There is a new guy on my unit. He looks like a Red Indian and dresses like Phil Mitchell, which has led me, predictably, stereotypically, to name him Cherokee Phil. He is green, uninitiated to the ways of Bostock, like Andy in The Shawshank Redemption. I am Morgan Freeman.
Cherokee Phil talks. Actually, he chats, nattering away to the nurses like he's at a coffee morning, relaying information about himself, how he's feeling, his latest medical issues...the exact opposite to the somewhat aloof position I favour. He brings the outside in; he is clearly the same Cherokee Phil at the hospital as he is at home and is happy to let the two realities intermingle. I am not: I do not go to hospital, Hospital Rosy does, and lets nothing slip beyond her concerns about our startling blood pressure (unfortunately it still afflicts me, Normal Rosy, even when I am back home on my sofa eating Cheerios) and the occasional reference to a hangover.
My reticence has resulted in an odd state of affairs in which the nurses have seen me, talked to me, touched me, three times a week for the last four and a bit years. I spend over twelve hours a week in their care and yet they know next to nothing about me, bar the particular settings of my dialysis machine and my penchant for M&S foodstuffs. Most of them are still hazy on my name: according to my old folder, and most of the nurses, my name is "Rose"; I gently pointed out that my name was in fact Rosy and I was assured my folder would be appropriately amended. It now reads: "R. Edwards".
Even my favourite nurse barely knows me. D and I had a rocky start when we first met: she made a hash of needling my fistula the first time she tried and had to have another stab (thank you, here all week) which is the dialysis equivalent of fucking my boyfriend. But since then she has redeemed herself: she is always friendly and cheerful; she asks how I am and calls me darling; she won't let me persuade her that I'll be fine taking off 3 and a half litres of fluid - and she now needles my fistula like a dream. But the other day, as she helped me prepare for the start of my session, she moved my table to the side of my chair and said, "There you go, Rose - I know how you like it." NO YOU DON'T! YOU DON'T KNOW ME BUT AT ALL! I like my table in front of my chair - so that I can actually use it - and have positioned it in exactly the same way every single session for the last four years. Cherokee Phil has been dialysing for, like, five minutes but I bet the nurses know how he likes his table.
To be honest...I don't really mind. The nurses don't know much about me because that's how I've designed it. The less I give them of myself, the more I get to take home, in tact, at the end of the session. The nurses are lovely, reliable and efficient but I don't want mix the hospital up with the rest of my life any more than I absolutely have to; they are not my friends, and even if we weren't both fluid restricted, I doubt Chatty Cherokee Phil and I will be going for a drink any time soon.
Cherokee Phil talks. Actually, he chats, nattering away to the nurses like he's at a coffee morning, relaying information about himself, how he's feeling, his latest medical issues...the exact opposite to the somewhat aloof position I favour. He brings the outside in; he is clearly the same Cherokee Phil at the hospital as he is at home and is happy to let the two realities intermingle. I am not: I do not go to hospital, Hospital Rosy does, and lets nothing slip beyond her concerns about our startling blood pressure (unfortunately it still afflicts me, Normal Rosy, even when I am back home on my sofa eating Cheerios) and the occasional reference to a hangover.
My reticence has resulted in an odd state of affairs in which the nurses have seen me, talked to me, touched me, three times a week for the last four and a bit years. I spend over twelve hours a week in their care and yet they know next to nothing about me, bar the particular settings of my dialysis machine and my penchant for M&S foodstuffs. Most of them are still hazy on my name: according to my old folder, and most of the nurses, my name is "Rose"; I gently pointed out that my name was in fact Rosy and I was assured my folder would be appropriately amended. It now reads: "R. Edwards".
Even my favourite nurse barely knows me. D and I had a rocky start when we first met: she made a hash of needling my fistula the first time she tried and had to have another stab (thank you, here all week) which is the dialysis equivalent of fucking my boyfriend. But since then she has redeemed herself: she is always friendly and cheerful; she asks how I am and calls me darling; she won't let me persuade her that I'll be fine taking off 3 and a half litres of fluid - and she now needles my fistula like a dream. But the other day, as she helped me prepare for the start of my session, she moved my table to the side of my chair and said, "There you go, Rose - I know how you like it." NO YOU DON'T! YOU DON'T KNOW ME BUT AT ALL! I like my table in front of my chair - so that I can actually use it - and have positioned it in exactly the same way every single session for the last four years. Cherokee Phil has been dialysing for, like, five minutes but I bet the nurses know how he likes his table.
To be honest...I don't really mind. The nurses don't know much about me because that's how I've designed it. The less I give them of myself, the more I get to take home, in tact, at the end of the session. The nurses are lovely, reliable and efficient but I don't want mix the hospital up with the rest of my life any more than I absolutely have to; they are not my friends, and even if we weren't both fluid restricted, I doubt Chatty Cherokee Phil and I will be going for a drink any time soon.
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