When I had to go back in to hospital with the infection that led to the removal of my Hickman line I got a new insight into exactly what my situation was. In the solitude of the rooms of the transplant ward you don't really pay much heed to the fact there's other patients there because you don't have any contact with them. When I ended up back in there I was in a room for four so there were three other men all suffering from Cancer in one form or another. As it happened one of those chaps was an elderly man who had just been given the news that his treatments had failed and all they could do for him now was to make him comfortable. He took the news in the most relaxed manner and when I spoke to him just afterwards he said he knew it was coming so it wasn't worth getting in a flap about.
Hospitals aren't great places for retaining any sort of privacy and because he was completely bed ridden and couldn't get out to the relatives room it meant he had to explain to his family that nothing more could be done from his bed in a shared room. They were understandably distraught and the vision of a dying man consoling those he loved will stick with me for a long time. Try as I might I couldn't ignore what was going on in there even knowing how intrusive it was.
It's the very nature of Cancer wards that some patients won't make it and I've shared rooms with quite a few patients who haven't been as lucky as I've been and it always brings my own plight into sharp focus. I sometimes forget just how close to the edge I've been, although I suppose that might be a coping mechanism as you can't get on with your life if you're busy worrying about how close you were to losing it.
fuck Paul thats powerful stuff x
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