A trigger warning – this post contains references to serious illnesses, death and cancer – if you’re not feeling up to it today you may want to read it another time. Thanks xxx

George

George had been moaning in pain all night

Sometimes his moans turned to calls for a nurse to give him more pain medication, and that was what woke me up.

Once I was awake I would hear others moaning from the other ward down the corridor. In the drugged-up dark of night it was both surreal and disturbing.

The next morning George was feeling better. After breakfast he talked of how 20 years ago they had given him just months to live after a prostrate cancer diagnosis. “But I’m still here!” He said with some triumphant pride. I felt though he had said that line many times before, and his situation seemed far from triumphant to me. But that was just from my perspective. Still being alive is definitely an achievement.

George was in for some kind of surgery. He had it in the afternoon, and the next day he was sprightly enough to go home. Before any of us. He won. That generation are built to last.

Time for a chat

After breakfast our meds kicked in and we all felt chatty, sharing parts of our lives and succinct words of wisdom:

“I’ve had enough now” said the man cheerfully in the end bed, “I’ve had a nice life, but I’m fed up with all this stuff, I’m happy to go now”.

“Don’t give up work”, said another; ”it keeps you going. Once I gave it up I lost so much”.

“I’m still working at 73” said the guy between us – a carpenter who wasn’t sure why he was there, his car parked in a short term car park. He had only popped in for a quick check up yesterday but they wouldn’t let him leave.

New Guy

A new arrival got wheeled in after having a similar surgery to mine. He was pleasant and chatty with the nurses but didn’t want to talk to us. I disliked him instantly for that – I thought it was all for one and one for all?

But the poor guy was just high on the pain medication they inject directly into your organs and muscles during the operation. Mine had worn off and I now felt sick, weak and tired. 

After a while we all stopped talking as our medications wore off.

The new guy however kept on being chatty to the doctors and nurses. Just you wait I thought – the meds will wear off soon and then you’ll be down here with us.

Sure enough, a few hours later that exact thing happened, and he was still throwing up when I left for home three days later. Poor guy. I didn’t hate him anymore.

Gary

Above us one floor up was the ward I had visited my friend Gary just last year when his legs stopped working. He had prostate cancer for many years. 

Gary was a good friend, a contrary character that I enjoyed making laugh. I wish I could have discussed his situation more deeply with him, but instead I moved on to other subjects, not wishing to bring him down. He didn’t really want to discuss it anyway. But maybe he could have helped me go through all this, and I in turn would have known a bit about what he was going through and been more supportive. We could have had that relationship.

Gary died 6 months before I ended up in this hospital, before I was diagnosed and had surgery, just one floor down from where he once was. I miss him daily.

Tea & Toast

A major part of the day was the arrival of the tea and toast. NHS tea and toast is kind of legendary, not sure why. Perhaps it’s because it’s one of the few things we can control in that situation – as in how we want it – plain, with marmalade, milk in tea, soya, gluten free, lightly buttered or just spread – we all asked for it in different ways, then asked for more of it, more tea, more toast.

But it didn’t end there – after breakfast when the consultants and doctors did their rounds with the students following them, George, still high on painkillers, asked one of the student doctors for more toast, done to his liking in a certain way. Other men in the ward joined in – more tea please and yes I would like some toast too. The poor student looked confused and trapped, explaining she was just a student doctor, not an orderly. 

But that didn’t stop George, who continued to describe how he wanted his toast, whilst the others asked for more tea. It was a funny moment.

As I said, I guess we were all just trying to control the controllables, whilst the universe had its own plans, and all we could was just strap in for the ride, and eat our toast.