GONE SWIMMING

A hospital blog

Dear Readers,

Until now, I have been shielded from the costs of disability because of our wonderful and vital NHS. This will change when I get home due to the considerable costs of remodelling the house, and my need for round the clock care.

I ask, therefore, that if you enjoy The Kureishi Chronicles, believe in paying for good writing, and want to help with my recovery, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

My world has both shrunk and expanded. I am doing new things everyday, things I never imagined for a moment. I am, as I might have told you, living in a small room off the main thoroughfare of the ward, which houses twenty-eight patients. If I sit in my electric wheelchair at the entrance to my room, I am directly opposite the nurse’s station, at which three or four nurses are usually doing different tasks. Up and down the main drag move the patients in their wheelchairs, as well as visitors, doctors, nurses, porters, agency workers, and so on. I hear all kinds of conversations, and I am right in the middle of this busy ecosystem. I am, as they say, watching the world go by, and it is not without interest. Sometimes there are two or three hours when I have no visitors or sessions, I cannot, for practical reasons, watch a movie or read a book, and so all I do is stare and listen. I hear amazing things.