Hospital Naps

18-11-2011

I have mentioned before my hatred of hospitals. Purely based on how The Soup works merely stepping into a hospital, any hospital, causes a lot of memories to jump up to the fore that I would rather not remember. But alas sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and step through those disinfected doors.

Like the other day.

See the lady friend can be a little bit of a contradiction sometimes. Actually there is another word for what she can be but I am not going to use it to be nice .

On Sunday she wasn't feeling one hundred percent herself. In fact saying she was even in a double digit of healthy percents would be an exaggeration. But she's a trooper (see: idiot) and went into work.

Which made things worse.

Now there is a saying about fooling somebody twice. The lady friend is not such a fool. Having to go to bed early on Monday and waking up worse on Tuesday she went into work again.

You got to love the determination. Against the best advice of Dr. Jester she continued to work on Wednesday and on Wednesday night finally relented and agreed to go to an out-of-hours GP up North.

Who near had a shit fit because most of her symptoms suggested that she had meningitis.

I've had some experience with this illness before. The Father Figure was struck down with it a decade ago and it was scary to watch. Up we go to the ward where some nice doctors and nurses worked on getting the lady friend better.

Not to leave you in suspense on the matter, she didn't have that nasty thing in the end. What had happened was whatever she had been sick with on Sunday had become a viral infection that had presented a number of symptoms similar to meningitis, including the neck immobility from inflaming the sack around the spine.

Lovely.

But despite the fact that a doctor, somebody with actual medical knowledge, was telling her to stay put so they could get her back on track with medicines and the likes, she was still all geared up to go to work this morning.

I literally had to threaten to cancel Christmas in order to get her to stay off and rest with the meds.

All the while this was going on I was sitting in a chair in her ward, out of the way but silently staying put. Visiting hours were long over, so many a rule was being broke. As the last doctor came in to check on her I made an impromptu bed on the floor of the room and slept.

Anybody that survived college will tell you that sleeping rough is a trick you pick up. A kitchen chair with three legs. A wine soaked couch. A floor with a rolled up jumper. You pick up some tricks and suddenly develop the ability to sleep anywhere that you can.

I was in luxury land. I had a hoodie, two coats and a jumper. A bed fit for a student king. So I buckled down on the floor (probably the cleanest one I've ever kipped on given it was a hospital) and slept the night away. A nurse was even kind enough to come in and give me a blanket to use during the night.

The next morning I was viewed as nothing short of a legend to the nursing staff for staying with the lady friend throughout the night. My reward? A stolen breakfast the head nurse brought in for me

Now the lady friend is back on the mend (still convinced that she is fighting fit for work but at least paying some heed to the sage advice from The Jester) and all is right in the world again.

Except I think I am coming down with a cold .

Blue_jester