My isolation room had what I think is called a " wet room" attached to it. For my first few days in hospital I was almost delirious and in a lot of pain and having feverish spells where the sweat poured from me big time. I never got a single wash and began to feel manky so I tried the wet room (without permission) and slid or tripped or maybe just went faint and ended up on the floor. By luck I'd fallen near to a floor length emergency pull cord that extended right down almost to floor level so I pulled it and the nurses were there very quickly.
After that I was given a sort of bed bath thingy which I detested …..I should be able to wash myself. After two days of bed baths I'd had enough and said I wanted a shower . This was agreed to but only on condition that a nurse was on hand to help me.
The nurse duly turned up and she was very tasty so I went into the wet room but then I refused to shower on the grounds that I believe that what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. In short I demanded fair play and insisted that if I was to strip off then she must too !
Laughter came from my room where two other nurses had overheard the conversation and they agreed with me but although my nurse was laughing too she wouldn't strip off …..the rotten mare ! I got my shower but no strip show from the nurse.
My wife got to hear about this and was somewhat embarrassed. " Oh Bill, " she said, " you didn't actually say that did you ?" I assured her that I had "said that" and then laughed about it all over again....which brought on a coughing spasm the pain of which soon shut me up !
I am now back home. Nothing more could be done for me in the hospital. I still have pneumonia and I am loaded up to the gills with anti biotics and steroids and more painkillers in one day than I would normally take in a week.
I hurt like hell whenever I cough or sneeze or even just blow my nose but at least I no longer feel like convict number 666 . That isolation room was driving me nuts for about all I could do was stare at a blank white wall all day. There was a t.v. high up on a wall in the room but it's remote had been "lost" so the telly was about as much use as a fart in a pig sty.
I kept on thinking about Steve Mc Queen in the film called "Papillon." There was a bit in it where he ends up in solitary confinement and has to stick his head out of a small hatch in the cell door to get a haircut. The other solitary confinement prisoners are also lined up with their heads sticking out through the door hatches and one of them asks Steve what he looks like.
The poor bugger looked like death warmed up but Steve tells him he looks O.K. -------- I felt just like that prisoner every time one of the eternally cheerful nurses popped in to ask how I was feeling and tried to reassure me that I was doing O.K.
I was confined in that room for 6 - 7 days ….I think …..my memory of the first few days is very patchy. It wasn't the fact that I had so little human contact that was driving me nuts. It was the confinement itself and the lack of anything to do.
I tried reading and read one book ...it was rubbish. I even tried water colour painting once I could sit up but I know what a shitty painting looks like when I see it ! One of the nurses was a young Romanian bloke and we got on great together. He liked art …..and wanted me to show him/tell him how to paint !
He seemed to like the painting I did in there ……………. I have applied to get him a Guide Dog ! 
The ward sister or whatever they call it nowadays was a real tartar . She wanted things done her way....or else ! We soon fell out and I emerged victorious from our brief but vicious battle of wills. I think she was taken aback by the depth of my vocabulary ....even though I used no swear words or made any obvious use of sarcasm..... I'm good at sarcasm and left the poor wummin feeling uncertain if she'd just been complimented or insulted !
Then she blethered with me for a wee while and we ended up liking each other. She is a border collie fan and has been having some trouble with one of her dogs. I told her I had some experience of dog training and offered her some advice but my memory is now so woozy that I can't even remember what the problem was never mind how to solve it !
I am home now but I am already very bored with just sitting around here. Apart from the trip to the hospital more than a week ago and then the trip home again , I haven't been over the doorstep for about a month and even then I only went the length of our garden. I am bored out of my F-ing mind !!!
Writing all this twaddle has given me something to do for a wee while . Sorry it all sounds like a bad episode of some crappy hospital t.v. series.
If you don't want to read any future twaddle don't look at any posts from me because all I can write and post about now is likely to be "medicinal twaddle."
Wullie
