I have long since given up on making an effort with my appearance when I go to the hospital. When it comes to dialysis, comfort trumps style every time and I have not managed to work out how to amalgamate the two, hence things tend to get a little...casual. If I didn't have to get on the tube to get there in the first place I would probably not even bother getting changed out of my pyjamas. It's not like there is anyone I am trying to impress: most of the guys on my unit are only eligible because their equally elderly wives have died and I draw the line at hitting on widowed octogenarians, no matter how lean times currently may be. This is assuming, of course, that they are not blind and/or asleep. Where, or where, are the gorgeous young doctors? If they exist, I certainly have never, in all my time spent at that wretched hospital, come across them.
When I arrived for dialysis last week, I spotted a sign just inside the door advertising a beauty products sale down on the ground floor. The thought of make-up and moisturisers was certainly incongruous with the plain, sterile conditions of the hospital. I couldn't help wondering from whence these products had appeared - they were probably just flogging all the leftovers from the geriatrics who hadn't made it that week. I wasn't sure I really wanted Ethel's mascara (God rest her soul) so wasn't overly disappointed to see I had missed the whole weird hoopla anyway.
In actual fact, it can be quite liberating to care so little about how you look, and for it to matter to such a small extent. Even the Kate Mosses of this world would be hard pushed to make a dialysis machine this season's must-have accessory or rock needle-in-the-arm chic with any great aplomb. What I wear to the hospital is dictated not by the pages of Vogue, but by what garment is comfortable to sit down in for 4 hours and whether it allows easy access to my fistula. You've got to think input versus output: in this case, the effort required to transform me into anything remotely close to what might be considered attractive would be energy totally wasted when it is only the kindly Phillipino nurses who are going to benefit. The day a blonde, athletic, well-dressed young doctor strides down my ward will be the day I bury my head in a paper bowl and fake a sudden onset of vomiting.
When I arrived for dialysis last week, I spotted a sign just inside the door advertising a beauty products sale down on the ground floor. The thought of make-up and moisturisers was certainly incongruous with the plain, sterile conditions of the hospital. I couldn't help wondering from whence these products had appeared - they were probably just flogging all the leftovers from the geriatrics who hadn't made it that week. I wasn't sure I really wanted Ethel's mascara (God rest her soul) so wasn't overly disappointed to see I had missed the whole weird hoopla anyway.
In actual fact, it can be quite liberating to care so little about how you look, and for it to matter to such a small extent. Even the Kate Mosses of this world would be hard pushed to make a dialysis machine this season's must-have accessory or rock needle-in-the-arm chic with any great aplomb. What I wear to the hospital is dictated not by the pages of Vogue, but by what garment is comfortable to sit down in for 4 hours and whether it allows easy access to my fistula. You've got to think input versus output: in this case, the effort required to transform me into anything remotely close to what might be considered attractive would be energy totally wasted when it is only the kindly Phillipino nurses who are going to benefit. The day a blonde, athletic, well-dressed young doctor strides down my ward will be the day I bury my head in a paper bowl and fake a sudden onset of vomiting.
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