In days of yore you could hop on a bus at the back, and then hop off just as easily when you got to where you wanted. No doors on buses then and just a conductor or clippie on the back to take your fare.
So it seems with a hospital ward, people are moved around in their beds for the most part and come and go into wards ready wrapped in the first bed they are allocated. My bed had travelled across the hospital with me in it the night before and here I was with five other men. Being treated by a multitude of nurses, healthcarce assistants, posters and domestics ( they bring the tea amongst other duties but tea was my priority )
I was lucky enough to be by the window , in front of me a farmer who had had c.o.p.d. and blamed his smoking. Next to him a GCHQ retiree who'd suffered a fall in his home and had a broken arm, then a sort of "Captain Tom" who had leg problems, then a man who also had c.o.p.d. and had been an upholsterer for all his life, then next to me was Man from Middlesbrough. A retired stand up comedian who looked like a cross between Bob Mortimer and Alexei Sayle, but sounded like Mortimer and insisted that I know that Middlesbrough has only one 'o'.
This was the base content of the ward. It changed as beds came and went. When the farmer left for home looking so much better, another person came in staying briefly when he tested positive for Covid ( he was not the only one as the one next to me also tested positive before the Middlesbrough Comedian moved in ) Both of these patients evaporated as quickly as they had arrived, and were taken off somewhere else whilst cleaning teams moved in replacing everything and cleaning the areas. Brief returns of staff in full PPE signalled the discoveries, but this did not last long before relaxation returned.
Just before I got my release papers Farmers bed was taken by a Brazilian Tattoo artist, who brought the average age down by quite some percentage. A handsome much decorated man who my Middlesbrough friend said looked like Phil Lynot the famous pop star of the 80s who our new Brazilian would likely have never heard of. He looked quite unwell when he came in but by the next night looked like a different person. It was again encouraging to see.
GCHQ man also looked like a different person as the time went by. His plastered arm fixed, and he even had his beard shaved off by a care assistant, making him into a quite different person. He was the wards TV man, watching from about 2.00 pm each day, though he tended to fall asleep within minutes of the start of the background noise of people doing up houses in the country or selling tat as antiques. Oddly the controller gizmo for the telly was kept safe outside the ward on the nurses station so thankfully there was little channel hopping. We generally turned it off at the plug when GCHQ man went to sleep.
So patients were hopping on and off the 'bus' through the week, although I could not hop anywhere.Farmer left a day or so before me and then came in the next morning with a box of chocolate cream eclairs for us all, how kind was that?
In the end after many tests they found out what I'd got and issued me with the right medication which had an almost miraculous effect. From barely being able to walk I was able to stroll out of the hospital on my final day, saying cheerio to my fellow wardsters and thanking all the wonderful NHS staff who were so kind and caring.
I was off the bus and am now walking towards recovery. I'm missing the custard puds.
The puds were delicious and occasionally a main course did ok, and this chicken curry was a good choice. But if they offer you fish in a hospital then run for the door, if you can run.
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