Chapter 48 : The end of perfection

In October 2015 after playing tennis I went home and went to bed.  Two weeks later I slowly woke up. Sometime when slipping between sleep and comatose I had been reclassified. I was now a patient.
As I began to wake and emerge from the unconscious land I inhabited I tried to connect to a world I vaguely remembered. As I did this I realised I was wearing a label. A label which said “patient”.  I had been classified and put in the box that said “patient”.   My family were called “carers”.  We had all entered a world we had only ever seen on TV. 

The carers had a role to play. They had to care for the patient. They had to do things for him. To look after the patient. They had to protect the patient. They were never to complain. They were always to help. They were never to ask for help.  They were always to expect stability or constant change. They were never to be faced with unexplained or random changes.

And the label above me said “patient”. That was my role. A patient is always compliant. Always sits or lies on a bed. A patient always waits patiently. He depends on everybody. He waits for everything. When he has an appointment he says thank you. He is always gracious. Always accepting. And everybody asks him about himself. And he always answers politely.

Well a year later.  How did we go?  Did I play my role well? And the others, how did they go? What did the critics say? How many stars did they give?  Did the show should finish with everybody having learnt their lesson and having a laugh together followed by the credits.

In the hospital I was surrounded by nurses and other paid carers. Lying in bed I always tended to classify them as being good or bad. To be efficient at following the rules, to know something about the medications, to remember your name; to remember how you drank tea.  I always classified them as either good or bad. Now I don’t I see the medical staff as human. They were better at some things than others. For a variety of reasons. Maybe they had seen a similar case the week before. Maybe they had gone to a lecture which helped. Maybe their child was watching TV the day before; saw an ad for a breakfast cereal; refused to eat his normal breakfast; caused her to be late for work; which upset her superior who admonished her in front of a patient.

For all the staff everyday was different. Their work varied. Their attitude and behavior varied. Everything about them varied. They did not deserve to be put in a box marked good or bad.  I could say most of them did their best or tried their best but that is over simplistic. Some days some of them, for an unexplained reason, didn’t concentrate on what was in front of them. Everybody was different and each individual person constantly changed.

Well how did I go as a patient?

The reality is I didn’t love or hate being a patient. I never thought that I had chosen it or I could chose something else. I never thought about it. There were times when I was the perfect patient. I sat and talked about signs of improvement and getting better. There were times I was compliant and grateful. Is the reverse also true? Well I suppose it has to be. There are times when I was a difficult patient. when I was going through “a stage”. Most of the time I just tried to live each day as best I could.

What I found is that both the patient and the carers were random and unpredictable in an unpredictable fashion. Sometimes they were predictable. Sometimes for a multitude of unexplained reasons they did things which were unexplained. Is it time to end perfection and embrace chaos?  No because chaos has such a bad reputation.  The word cannot be said without conjuring bad thoughts. Well what then  is the alternative.

Living in the present, being aware of your surroundings and reacting or acting sensitively. Increasing awareness helps. Not the first person to say this. You can phrase it any way you like or use any words you want or believe in any underlying philosophy or religion you want but I would think that when perfection ends it should be replaced by living in the present and increasing awareness.

Well how many stars? I would mark this show harshly because of the finish. Nobody explained what had happened and why. No clues to the future.  It was as if they were leaving the ending open for a second show. Coming soon.