Dear Loyal Reader,
I am back home, or at least, back in my home city. My actual home, the place where I spent most of my time before my accident, is still someway off. I hope to return there someday.
In the meantime, I will continue writing this blog, in the hope that it is useful to somebody. I kindly ask that if you have the means, it would mean a great deal if you could support my writing by becoming a paid subscriber, and keep this show on the road.
Your loving writer, Hanif.
XXX
We try to keep a rotation of visitors coming, from ten in the morning to nine at night, so that there is always somebody here with me. Isabella is here all day, but any visitor is welcome, since they provide distraction from my feeling of being trapped in this room in a busy west London hospital.
The ideal hospital visitor stays for at least one hour. And I like the self-absorbed ones, people who talk about themselves, bringing the outside world in. Since I can no longer bear to read the newspapers, watch television or listen to podcasts, other people are the only entertainment for me. Sometimes guests do voices and imitations – anything to stop me thinking about all that I have lost and whether I will get any of it back again.
I am living in an unreal world, where I entirely depend on the kindness of friends. Some people come only once, to have a look at me and pay their respects. Others come back. Some people come everyday, they are my favourites. Some stay too long, and others disappear too quickly to have their hair done. When they leave it’s upsetting, since I don’t know when I will see them again, and I fear there being a gap between people.
One visitor who is deafer than he likes to admit sits in more or less complete silence making me feel as morose as he is. Another guest is more miserable than I am, and I feel compelled to try and cheer him up. My children come most days but usually only for a short time, and sometimes they are angry that I am ill. But I love hearing about their adventures. Sometimes I am so sullen that I can barely speak.
I have been here much longer than I thought I would be. The bureaucracy is maddening. The NHS doesn’t like to say yes to anything. Some of the doctors seem to enjoy bringing bad news, particularly regarding the hospital bug I have picked up. When they touch me, the nurses wear full PPE garb. It is as if I am a toxic object for them, even though the bug is not easily contagious.
There are rules and protocols that have to be followed. A cheerful psychologist came to see me and I soon reduced her to helplessness. After all, my depressed condition is caused by my reality and not by anything imaginary or historical. After a time, trying to be helpful, she suggested I get a personal assistant; and then she told me that when I get home I should get a dog. It might be able to pick up things for me, like my telephone. Since I already have a dog, and he tends to destroy things rather than fetch them, I wondered if her suggestion was as helpful as it might have been.
I am constantly nauseous, which I suspect is caused by constipation. The nurses are always asking whether I have opened my bowels. I was considering writing a hospital novel called: “Have You Opened Your Bowels?” I’m sure it would be a hit. I can only open my bowels with the help of an enema, which I have twice a week, and I can only pee with the help of a catheter. Soon I will have a hole drilled into my pubic bone so that I can pee directly into a bag without urinating through my penis.
Once a day I go to the gym. The physiotherapists are cheerful and talk a lot. They try to get me moving. They stand me up. The best bit is that I can see the London skyline out of the window. On a cupboard to the right there is a sign saying “Circus Chair Parts and Crutches”.
The nights are the worst. I tend to fall asleep between nine and ten o’ clock and wake up around four, which is when I have terrible thoughts and loneliness. It is impossible to have company at that time and to turn off one’s mind. Sometimes if I’m lucky I can sleep through until seven, which means I have only to survive until ten, which is when Isabella arrives and my daily life begins. When Isabella leaves, she calls my old school-friend in Canada, and he and I talk for an hour and a half. He has a low sonorous voice and tells entertaining stories, which get me in the mood for the night. We call him the Bromley Scheherazade.
The constant nausea means I eat very little. Maybe half a slice a toast, a cup of tea, some chocolate, a piece of melon and a few mouthfuls of macaroni cheese. Friends try to entice me with delicious dishes but there is nothing so delicious that I want to eat it. All food tastes the same to me. Cardboardy and difficult to swallow. It stays in my mouth for too long. I have no appetite. No libido. My battery is flat. And so would yours be, I guess, if you had to live in a hospital.
I try to remember the names of the nurses. I am in a side room on a dementia ward. The patients cry out and scream. Some of them walk around half-naked. One dragged himself across the floor, followed by a leaking bag of piss. In the night many try to abscond. Sometimes one of them comes to the door of my room, stands looking around vacantly, before shuffling off. I’m hoping to get out of here to another facility where I will have more physiotherapy and then I can think about the possibility of having my house readjusted and going home. That at least is something. I know this is not a cheerful blog. I wasn’t in such a bad mood in the last facility, possibly because I was looking forward to returning to London. Now I’m in London, it’s been a strain and a disappointment.
Hanif XX
Hello, I'm in Rome and teach at Sapienza University. I've been reading your blog and the fact that you were so close to where I live moved me. It will get better. I'm not just saying that, it will. My husband was on a wheelchair, he was on a wheelchair when I met him, I was 29 and he was 53 (he had multiple sclerosis). So some of your experiences, of your feeling trapped, of your feeling unbearable anxiety at night, they ring a bell. You will get better, you will get better also physically. We have to live. You have such a brilliant mind, it will set you free. Forza, coraggio e affetto da Roma.
My hurt lurched as I read. I want to beg you to call your most renowned connections who, in turn, will demand you be moved to the best hospital with the best view, in a bright beautiful ward with bright beautiful people and dogs running round. Or whatever your heart desires. If you close your eyes and lie still, can you feel the love of the many around you? I hope astral travel is possible and you learn how to do it and fly then wherever you wish between the hours of four and ten, returning just before your beloved arrives. You are the beloved of this group, Hanif. I believe in God and prayer so I’ll keep doing that. Love to yoy