Christmas Day dawns in E14. There is a noisy change-over of nurses as they wish each other happy Christmas.
I get up, and move slowly like a wounded animal, down the corridor to the shower. I want to look bright and alert for the ward round, as healthy as possible.
Ivor had an intense discussion with a doctor last evening and he has discharged himself. His friends will pick him up at 8 am.
Martyn is nearly obscured by tubes, just some crazy white hair and eyes visible.
Steven has had a difficult night, and has an overactive stoma. Show off!
Another cup of tea, and I try to eat some of the hospital breakfast. There has been some stupendous farting but Banquo has yet to deliver a soliloquy.
Ward round. The doctors gather round my bed. They have been discharging everyone they can. The consultant looks down at me.
“Working yet?”
“Just farting”
“Feel OK?”
“Considering . . . yes I feel OK”
“OK then you can go”
They move onto the next bed. I start to look for my mobile and ring Clare.
How incredible. To think that I am getting out only 4 days after surgery. I am very pleased. Very pleased.
There was then a number of visits from the pharmacy, and instructions on what to do next and who to contact. It was probably only an hour and a half later that I left the hospital. Pushed down the corridors by a tiny nurse called Fatima with a scarf over her head, with Josh lolloping alongside carrying all my stuff. Out into the cold Christmas air and into the car. Back home.
The irony is that as soon as I got home I went to bed just as I would have been in hospital, but your own bed is different.
I slept.
Did dad come back? I always think of him stuck in hospital. I wish I had kidnapped him and taken him home sometimes.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't really. But the man in the bed oppisite looked quite like him late at night with touseled hair and tubes.
ReplyDeleteI wish that I had kidnapped him too. The Great Dad Hiest of 2004.
YODB