There are, I am sure, countless proverbs that reference beginnings and endings. I don't know any, hence the prosaic start to this entry, but the ideas of life and death, of old and new, are inseparable, and were very apt at hospital today.
It was Elsa's last day. Elsa is a very kind, very competent Indian nurse who has been working the dialysis wards at Guy's for the last twelve years. If anyone is going to plunge two gino-needles into the most valuable part of your anatomy, you want it to be someone with twelve years worth of experience to their name. It was Elsa who held my hand and comforted me last year when I had a minor meltdown during a session, tipped over the edge by the ranting, coughing old men and the general icky-ness of the whole dialysis set-up. She looked past my tears and snot and hysterical rambling, and if she didn't she was very discreet about it. She greets me with a warm smile, is attentive during the session and unlike some of the other nurses does not react with extreme surprise when I occasionally express discomfort as the needles slice through my skin ("Oh, does it hurt?" (snigger) ). I shall miss her.
In a weird, karmic way, Elsa's leaving was offset by a new arrival. I had a new chair. Well, ok, I didn't, but there was a new chair waiting for me in the side room I occupy whilst on the machine. It was a beast: huge, and black, with lots of knobs and sticky-out bits that I am sure mark it out as the Justin Beiber of the chair world, but to me made it seem a bit...daunting. When the nurse came to put me on the machine, she commented that it was too big for me like I was Goldilocks swimming around in Daddy Bear's chair.
All this change...it was very unsettling. Regular readers (a big shout out to all seven of you) will know how much I rely on predictability in order to survive Life on the List. I have become so dependent on it, in fact, that even the most minor alteration - the departure of a nurse, say, or the arrival of a chair - can have bizarre and unsavoury effects. I was completely at sea today: panicky, restless and unusually exhausted at the end of my three and a half hours. And yet, for all these anxiety-inducing seismic shifts, Thursday will soon roll round once again and it will be time to return to the hospital; for in a sea of a change, dialysis is a steady constant and my reliance on its medicinal qualities is not something likely to change any time soon.
It was Elsa's last day. Elsa is a very kind, very competent Indian nurse who has been working the dialysis wards at Guy's for the last twelve years. If anyone is going to plunge two gino-needles into the most valuable part of your anatomy, you want it to be someone with twelve years worth of experience to their name. It was Elsa who held my hand and comforted me last year when I had a minor meltdown during a session, tipped over the edge by the ranting, coughing old men and the general icky-ness of the whole dialysis set-up. She looked past my tears and snot and hysterical rambling, and if she didn't she was very discreet about it. She greets me with a warm smile, is attentive during the session and unlike some of the other nurses does not react with extreme surprise when I occasionally express discomfort as the needles slice through my skin ("Oh, does it hurt?" (snigger) ). I shall miss her.
In a weird, karmic way, Elsa's leaving was offset by a new arrival. I had a new chair. Well, ok, I didn't, but there was a new chair waiting for me in the side room I occupy whilst on the machine. It was a beast: huge, and black, with lots of knobs and sticky-out bits that I am sure mark it out as the Justin Beiber of the chair world, but to me made it seem a bit...daunting. When the nurse came to put me on the machine, she commented that it was too big for me like I was Goldilocks swimming around in Daddy Bear's chair.
All this change...it was very unsettling. Regular readers (a big shout out to all seven of you) will know how much I rely on predictability in order to survive Life on the List. I have become so dependent on it, in fact, that even the most minor alteration - the departure of a nurse, say, or the arrival of a chair - can have bizarre and unsavoury effects. I was completely at sea today: panicky, restless and unusually exhausted at the end of my three and a half hours. And yet, for all these anxiety-inducing seismic shifts, Thursday will soon roll round once again and it will be time to return to the hospital; for in a sea of a change, dialysis is a steady constant and my reliance on its medicinal qualities is not something likely to change any time soon.
Comments
Post a Comment