*...a hospital story
Some people cry at funerals. I cry when I'm tired. I never cry if I haven't slept after being at a nightclub until five in the morning. I did cry yesterday.
This week, I lost two days of valuable study time doing long ambulance runs with two major medical emergencies. I somehow, got a large assignment (Eastern Australian Standard time takes two hours off my submission times) in for a post-graduate university certificate that I am studying for. After a four hour drive home and three hours sleep, my journey on a busy city freeway was unbearable. When I reached the classroom at Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital, on the eigth floor, I found a room full of registrars signing in and eating hot pastries and spring rolls. A helpful intern informed me that this was not the Advanced Life Support Class. At this point, I should have stood back, eaten a couple of sausage rolls and collected my thoughts. I didn't. Instead, I began the long walk back to Reception and thought about a dog in a sock.
A few weeks ago, I had respectfully discussed "after-life requests" with a new elderly resident in the aged care wing of a rural hospital. For years, she had kept the ashes of her beloved dog ,'Toby" in a stocking so that their ashes could be buried together behind a plaque in the wall at the cemetery in Kalamunda Road. As I walked back to E-Block, looking for a way to get to the first floor, I ran through a few beautiful burial places that appealed to me. I wasn't too fond of the idea of keeping a dog in a stocking. The notion of my body being buried in a tomb on an island in a lake, like Diana, appealed to me in a way.
Unable to find a way of getting to the first floor, I got my car keys ready and headed for the hospital reception. On one side, was a lady who pretended that I wasn't there while she chatted to a friend on the phone. On the other side was a lady sitting behind a glass wall which sported a sign which stated, "Stand away from the glass so we can hear you better". I did. I stood back from the glass window and then she also pretended that I wasn't there. Finally, I leaned forward and I asked her how to get to the first floor. Attempting to keep my voice composed while I tried not to cry, I had to explain that the room in the letter, which she took from me, was not being used for an ALS class and that I needed to get to the first floor. It went a little bit like this:
"No…there is a room full of doctors and lots of plates of sausage rolls; apparently there is no ALS class there and I have to go to E-block. I need to get to the first floor. I am tired and I have only had three hours sleep." She replied, "You need to go to G-block. It's on the eighth floor," "No, there are only doctors there…and lots of sausage rolls," I replied politely."You are early, that's where you are meant to go," she said. "No, the sign on the door said to go to E-block on the first floor," I replied. "Where exactly were you?" she asked. "I was in a room that had lots of sausage rolls. Lots of sausage rolls….lots of doctors …..and no nurses," I stressed."It must have been that room," she argued. "No, it wasn't the room with the sausage rolls. How do I get to the first floor?," I answered. At this point, I started crying and had to turn away and blow my nose. "God help me if I'd been dying!" I said.
Eventually, after a long, meandering trip through a maze of hospital corridors, I got to my class and spent the day doing Advance Life Support with a group of nurses and two doctors- wonderful, inspiring and enthusiastic people who will one day, hopefully, save you from the grave. They gave us biscuits….one measly packet of tasteless, dry biscuits.
When I do die one day, I would like to die on an island I have been to in the Solomon Islands. Not the one in Figi, where the man with the rough, traditional facial tattoos sat down on the deserted white-sand beach and talked to me while stabbing his coconut machete into the sand, but the one where I saw the chanting boys row past in a wooden boat with a sail made from flowers when they were on their way to collect a nervous groom's bride. When June, the old lady I mentioned earlier, passes away one day, please don't forget her instructions for the dog in the sock.
