more convenient way. Eventually walking became easier with each passing day as my pain decreased and in no time I was walking comfortably.

The hair conscious
I lay across from a patient who felt that her hair was of crucial importance and every alternate day her sister would blow dry her hair and then flat iron it. I use to sit and watch trying to hide my amusement. I completed understood her need to look good, I just wasn't sure how a straight hairdo and a hospital gown matched and her lack of regard for silence in the ward raised a few eyebrows.

The angry one
The patient next to me was a fellow cancer survivor and there was not anyone in the ward who dared challenge her. Even I was the victim of her wrath playing on my blackberry. I was very impolitely told that us cancer patients had to rest and that nurses were there to help us. We were not there to be busy.

I made it clear that we were not from the same cancer planet if ever there was such one, as the one I was from still allowed you to be normal. meaning I could still play on my blackberry and have visits from friends and family and laugh with nurses about things that did not make sense at all. Ofcourse I got the you must have something wrong with you look. Turns out I had alot wrong with me, I may have a brain tumour which was busy mestastasing in my body, but I also had so much right with me, my sense of positivity, hope and faith was mestastasing even faster.

Next thing I knew I was being pushed into a private ward, my own bathroom, own tv, felt almost like a hotel, except for the food which will be a blog on its own:)

So there I spent the next two nights until I was scheduled for another MRI, a brain and thoracic one this time