Weekend events

Saturday morning, after rifling around in the bedside wardrobe for a few minutes to consider my options, I dress for the day.

Visitors, aka The Support Group, expected and unexpected, arrive at various times. 

Chocolate arrives; it is cinnamon flavoured and my stomach churns at the very thought.  The anaesthetists have a lot to answer for; I lay the blame for this aversion squarely at their feet.  Another box of chocolates arrives and although less stomach-churning, they are also placed in the bedside cupboard for later.  

Much later.

I pass up the offer of a move to a bed with a view; I regret this on Sunday. You make decisions and then you have to live with them.

The possibility is investigated of buying some television time; the machine is not accepting credit cards but will accept cash in lieu.  This arrangement is fine; I fossick around in the secret cash cache and find the requisite note.  Twenty four hours of television will be sufficient.

After lunch Wen leaves for home, suitably dressed to keep out the winter chills. I’m left to my own devices; this means pulling a chair up to the window, sitting down and watching the outside world: the car park, the Hospital Next Door, the railway station across the road, the smokers/patients sitting in outside areas puffing away on their cigarettes, the man cooking sausages at a giant barbecue outside the entrance to the HND. 

The evening is filled watching television, more gazing out the windows, walking around the ward corridors and the luxury of having the bed curtains back, the blinds up and not being confined to the small world surrounded by the bed-curtain.

Round 6 am Sunday morning my solitary reign over the room ends with the arrival of Leah, admitted via the Emergency Department.

The first excitement of the day is the arrival of a couple of huge, colourful hot air balloons making their landing in a nearby park; from our windows we have a great view. On Saturday morning, from the day waiting room, I saw hot air balloons, smudged grey shapes in a heavily clouded, grey sky over the distant Yarra Valley. Today’s group were much closer, a short drive to a nearby park.

View from aloft

The day abruptly jumps from excitement to drama, when the focus of the medical emergency announcement shifts from some remote area of the hospital to the other bed in this room!   A handful of nursing staff and the medical emergency doctor, black bag slung over his shoulder and pushing his blue metal equipment trolley, quickly converge on the room.  Thus commences an episode which continues for quite some time, during which Leah is in great pain and I sit in the chair thinking I’m lucky it’s not me in such a state.

In the middle of all the hullaballoo, lunch arrives.  Amanda, one of the nurses, appears and whisks my lunch tray down to the day waiting room.  I follow, walking slowly.  Very slowly. 

It’s quiet and calm here and while I’m chomping through lunch the Surgeon General appears, dressed in his Sunday best.  He is satisfied with my progress; this is the last time I will see him in the ward.

There is another brief amusing conversation, this time about Sebastien’s whereabouts.  I explain he has fainted clear away, all the drama in the other bed has proved too much; the Surgeon General’s solution to this situation was an offer to order Sebastian a whisky. 

Alcohol, the panacea for all ills…..

 The Godchild and Pearlie Shirley arrive in the early afternoon.  I gear up for the big trip to the downstairs café; we find a booth and sit discussing what is happening in the real world and, more importantly, the prospect of Pearlie Shirley driving me to the next part of My New Life tomorrow.  A week at New Street, the first part of the convalescence process.

 The coffee in the downstairs café tastes disappointingly ordinary; a portent of what is to come. The evening meal looks fine, three mouthfuls and I push the plate away. A cup of tea is made, it tastes vile.  Sugar is added, one mouthful taken and the tea is poured down the sink.

A request is made for dry biscuits and lemonade.  The nurse looks askance.  I am saved by the change of shift and the appearance of Su who cared for me on my first night in hospital.  She returns to the bedside with the appropriate medication – instant cure – and several packets of biscuits.

I settle down for my final night in hospital; once again I reign supreme over the room.  Leah has made a miraculous recovery and is allowed to go home.

Tomorrow morning I will negotiate the hospital discharge obstacle course.