Half Life – 52 - bed 7
October 29th, 2021
She was brought in about an hour after I’d been parked in my day bed, provided with coffee and biscuits, and told the doctor would be in shortly. Fully armed for the long wait with a Robert Harris novel and the radio played via my mobile, I settled back into the pillows. Bed 9 had become an old friend; I’d been allocated to it on every previous visit to the cancer day ward at The Hospital. Even if not staying overnight they park you in a bed, so they know where you are and to stop you wandering around causing trouble. You can sleep if needed and there are call buttons and bed adjustment toys to play with. Occasionally you get the place to yourself, but more frequently there are one or two others in the six bed ward with an inexplicable bed numbering system going from seven to twelve, with no other ward visible to provide the first six in the sequence.
Struggling out of the wheelchair she needed the nurse to support her difficult transition into the bed. The gown hung from a stick-like frame, as her hands shook with weakness, and the pain of every move was written all over her emaciated face, drawn tight over high cheekbones and a long jaw. Scared, panicked, eyes darted around the room as she tried to find comfort in bed 7, diagonally opposite my new temporary home. Waiting until she had made herself as comfortable as she could, my smile and hello produced a breathless grin in return and a mouthed ‘Hi’. Exchanging names distracted her slightly from her pain. Liz had very advanced breast cancer which had spread to so many of her bones she couldn’t be bothered to list them. My reply, sharing my diagnosis, was interrupted by the nurse arriving with the large dose oral morphine Liz clearly needed. She was desperately hungry and asked repeatedly for the nurse to bring her something. She chose the first suggestion put forward and the two of us were left alone in the ward as the nurse went to fetch Liz’s all-day breakfast. As the wonder that is morphine did its work and her pain gradually eased, Liz told me this was going to be her first real meal for two days and the first hot one for more than two weeks.
Doctors and nurses live with a belief that plastic curtains stop sound if you pull them around a bed, and other patients don’t listen in to the discussions. In a ward where anything happening becomes interesting, a detailed conversation with another patient is riveting gossip. The oncologist was soothing and patient, running through the treatment options and the alternatives. His voice didn’t waiver as she responded each time with a rejection of the treatment and a request to simply control the pain and let her cancer runs its course. Clear with her desires, and able to justify her reasons, there was no danger she was unable to take decisions. The doctor, and the nurse accompanying him, finally stopped discussing any treatments and switched to how she should manage the pain better and what would happen over the coming days and weeks. It was tough to listen to, she did not have long, and the volume of pain killers would increase and increase. Before they left the nurse made sure she had the phone numbers for Liz’s two children and promised to call them.
Liz’s story was one of loneliness. Her tiny flat in a town a few miles away from The Hospital was on the third floor and she didn’t have the strength to leave it. Her arrival in Hospital had been as a result of a concerned GP when Liz had missed an appointment and had asked a neighbour to drop in. Not wanting to put others to any trouble she had stayed in the flat, eating what sparse food she had and hoping her two sons would call. They were very busy, she explained, so didn’t have time to drop in. Calling or visiting had not happened for weeks. She’d given up. In her own words, she had nothing to live for and wished it would all hurry up and be over with; the sixty plus years she had endured already were enough.
The modest meal that was brought to bed 7 put an end to the discussion. Even though she was unable to finish it, the food, and the morphine, allowed Liz to fall asleep. Later that day Liz was moved. Her half-awake goodbye was the last I saw of her. My eavesdropping meant I knew they were keeping her overnight as she had no one to look after her and she was not going to live long. No mention of her children was made, and she didn’t ask.
The next day, as planned, I was back in the day ward for more tests and, inevitably, I found myself in bed 9. Bed, 7 was back to its pristine, crisp-sheeted, state, waiting for its next resident. As yet more blood was being pulled from my left arm, I asked the nurse where Liz, the woman from yesterday, was and how she was doing. The look said it all, even as she told me stiffly that she couldn’t discuss other patients. I guessed Liz’s was well on her way to having her wish for it all to be over granted, and wondered if her children were still too busy to visit her.
The hugs I gave The Boys, The Wife, and JJ the Dog when I got home were longer than usual. Fighting Nobby, my cancer, is a team activity. At those moments, when the darkness creeps in and the determination fades, it is the playing cards, watching movies, and chatting over dinner together which makes the fight worth it. It is the friends and family that text, email, and simply remind you that between the bad days there are good ones.
Harrowing read but sensitively transcribed my thoughts are with Liz.
Our riches are in the love of our Family and Friends . They enrich our very existence, Wishing you many more HAPPY days