Aches & Pains (9 page)

He loved people to talk about the world that he had lived in, the people they knew, the social beliefs they had shared or argued over, the successes, the failures, the near disasters, the funny things that had happened along the way, the amount of the twentieth century they had seen together, with all the changes for good and not for good.

He liked the glamorous fifty-something woman who claimed she had always fancied him, safe enough to say now that it was too late, and the tough, pushy businessman who invented a mythical reason to be in the area and came along to learn a three card trick. He told my friend he needed to know how to do ‘Find the Lady’ before the secret was gone forever.

As for the people who really couldn’t visit because of the distance … well, it would be great if they could telephone or write a letter, a proper letter, rather than hiding behind a greeting card, he said. Nothing emotional or weepy, but something that might make sense of a life lived and now ending. He said there were some amongst his friends who could do this, but not enough. And he liked to hear that
there would be a tree planted here and a rose bush there for him.

He missed the many people that he knew had liked him greatly and were crying for him, and for whom he was already dead because he was no longer in their lives as someone full of hope and future. Unless you are a king in a fairytale, you can’t summon people to your deathbed, but he wished they had come.

His story isn’t everyone’s story, but it just might be many people’s. And at least it might make us think twice before automatically reaching for the excuse or worse, a card that purports to say it all and only says we ourselves have no real words of friendship left to offer.

In an ideal world every patient would be a twinkling, smiling, grateful person propped up with pillows, overcome with gratitude that we have come to visit.

The perfect patient’s face will crack open into a huge smile of delight as if no other person on earth could possibly be as welcome as we are. There will be nice fresh fruit on offer, a few chocolate truffles, maybe even books or magazines to lend us because they have already been read and it would be a kindness, really, to clear space in the bedside locker.

Ideally the patient will have no complaints about anything, the prognosis is good, the doctors are inspired, the nurses are angels and the hospital food is fine.

We’d all go hospital visiting if only we could be sure the patients were going to be like that. But there are days when we approach a bed and know that its going to be far from ideal.

I was in a hospital ward and heard a woman greet her daughter who had come in by a horrific journey involving one train and two buses. The mother’s first words were that she need not bother to come in again wearing that short skirt and looking like a tart.

I saw a man welcome his white-faced, anxious wife during visiting time by saying that she had yet again brought the wrong sporting paper and was there a chance that one day she might get something right.

I once went to see a fairly feisty, elderly woman who decided that she would prefer to go to sleep than talk to me. Sleep, she explained was one of the few pleasures she had left to her and that she felt a wave of it coming over her at that moment, she was sure I would understand.

I have seen a three-year-old boy coming in to a maternity ward clutching flowers for his mother and what does he find but that she’s cradling and cooing over a small screaming, red-faced baby, with no similar hugs for himself. And on top of all this he is meant to be pleased that this horrible thing has joined the family.

And in this perfect world every patient would look out of bed and see a regular stream of delightful, concerned visitors coming to see them carrying exactly the right gift. These ideal visitors would want to know the most detailed minutiae of every happening since they last visited. They would be fascinated by any change in medication, temperature charts, blood pressure levels. They would beg for details of what the consultant said, what the house-man identified and whether the nurse taking blood had found a good sturdy vein. They would remember the names of every single member of staff that
had been mentioned. They would bring warm personal greetings from almost everyone in the outer world and give the impression that society as we know it had almost broken down because of the patient’s temporary absence in hospital.

But of course that’s not going to happen for the poor patient either. It’s a far from perfect world.

I must explain that I am an avid reader of self-help books. I have shelves of them at home. I truly think that almost everything can be learned from a manual. But if you have hundreds of manuals, as I do, about topics such as how to flatten your stomach, have perfect skin, thrive on stress, play demon bridge or cook with yeast, then you will realise that if you get one single piece of useful information from any manual then you are doing well.

Wendy Shea and I, hopeless but caring and cheerful patients and well meaning hospital visitors in turn, wish just that there may have been
something
in these pages that made you believe that things weren’t quite as bad as you thought they would be. Just this one small insight is all we want for you. Then it will have been worth while writing and illustrating this bossy little book.