Congratulations to Jenny Walsh of Wigan.
Jenny won our New Writer Competition 2016 and won
publication on our website and £40.00.
Jenny won our New Writer Competition 2016 and won
publication on our website and £40.00.
My Blue Mountain
I snap the lock behind me. No need for a light switch, the yellow glow is permanent due to the lack of natural light. I feel uneasy in rooms without glass, especially in bathrooms with no open window – the stale air contributes to this strange cloak of being a patient. Shuffling forward, I head for the plastic chair in the corner and lower into it. The chair reminds me of school – the slight bucket shape, the hole cut away in the back, the A-frame of the skinny legs with the plastic cap on the feet which did nothing to reduce the rattle and drag of metal on floor tiles when the day was over. Life was so much easier then.
I can hear the nurses outside as they softly slip between wards and I catch muffled snippets of conversation as they sweep by. I’ve been here a week now and certain faces seem to be here all the time. I can often smell the outside air on them as they drift in to change the beds and I long to drink it in. When I remember to look out of the tiny windows on the ward, all I can see are patches of sky. The shifting light throws me hints at the time of day, but it’s the visitor’s coats that tell me what the weather is doing. Shaking off raindrops, they dash in twice a day and disperse to their loved one’s beds with plastic bags filled with magazines, puzzle books and Lucozade.
I look down at the bag in my hands. NHS blue. Perhaps the colour is supposed to be bright and cheery. Most things around here seem to be in various shades of blue, from the uniforms to bedsheets. The stoma nurses won’t let me go home yet. The consultants, and his sweeping entourage, are satisfied with me but those nurses have the final say. Every morning they escort me to this room and go over it all again, scanning my face for signs of acceptance and checking my file for notes on my ‘output’ with concerned brows. They won’t let me go until I manage this thing single-handedly. It’s not their fault of course, they have boxes to tick and notes to write but they don’t know how I learn. None of them do. My mind flicks back to school reports littered with words such as ‘quiet’ and ‘introverted’. I can vividly see my college English teacher, his smile not quite hiding his frustration at my notable lack of class participation. Group work still fills me with dread. They don’t understand that I watch them all, and I listen. Then I find a hushed corner in my mind and I twist it and turn it until I have looked at it from all angles and moulded it into something that makes sense.
I can do this, if they would all just leave me alone to figure it out.
I unzip the bag and put aside the booklet that they want me to look through. I don’t want to see the diagrams. I don’t want to read the upbeat vignettes, accompanied by fake photos of people who went gone on to lead happy lives. I want to go home: back to my normality, to a clean bathroom and windows that actually open. I want to lie in a comfortable bed and listen to the rise and fall of my husband’s breath. I don’t want to be surrounded by ill women. I don’t want to overhear them talking to the Macmillan nurse, or see the chaplain doing the rounds with his sympathetic smile.
Heaving myself upwards, I go through the routine in my head and lay out the equipment in easy to reach places. The mirror only shows a haggard picture from the shoulders upwards so the nurses have given me a smaller one to prop up. My hair is dark with grease and my eyes are grey. Surely I’ve had my fair share of life events by now? Perhaps the idea is to throw everything at me before I reach the age when my mother died. If I survive then maybe the rest will be plain sailing.
The glass reflects a portion of my skin. A week ago it was smooth, but now an angry purple dent runs down my torso, sidestepping my belly button on its way south. I am pinned together with staples. Thirty three of them. Words flood my mind; ‘damaged’, ‘modified’, different’. I take a deep breath and peel at the adhesive, separating the bag from my skin. It is still a shock to be confronted with part of my intestines. It’s like a pink, fat worm poking out of my stomach. As I clean, it bleeds in response to being mishandled, as if it’s equally upset at being chopped and stitched into its current position. This is something that only medics should see, not ‘normal’, everyday people. Reaching for a fresh bag, I notice a rash creeping across my right hip towards the stoma, pointing to it like an arrow. As if I need any more of a reminder of the damn thing.
I am exhausted but the euphoria of achievement bubbles. I don’t yet know why this has happened but for now, this is what I have to deal with. The journey back to bed is hard. Shuffling towards my station, I see her smiling hopefully at me. I nod. She sat with me earlier and held my hand as I wept. I wonder if she understood that it was her who had somehow given me the strength to climb my mountain tonight. I wonder if any of these nurses really know how important they are to us, the sick and frightened. When they draw the curtains around my bed in the morning I will tell them that I have done what they wanted, all by myself. Maybe tomorrow, they will let me go home.
I snap the lock behind me. No need for a light switch, the yellow glow is permanent due to the lack of natural light. I feel uneasy in rooms without glass, especially in bathrooms with no open window – the stale air contributes to this strange cloak of being a patient. Shuffling forward, I head for the plastic chair in the corner and lower into it. The chair reminds me of school – the slight bucket shape, the hole cut away in the back, the A-frame of the skinny legs with the plastic cap on the feet which did nothing to reduce the rattle and drag of metal on floor tiles when the day was over. Life was so much easier then.
I can hear the nurses outside as they softly slip between wards and I catch muffled snippets of conversation as they sweep by. I’ve been here a week now and certain faces seem to be here all the time. I can often smell the outside air on them as they drift in to change the beds and I long to drink it in. When I remember to look out of the tiny windows on the ward, all I can see are patches of sky. The shifting light throws me hints at the time of day, but it’s the visitor’s coats that tell me what the weather is doing. Shaking off raindrops, they dash in twice a day and disperse to their loved one’s beds with plastic bags filled with magazines, puzzle books and Lucozade.
I look down at the bag in my hands. NHS blue. Perhaps the colour is supposed to be bright and cheery. Most things around here seem to be in various shades of blue, from the uniforms to bedsheets. The stoma nurses won’t let me go home yet. The consultants, and his sweeping entourage, are satisfied with me but those nurses have the final say. Every morning they escort me to this room and go over it all again, scanning my face for signs of acceptance and checking my file for notes on my ‘output’ with concerned brows. They won’t let me go until I manage this thing single-handedly. It’s not their fault of course, they have boxes to tick and notes to write but they don’t know how I learn. None of them do. My mind flicks back to school reports littered with words such as ‘quiet’ and ‘introverted’. I can vividly see my college English teacher, his smile not quite hiding his frustration at my notable lack of class participation. Group work still fills me with dread. They don’t understand that I watch them all, and I listen. Then I find a hushed corner in my mind and I twist it and turn it until I have looked at it from all angles and moulded it into something that makes sense.
I can do this, if they would all just leave me alone to figure it out.
I unzip the bag and put aside the booklet that they want me to look through. I don’t want to see the diagrams. I don’t want to read the upbeat vignettes, accompanied by fake photos of people who went gone on to lead happy lives. I want to go home: back to my normality, to a clean bathroom and windows that actually open. I want to lie in a comfortable bed and listen to the rise and fall of my husband’s breath. I don’t want to be surrounded by ill women. I don’t want to overhear them talking to the Macmillan nurse, or see the chaplain doing the rounds with his sympathetic smile.
Heaving myself upwards, I go through the routine in my head and lay out the equipment in easy to reach places. The mirror only shows a haggard picture from the shoulders upwards so the nurses have given me a smaller one to prop up. My hair is dark with grease and my eyes are grey. Surely I’ve had my fair share of life events by now? Perhaps the idea is to throw everything at me before I reach the age when my mother died. If I survive then maybe the rest will be plain sailing.
The glass reflects a portion of my skin. A week ago it was smooth, but now an angry purple dent runs down my torso, sidestepping my belly button on its way south. I am pinned together with staples. Thirty three of them. Words flood my mind; ‘damaged’, ‘modified’, different’. I take a deep breath and peel at the adhesive, separating the bag from my skin. It is still a shock to be confronted with part of my intestines. It’s like a pink, fat worm poking out of my stomach. As I clean, it bleeds in response to being mishandled, as if it’s equally upset at being chopped and stitched into its current position. This is something that only medics should see, not ‘normal’, everyday people. Reaching for a fresh bag, I notice a rash creeping across my right hip towards the stoma, pointing to it like an arrow. As if I need any more of a reminder of the damn thing.
I am exhausted but the euphoria of achievement bubbles. I don’t yet know why this has happened but for now, this is what I have to deal with. The journey back to bed is hard. Shuffling towards my station, I see her smiling hopefully at me. I nod. She sat with me earlier and held my hand as I wept. I wonder if she understood that it was her who had somehow given me the strength to climb my mountain tonight. I wonder if any of these nurses really know how important they are to us, the sick and frightened. When they draw the curtains around my bed in the morning I will tell them that I have done what they wanted, all by myself. Maybe tomorrow, they will let me go home.