Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Diary Entry from my new book ... watch this space!

Not my words ... but my motto!

Diary entry: Lister Hospital, Stevenhage, UK

Last night, Saru and Oliver were the nurses on duty. I heard a commotion outside. Someone was shouting, and it sounded like someone was being knocked about. My ward is a side room, and since I am a barrier nursed patient, there is only a little window in the door that looks straight out onto the nurses’ station. When I had a look to see what all the commotion was about, I could just about see Oliver down on the ground, almost sitting on top of what I presumed was a squirming patient. Both were huffing and puffing and panting, but I just assumed that the patient had had a fit and that everything was under control.

The next time I had a look out my peephole window; there was an army of security men standing around. I wondered whether this was perhaps an intruder. Later in the evening I asked Saru what had happened and what had been wrong with the person Oliver was sitting on. She started laughing so hard that she could barely get the story out. The patient is an Alzheimer’s patient on the ward and he had decided that Oliver had beaten one of his children. The patient came rushing from his bed in the main ward and took a running swipe at Oliver with his fist. Sara had seen him coming at a run, with a mad look in his eyes. Lacking courage in the face of a potentially dangerous attack, she jumped behind Oliver, leaving the poor man unprotected for a punch face, while the patient continued shouting, “Why did you beat my kid. Why you beat my kid?”

Oliver grappled him to the ground while Saru ran for urgent help. The help did not come fast enough. Five minutes of Oliver trying to hold down a man twice his size was taking its toll on him. Only after the second call to security did the entire group of security officers come running in time for the third world war. Poor Oliver was shocked and shaken, while Saru could not stop laughing, probably from nerves. I only then found out that I was on the neurological ward, this being the only ward that had a free isolation room at the time of my admission. Guess I am where I am supposed to be…with the strange and insane.