The dawn of a new day.......
Sounds promising eh, well, that’s the way I tried to approach every new day. Surely things have got to turn for the better. Hey, I’m not complaining openly. This is a personal issue. I feel I must ‘maintain the rage’, the rage of expecting to get a ‘break’ of some sort, sometime. It’s not a lot to ask. Is it?
Kalam’s bed remains vacant. He hasn’t been slipped back into the ICU of the Spinal Unit. So from that aspect it’s good news. Strange isn’t it, how your priorities alter. The one thing I could be assured of was - he was still alive. Oh well, one step at a time.
To the morning staff things were supposed to happen just as they had for the past week and the week before that, and so on....
The surgical-dressers were rallied into action for the morning ablutions. The regular congo-line to the brasco and back. Record the results. Clean-up the inmates and move on to the next ward.
Put yourself in this situation. There are 3 of us. Andy, Big Al and myself. All individually seated in commode-chairs (plastic wheelchairs with a toilet-seat as the seat), dressed in white surgical gowns untied at the back, ready for action, a good look. We are positioned side-by-side and unceremoniously backed over a toilet bowl each. No partition, not even curtain between each of us and, expected to do the business. How would you go? Now I can drop most forms of modesty if required. Hey, we didn’t have much choice anyway. I just wanted to have a dump on my own. Or more specifically, they wanted me a have a dump. Well the boys bid us farewell, “catchya in 15, boys”, and go about showering other inmates and doing general duties. You sit there, just. Struggling in fact, to sit upright. All of a sudden, there’s a fart. Yes! Next thing, “who was that”. That was Big Al making the inquiry. You see none of us quite knew who made the noise. The only real evidence of achievement is the obvious one, right. C’mon, work with me here. You know, what’s in the bottom of the pan. 3more times the boys gave us another 15 minutes. They tried everything. Humour, a card trick, even juggling. Gee, these guys earned their wages. That’s a total of 1 hour. The nurses are now getting anxious about pressure-sores. OK, nurse arrives, “thanks fellas you gave it your best shot, back to their beds please.” After a quick wipe of the freckle with a damp soapy towel we were washed (sort of) and found ourselves heading back to our beds to be dressed. Boy, how I wish they’d wash all over first, THEN, wash your freckle. You know what I mean. Big Al at the front, followed by Andy and then me. One of the surgical dressers, Tatts, was pushing Andy and still cracking jokes when one of the jokes finally was understood by Big Al who let out a huge roar of laughter, followed by a volley a golf-balled sized nuggets, fair dinkum, you know – turds, dropped ‘em straight onto the lino. Andy and I were killing ourselves laughing and I was buckled over chest on my knees trying to keep balanced on the chair. Then, out of the blue Tatts pirouettes around the front of Andy’s chair, scoops up Big Al’s ‘deposit’ and starts juggling them as if he were a circus clown. And boy could he juggle. I mean really. This all took place right smack bang in the middle of the ward. One of us farted again and created a further round of laughter even from those we’d just woken up with our raucous behaviour. But again, alas, who the farting culprit was, became purely speculative. And yep, wouldn’t you bloody know it Big Al couldn’t stop showing-off and produced another impressive brood of hatchlings from his backside. God, how I wished it was me. That would have meant I’m getting closer to splash-down. Funny, isn’t it how the most basic and I mean most basic things become a priority and a point of great amusement. To the rest of the ward it didn’t look that funny, mainly because Big Al’s nuggets were that perfectly round and smooth they could have been pieces of ornamental onyx or fancy tumbled river-stone. Only Andy and I knew better. Later that day I explained it to Oggy who would have dead-set wet himself, if he wasn’t catheterised. Come to think of it, we were all in the same boat. On the bum-front, the very next day, orders were issued to the troops that for the next fortnight, all 3 of us were to be administered ‘bombs’ each morning approximately 40 minutes out from scheduled ablutions, to avoid any further embarrassing moments. Whatever the outcome and sometimes, unfortunate repercussions, the ‘bombs’ appeared to do the trick. OK, enough of the toilet-talk.
After lunch we, well, Andy and I, were going off to our first Gym session, very exciting. Andy and I were even starting to enjoy each other’s company, I think. I’m not sure what they had in mind for us but at least we’d get out of the ward and see some new faces, new places. Even the trip to the gym would be a welcomed little distraction. Even just a new wardsman pushing your chair, asking the same sort of questions maybe, but at least trying to have a conversation is refreshing. At 2.30pm a young Hispanic (in appearance) wardsman fronted my bedside and announced that he was here to take a “Mister Wit to the gymnasium”, I corrected him and said he was looking for a Mr. B de Wit. “No, no sir thank you sir, Mister B Wit not Mister D Wit”. I could have had an argument for the next 30 minutes with Julio, but thought I’d cover the finer points of the Queens English with him on our way to the gym. I made a mental note that a command of the English language was obviously not a priority for his most privileged position, that of – Wardsman, Spinal Unit, PHH. I now know where a fair percentage of new immigrants go directly to from Sir Charles Kingsford Smith Airport – Prince Henry Hospital, Anzac Parade, Malabar.
On two occasions I had to do a double-take on our journey to the gym. It was downright uncanny. My new buddy, Julio, my new pusher, was either a Fawlty Towers tragic and a bloody good impersonator or directly related to Basil’s infamous Manuel from Barcelona and of same show fame. Same accent, same mannerisms and very amusingly, he wasn’t even trying to be funny.
It was nearly 3pm. A young physio came over and introduced herself as Jodie, looked her watch and told our pushers to be back by 4pm.
“Hey, guys let’s get into it we don’t have too much time.” “Ready when you are Jodie, sorry about the time, we had a few bathroom hassles this morning, we’ll be here earlier tomorrow,” I announced as quickly as possible. You don’t want to get off-side with the Physio – Day 1. “Yeah, well maybe we’ll try that Friday. You’ve got OT tomorrow.”
“Hey Brad, put a sock in it will ya. We haven’t got much time,” says Andy.
We get shuffled over to this huge (4m X 4m and .4m high) low-profile padded table, they refer to as a plinth. The padding is one huge blue gymnasium sponge mat, covered in vinyl and about 1” inch.
Andy and I have 2 helpers each. They lift and transfer us to the plinth with both of us in a seated position, feet on the floor. One of the girls sits behind us and holds us upright and as straight as possible. The other girl sits opposite us on a plastic chair approx. 1 metre away. Each then produces a balloon from their pocket, asks if we’d like to blow it up. I say thanks but no thanks. Honestly, if you offered me $10,000 to blow out a candle, I couldn’t at this stage in my Rehab. They proceed to blow each balloon up, tie a knot in each neck to secure and announce “let the games begin.” They explain that we are going to play a simple game of catch. Now don’t forget the other rehab girls are trying to prop each of us upright. You see, we have no ‘trunk’ control. At our level of injury we have no control over anything below the nipple-line. Scary thought isn’t it? My helper tries to jam my arms by my side, straight down onto the plinth, knuckles clenched for stability. But I need a wider platform (wingspan), which, she adjusts, which tilts me forward, and oh, oh.......... If it were not for my diligent and very strong young physio I would have face-planted onto the lino and been really pissed off. OK, it was less than 1 metre up. But I was completely defenceless. I can’t believe it. I have absolutely no control on how to sit upright. I could not even put an arm out to defend myself from the fall. Boy, haven’t we got a long way to go. Oh, and by the way during my face-plant attempt, I farted. It really was me. Andy had a chuckle. I was just shrank with embarrassment. The girls, well they appeared (thankfully) to not have even notice. I feel like things are starting to take a for the better. It wouldn’t be hard would it?
“Ah, good work wardsman. Right on time.”
“Oh, Jodie we just got here. Can’t we stay and do some more?”
“Sorry, fellas. We have Rounds of the Ward to do before dinnertime. We’ll see you again Friday. Hey, try to get here on time, eh.”
Bugger it.
With that the girls were gone. Andy and I were left with Julio and Abdul toe-tapping for the return trip back to Ward 1. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out that ‘knock-off time’ was fast approaching. We got back to Ward 1, uphill all the way, in about 8 minutes. It took us nearly 20 minutes to get down there this afternoon. Duly noted. Let me tell you, that won’t happen this coming Friday.
.......OT?
What the hell’s OT..............
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