31.8.11 Hospital

There are two types or categories of old people:

(1) The silent type
(2) The noisy fuckers who feel obliged to talk and fill the silence with a nauseating, rambling onslaught of shit information about anything and everything.  It's as if they need to get it said in case they suddenly die.

It was Mrs MWSC's misfortune to be in a hospital opposite a bed occupied by a lady in category (2).  I sat in the chair next to Mrs MWSC, who was fairly horizontal, but with two pillows.  I'd arrived when the woman opposite, 83-year-old Joyce, was in mid flow, at 98 decibels to the nurse's 75.  The exchange reached me in the corridor before I ever got to the room containing the four beds.  Poor Mrs MWSC had endured a fair bit of Joyce, and was all for relocating to an asylum in preference to continued exposure to this torture.  The nurse finished the "conversation" and we then had Joyce talking with/at her two visitors.

How she fucking went on; bin collections, holidays, relatives, medical complaints, her back, her dizziness, her kids, her handbag, her trips to Lloyds Pharmacy, her problems sleeping, the television standby feature, pills . . . . . . . and so much more.  All revelations and ghastly details were delivered at the aforementioned 98db, and the two visitors played verbal tennis, providing prompts, queries and excuses for Joyce to keep going.

I was losing the will to retain all five senses, and was ready to give up hearing.  Mrs MWSC was wondering whether there was any MRSA going spare, to relieve the pain of Joyce-exposure and help divert attention from the old dear.  Thankfully, the two vistors left after a further fifteen minutes (lucky them).  But Mrs MWSC was stuck in Bed 1, as were the other two women, in Beds 2 and 3.  Fortunately the occupants of these other beds were females in 'Category (1)' and so not a fucking peep!

Once the visitors were gone, she switched to her other skill of making a fucking noise by rustling.  She set about reading the Evening Gazette and struggling to breathe.  I was going to become more involved with the latter and provide a helping hand (around her throat) but thought better of it.  Before she started attacking the paper with a biro (crossword, I think) she received a visit from a registrar.  He pulled the curtains around her bed, and this gave myself and Mrs MWSC a preview of what "The Voice" is likely to be like - the forthcoming BBC rival to X-Factor.  From behind the curtain, we both heard the life story of Joyce.  Mrs MWSC was able to recite certain sections of the output, having heard the answer to "what's been happening with you then, Joyce?" four times already.  I will not torture you with the stuff discussed; one query from the doctor, though, was "Did you hit your head?" - a general enquiry about her various falls over the last couple of weeks.  "Once," said Joyce, "I must have caught it as I had a black eye."  Miss Marple indeed.  Not for the first time, he then asked her, "Do you get short of breath?"  Joyce said she did, while I was thinking "If I had my way, she'd be a whole lot shorter of breath".

"Bed 3" (as she was referred to by one of the nurses) provided us with some mild amusement.  Apparently she'd had a fit or a 'turn', whatever that is, and was being observed.  [Interrogation had actually established drink and drugs played rather a large part in her 'episode']  She'd been sleeping when I arrived, and somehow managed to sleep through the raconteur's loud revelations - unless she was pretending.  When Joyce picked up her Gazette, "Bed 3" asked to go home, and was told that would be up to the doctor to decide.  Some twenty minutes later, she'd had enough and decided to get dressed and leave.  As she was going through the door, a nurse appeared and the result was that they headed for the main desk up the corridor, to sign a "self discharge".  I wondered if 'pissing yourself' counted as a self discharge.

Ten minutes later, two nurses appeared through the door, one pushing a wheelchair.  It was "Bed 3" being pushed back into the room to resume her position in, yes, bed number 3.  "That's the problem with discharging yourself.  What if no one had been around and you collapsed?"  The nurse's question/concern brough a smirk to me and Mrs MWSC.  How embarrassing to discharge youself and then collapse.  However, ten minutes later, Mrs MWSC was saying "She went that way" to a different nurse, who had just walked in and seen an empty Bed Number 3.  "Bed 3" had hopped it all of a sudden.

I left Mrs MWSC to read her book, noting that all was quiet from Bed 2, and Joyce was sleeping like an 83-year-old baby with 64 health problems, puffy legs, 22 types of pills in her locker, a tube up her nose and no mobiles to play with - but she was silent.

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