A Room With A View

Whilst on bed rest in the rehab hospital I was in my own private room.  In some ways this was brilliant.  I’d not had ANY alone time in six months and it was such a welcome relief to be able to close my eyes and not have the busy hustle and bustle of hospital life around me.  It was almost like being back home.  Not quite.  I did however, have silence and solitude. 

I had a window that overlooked a lone pine tree.  Not much of a view.  But a view nonetheless.  A view that hadn’t existed in the six months previous.  The window opened! It’s amazing the things you take for granted.  I’d spent six months in a hermetically sealed building.  I’d not felt fresh air in months and suddenly I had a window that opened!  It stayed open! I didn’t care how cold or wet or windy it was outside.  I wanted, needed that sense of freedom! Of freshness!  I would clash with some of the staff over this but I didn’t care.  I wanted fresh air in my lungs.  I wanted fresh air full stop.

On my second day there were people out cutting the grass.  It had been the first time I’d smelt the smell of freshly cut grass in over a year.  I think I actually wept. 

On windy nights I’d lie in my bed and listen to the wind blow up through the curtains and rattle the ceiling tiles.  It’s funny the things you find comforting at times.

On the first night there I was offered a television.  I’d not watched television for at least four months.  In the other hospital you had to pay for the privilege and with programmes clashing with visiting times or ‘lights out’ I’d decided early on that it wasn’t worth paying the money but now and again I would get a card from someone.  But as I say I was offered a TV on my arrival to the rehab hospital.  It would sit at the end of my bed.  The issue though was that there was no remote control.  The nurse who’d brought it had happily tuned it onto UTV/ITV not knowing how much I detested the channel and left me to it, telling me if I ever wanted the channel changed just to buzz. 

Now I can’t watch linear TV.  I can’t cope with adverts.  I have to record programmes, fast forward through the ads or even pause programmes that don’t have ads so I can check a fact or query on the computer.  If I’m not doing that then I’m channel hopping like mad and I didn’t think the nurses would appreciate me buzzing every two minutes to switch channels.  So I quickly decided that I’d done without it for long enough I could cope a while longer and asked them take the TV away again.

I had my laptop and quickly discovered that there was unlimited wifi.  I was sorted! 

The staff were fine.  They’d come and go as required with drugs, to change dressings, to help me get washed or bring me food.  But it was a busy ward.  For the most part I was left to myself.  On one hand this was great.  I had privacy.  Solitude.  Things I’d looked forward to for months.  But on the other hand there were walls.  Not just the walls in my head, but also the physical walls separating me from the rest of the ward and staff.  It took quite some time for me to get to know any of the staff.  It took quite some time for any of the staff to get to know me.