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When I Went to Hospital
I reckon it had a
lot to do with not changing my shirt, me getting transverse myelitus.
They get very damp with all that sweat which when it’s cold is a bloody bad thing
and I’d been floored a couple of times over the winter with bad colds or flu,
but I carried on as usual. Sometimes you just don’t think but when I got the
pins and needles that went right up my body I started to worry.
It's always
likely to be a surprise ending up in hospital and as I didn’t know quite what
had hit me and as time started to fall away into itself I reached a conclusion
also reached by most of the nurses in there - a sense of humour comes in handy.
I'd see plenty of life on the M.A.U. ward but the more I reflected on my own
life the more I saw it had changed.
There was a
lovely old woman who tried every trick she could think of to escape. There was
one guy who'd been dragged in from the street unconscious from drink and who
made an extremely rapid recovery when he realized where he was. After long and
heated debate with a nurse about where was the best place for him, which also
involved a security guard, he just got up and walked out. Booked
it, packed it and etc. There was no point in wishing it was that simple
for me. Anyway, the shit that those nurses have to put up with is unbelievable.
Doctors and nurses are there to help you out of the mire and your predicament
is their daily bread, in more ways than one I reckon and I can tell you anyway
that I was given a lot of kindness and understanding. These are integral things
in the making people better machinery but they depend on mutual respect.
I had visits
from family, but when Mary brought our little lad along he picked up on the
serious atmosphere in that place and couldn’t handle it. That made me a bit sad
and served to reflect my predicament back further still though I had now kindly
been loaned Mary’s guitar so nothing was unfacable.
When she came back again she drew me a picture of a smiling face and left it at
the head of the bed. She’s drawn those for me many times – always with full
bodied lips – but that night when I looked up and saw it, it’s
meaning was very poignant. I wrote the words to the song ‘i
Find it Amazing.’
Here they are:
I find it amazing those lips are for me
Whenever I need them you give them so free
I find it amazing what those eyes know
And the light I see in them makes me glow
It holds our lives
together, the warmth of a smile
That is shared
between us, that did me beguile
And it’s all so
much more than I ever had before
It’s a reason to smile
at tomorrow
I find it amazing the stars in the sky
Are shining for us
up there so high
I find it amazing what’s happened to us
No need to question when you know
that it’s love
After a few
tests of my strength by the doctors, which included backside clenching ability,
I got shifted out of the assessment ward to somewhere in the bowels of Wigan
hospital (that sounds a bit odd doesn’t it!).
This place was
as much of a bygone time as, say, the Colosseum. It
was full of older folk and there were several attempts at escape. I was
fortunately put in a little room at the top of the ward where I was able to
play the guitar. There I met Connie, a lovely lady from Leigh with whom I
shared some stories, music and hopeful wishes. However I knew I wasn’t to be in
Wigan much longer as I would be ambulanced away to
To be
continued……….
……………….. someday.