Today has had the oddest atmosphere within the ward. Mary and Gemma – the two middle-bed patients – are having dilemmas and difficulties. Mary ‘feels so dreadful’ but there is something about the manner which she complains that belies her inauthenticity and unfortunately for her it is so obvious that neither the nurses, nor the fellow patients, have either sympathy or the willingness to demonstrate patience or assistance.
Gemma is having external trouble – her boyfriend has planned something for next weekend when she has already planned a camping weekend. They keep having angry and traumatic conversations on her mobile phone. And the funniest thing that I have been able to identify is Vivian (down the end bed on my side) is being the ‘supportive mother’ and reassuring her that she is worth more than him and that she is young and there are ‘plenty more fish in the sea’. And the worst thing that could have happened has happened – somebody told Beryl how to use the phone. Now every five minutes another somebody calls (or she decides to contact another somebody) and they are each regaled with the same conversation of how she is ‘not too good’ and her night was ‘a bit shabby’ and that her ‘diabetes is up the creek’ and she ‘may have to go on insulin’. So far she has controlled her diabetes using tablets and her diet. Now she is horrified by the knowledge that insulin may be on the horizon but its merely because her diet is more ‘up the creek’ than she’ll admit.
According to those more eagle-eyed than I, she actually threw half of her dinner into her bin last night and when the doctors were called to administer to her high blood sugar in the middle of the night she reliably informed them that she had eaten all of her food and was eating ‘fairly normally’. This woman had sushi, ice-cream and a strawberry cream tart for dinner last night. And then she picked at a bit of mashed potato and sweetcorn. And has marmalade sandwich at almost every conceivable opportunity. I am marveling at the surrounding people at the moment, and I can now see why.
It is the management of their own healthcare and their view of their own situation. It is also a reflection of the role of self-pity in experience and existence. Mary came to Storrington for respite care – a private, privileged home where she was pandered to whilst her husband took a break in Cornwall from his job as her full-time carer. She is now alone and afraid and doesn’t feel great, in a place that is far away from home and whilst she complains of dizziness and headaches and feeling ‘really bad’ she is currently tucking into her dinner and freely passes comment and joins in pathetic conversations moaning and bemoaning almost everything in the world. It’s strange to witness her self-pity and her adamance that every element of her healthcare is wrong. I think that it is to do with the difference between private health care and her foray into the NHS. It is also to do with her whole demeanour (which has just caused her to ask for Bread and Butter Pudding after devouring an entire plate of some horrific-looking meat thing with mashed potato). With a forkful of food she has just commented ‘I just feel so very, very ill’. It’s bizarre – the experience vs. the expression, the truth vs. the reported information.
Beryl is similar to this with the adamance that ‘no-one will sell my flat’ and she has planned her funeral and the attributions of money and resources once she has departed. She also LOVES her family fussing around her. She absolutely revels in the attention of her daughter who did not go to Wimbledon yesterday or today purposely to see her. There is a reassurance found here in drugs, medication and care. There is the bizarre attitude of women in decline to their future. One is fairly silent and continues, taking each day as it comes and seeing what happens. She struggles in near-silence and enjoys her family’s company but is not insistent that they always visit.
One is a permanent vociferous complainer. A hypochondriac who probably does feel a bit ropey but nothing extreme. She is also potentially petrified about the impending lumbar puncture that is occurring tomorrow for her. However, she is a nosy woman asking personal questions at every available opportunity. She cannot accept not talking to people. She regales us of the same stories continually and relates how she ‘gave up walking’, ‘gave up cooking’ and now relies on Marks and Spencer’s ready-meals. She truly feels victimised by life. Nor can she accept the stillness of silence – nor can Beryl actually although her commenting is far more about her own life and pity as opposed to nosiness. She ‘gave up walking’, ‘gave up cooking’
Beryl is facing a heart operation with considerable aplomb but is independently accustomed to her own way of dealing with things and her own life. Her conviction that no-one will sell her flat demonstrates how alone she is used to being in terms of her healthcare and how adamant she is to stay that way. Giving her her due she is also determined not to impose on her children in any way – completely amenable to their leading their own lives and actually paying for any help that she may require in her insistence at not going into a home. However, she does feel hard done by with everything that she views she has wrong with her. It is like the three women opposite me have almost given up. They are almost at that stage where they perceive their lives to be over and so are just attempting to settle into their declines. The way they are dealing with their bodies’ frailties is demonstrably diverse, however.
And all of it serves to contrast with Gemma who is obviously having a traumatic home life and boyfriend troubles and is an immature, incredibly traumatized girl. I thought she was settled but her food habits and her behaviour demonstrates something different and she is attention seeking to the same degree with her hospitalization and funniness in here. Still I haven’t sort of established quite what she’s doing here. And I sense its dietarily related difficulties – she is adamant she feels sick and is not hungry but is patently starving and playing with things. It is behaviour I recognise from when I felt insecure about my body’s relationship with food. I remember the evasive shaking hand thing that I used to have when I didn’t really want it but desperately did…
…which brings me onto the fundamental demonstration of my life…which I have to just leap and jump about for…but might save until the next blog…it deserves its isolation in its own special blogginess of its own…
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment