Wellbeing

… an intrusive little virus has squished Doristotle’s muse awhile. Nothing like a loss of our wellbeing to make us realise what we so take for granted. Including our wonderful NHS. For this week’s offering, I consulted my 2019 diary … 

Lucky to have a room with a bed with a view in a seaside town on a bank holiday. Tonight that’s me in unit Number Ten, all wired up as my very essence is monitored. Had a couple of minor ‘funny turns’ as often befall the older bat, and once again I’m in the warm embrace of our local hospital. The giddiness that accompanied the sensation of having inhaled a large hamster is of some circulatory origin. A night on the bleepers should identify the culprit, but I’m assured my heart is strong & true. Meanwhile it’s blissfully cool and airy in here, I’ve dined on NHS nameless red jelly and ice cream, and my son is in town having popped up (just in case) to check out the surf ..

Hanging around in hospital delivers a constant view of the very best of humankind. Here in the new extension, a Startrek feast of smart technology and ingenious and sympathetic design; the staff embody all that a human bean can aspire to in terms of teamwork, kindness & efficiency. The patients yield up their hopes & fears, their pride and to some extent their identities to the implicit discipline of the healer hive. 

Yesterday’s newspaper lies crumply on my bedside chair, obscenely crammed with the evidence and consequences of the greed, corruption and vanity that so taints our species outside and beyond my ingenious double-glazed venetian blinded window. 

But hey, what a very beautiful day it looks to be out there - cherish all that it brings, count your many blessings, and love & laugh your socks off. As shall I, as soon as I get outta here. Silly thing is, I feel really well: just not sure when the next hamster will pounce .. I think I just heard one under the bed ..

… and now I’ve been moved, and things change all the time on this small four-bedded ward .. where all imaginable female A&E crises are funnelled and defused with patience and humour: an endless fandango of crushed and broken limbs, heart attacks and stroke, twisted bowels and urine infections, seizures and sepsis, rashes and burns,  blood transfusions, dog bites and inhaled hamsters .. a tea party compared with the wards of Syria or Lebanon. 

Installed in my quiet corner, bleeping forth my cardiac secrets, I perch and observe this constant cavalcade. There’s snoring & farting, weeping & wailing, swearing & praying, fleeting alliances and gallows giggles galore. Tomorrow morning, having been judged fit for eviction on new meds, I become an outpatient, a civilian again. 

This final evening, a magical being has arrived next to me on the ward. With the complexion of a peach, hands like a tiny princess, and the innocence and voice of a small child, frail Dilys at 91 has come amongst us to challenge the cynicism of the 21st century. She marvels at all she sees - to her this is a magical hotel. Smothered in the same cardiac gadgets as myself, she explores every detail with delicate fingertips and the hungry eyes of an acid queen. She radiates sweetness to everyone she sees. 

There’s much to discover when snatched from our comfort zone. The lights are off now, our monitors pinging and ponging. In the next bay, small hands play constantly with the velcro of a blood pressure cuff. Then a tiny clear voice .. “Thank you for my new friends here. I love them so much.”