Coming back slowly

The day I left, the nurse, a clipped voiced Chilean man, pulled 29 staples out of my stomach with a specially designed pair of pliers. My wound was clean and he was able to leave it open.

While I packed, men came and fixed the fluoros.

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A good friend of ours has just had her second hip replacement in Cabrini Hospital, with her own room. She knew her surgeon, had continuity of staff.

I am sure her food was better. She had wine with her meals. When she left, someone said goodbye. Her fellow patients were probably prosperous, and propertied, with reliable cars and educated relatives. Not too many of the patients I met at the Alfred have a command role in our economy.

The Alfred is a vast institution, with 3,500 staff, a staggering array of diagnostic equipment, a burns unit, a transplant unit, and community outreach programs. Tucked in among the spectacular stuff is a spleen registry, which will help to keep me up with the vaccinations I now need.

I joke about the other patients, and sometimes I was glad of my hearing aids. But the one night I spent by myself, I felt lonely and abandoned.

It has taken me three days to write this post. I’ve been on a tough journey. I think death touched my cheek and passed on with a smile. I know something more of mortality, of compassion, of friendship and love.

Tucked up now in my dressing gown, heater going on my socks, slowly, slowly finding my writer’s voice, it seems to me that The Alfred is one of those places where we can find the essence of our civilisation.