Bed bound

Things you notice when you can't move....

As you've probably guessed I love writing so will scribble away about almost anything to pass the time and keep me sane. I had taken my notebook with me into hospital to record my account of having a hysterectomy obviously not expecting to feel as rough as I did.

So I just decided to observe those things around me and here is what I wrote:

...on my right side attached to a catheter, a bag of rose coloured pee, ranging from claret (yesterday) to elderflower cordial (today)...

...drugs have their place, thank you opium fields...

...on the wall of my hospital room I can see:

• a Danicentre glove and apron dispenser, blue gloves in the shade of the Caribbean ocean in small/medium/large. It looks like a 3-eyed old square faced man, its mouth set like a pith helmet.
• below, a green plastic dispenser called Clinell containing an open pack of wipes
• above the white ceramic sink, some Purell liquid soap and chrome fittings. A Gujo gel dispenser and Tork paper towel unit
• then some art as an antidote to the clinical fittings - a black framed photo print of a stream, green banks of long grass and luminescent weed travelling in gentle water. It speaks to me of seclusion, wildness, a brackish past set free by fresh flow. In the far right of the picture there is a turn in the path of the stream suggesting its history, it has come from somewhere unknown but will continue from this point I see before me. I am drawn back to the clump of long grass like a horses mane brushed by the current, coloured to a sandy stripe amid the dark water....

enough of that....

• there is a clock with 24 and 12 hour markings, the second hand in red.
• on the bathroom door is a wipe-clean 'Daily Aims Board', my daily aim for today is have a proper fart (there is a medical term for this but no-one ever uses it and anyway fart sounds more satisfying, it's proper onomatopoeic. I have achieved this daily aim. Another daily aim which seems an obsession also of every nurse who visits me is 'have you had a bowel movement yet?'. Sadly not. However, I have eaten half a weetabix with milk; 2 bourbon biscuits; some veg soup; cucumber; lettuce; tomato; some strong coffee; some herbal tea; cauliflower cheese and a hot chocolate.
• I am told I must 'mobilise' more before I'm discharged. This is difficult when I feel so weak every time I sit up or attempt to stand (more about this later).
• Next to the Daily Aims Board is  yellow sign with a drawing of a white toilet (clearly a male toilet as the seat is up!)