Hospital Diary

Crippling the cripples

Jennifer Hawley

This series of events began on October 8, 1971. I was dancing in a friend's house and was kicked on my right calf. The following morning, Saturday, I was driven by a friend to my doctor's surgery. The doctor gave the back of my calf a cursory squeeze, pushed my foot up and down and pronounced a sprain. He strapped up my foot and leg, told me it would take five to six weeks to heal, and to keep the strapping on as long as possible. As my leg was hurting badly, I inquired anxiously if running about on it could harm it further. Not at all, he replied.

After four and a half weeks spent between states of mild discomfort and really acute pain, I returned to the doctor. This time he gave me a little more of his time and diagnosed possible rupture of the Achilles tendon. A letter to the hospital was produced.

I attended hospital, was seen by the consultant who, on finding I was unable to stand on tiptoe on my right leg, said I definitely had a ruptured tendon. He gave me the option of six weeks in plaster of paris, with the foot absolutely immobilised, or an operation with same. Not wishing to have a scar on my leg I plumped for the former.

I was put in plaster for six weeks and the consultant pronounced me healed. All that was needed now was physiothbrapy. After six weeks of these classes (which were diabolically painful) I demanded to see a doctor again. This time a fairly Young one looked at my now quite Withered leg and said the tendon had not 'healed properly; but as it had been left so long he didn't think much could be done about it. However he called •in the consultant again who said an operation might put my leg to rights.

So an operation it was.

On September 27 I enter by large glass Paned doors, heavily sprung, and cross a !large and noisy concourse to a window over the top of which is written the word ' ENQUIRIES.' The window is broken and held lopsidedly together with Sellotape. Inside a girl is talking on the telephone. I Put down my hold-all and wait.

The girl finishes speaking. "May I be admitted?" I ask, waving the form sent to me three days previously. "Over there," she says curtly. I turn: what or where is " over there"? I look round; nothing but the words PHARMACY & LIFTS and an ornate plaque to some previous governor. Eventually I see in the middle of the concourse a kind of pen, surrounded by yellowing perspex, within which are two women chatting. Perhaps that is "over there." I pick up my bag and approach. The conversation eventually ends and one of them departs.

"Good morning," I say brightly to the remaining one who has a paper tissue clamped firmly to the end of her nose. "I wish to be admitted." She ignores the greeting, sniffs, dabs and motions me to sit down. The routine questions begin and she seems to brighten — until we get to religion.

"What is your religion?" "I have none," I answer. She shifts her chair back a few inches and looks at me as if I have leprosy. "What's your nationality?" she inquires. "British," I answer, straightening my back. "No, I mean where were you born?" she says testily. " Staffordshire," I reply. She peers at me closely, still clutching the damp tissue. "That's all, sit over there and I'll get a porter." As I'm mobile I ask why I need a porter. "Everybody has to have a porter," she snaps, "sit on that bench and wait." How silly of me I think — of course the porter will carry my bag.

Next to me is a pathetic man in a wheelchair, painfully thin with popping eyes and trembling hands. Beside him is a tiny woman, wrinkled and toothless and crippled in both feet. A large girl in ambulance uniform strides by: "We've got to wait for the other two," she calls over her shoulder. They nod and settle back resignedly in their chairs. They are obviously old hands at this. The man's hands start shaking uncontrollably; the woman watches silently, tears in her eyes.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs Hawley, your bed wasn't made." She leads me into a drab 'cream ward with heavy olive green curtains round the beds. The paint is scarred on the walls and flaking on the ceiling. "Unpack and get into bed," she says briskly and leaves. I start to place my things in the locker, on the top of which is a bowl containing vomit. The locker is unclean, each shelf sticky or stained with dirt. I pretend indifference, not wishing to make a fuss on arrival.

A nurse appears with my lunch: minced chicken it would have to be. I point out the vomit bowl. "Snap! !' she laughs and takes it away. After lunch I inquire where the lavatories are. In the first one the inner edge of the seat is broken away and the whole cubicle is most insanitary. I try the second; dried faeces on the seat and the wall. The same in the third. I return to the first and manage as best I can. When I mention the filthy condition of the lavatories to a nurse she tosses her head: "That's the ward maid's job, not ours."

After another four hours of boredom I ask if I may have a bath. "Anytime, help yourself," is the answer. I go to the bathroom and place my towel and clean nightdress on the chair. I should have looked more closely. It is soiled in the same manner as the lavatory seat. I return to the ward damp and disgusted. The nurse to whom I mention the matter doesn't seem unduly perturbed but says she'll see to it and anyway I needn't use my own towels, the hospital provides them. An hour later she returns and stuffs a minuscule article labelled ' Bath Mat ' behind my locker.

The day wears wearily on. I find that I am the only orthopaedic patient in a surgical ward composed for the most part of geriatric cases with a sprinkling of abortions and suicide attempts; the odd man out, as it were, and therefore of little account. At supper time a very young doctor pops his head round the door and says he will return later to check me.

10.15 pm and the lights are out. Suddenly the young doctor appears at my bedside. He draws up a stool, asks the usual questions, examines back and chest and asks to see my ankle. "Oh we'll soon have you as good as new," he says cheerily. I feel happy; I've been so worried. He stands up to go; as an afterthought — "By the way, can I see you walk?" I get• out of bed and perform my ship-in-a-highsea gait. "Well what's wrong with that then?" he asks, his tone changing. "But I can't run, jump, dance, play any games, carry parcels, climb slopes unaided or get my shoes on properly. If someone pushes me I fall over, I've got arthritis in the ankle now and my knee and hip joint are beginning to hurt." "Well it seems perfectly all right to me," he says. He hasn't got to contend with it.

I become somewhat aggressive. My leg is now withering and becoming unsightly. I see no reason, just because I'm forty, to settle for being a semi-cripple . . . I want to do again all the things I used to do. He sighs, making me feel I am wasting everyone's time, but becomes more conciliatory. "All right, all right, we'll do you tomorrow at 3.45 pm." After he leaves I feel more depressed than ever. Am I being a nuisance? Should I settle for the bad job I've got? The thought of having to be helped over rough ground, etc., for the rest of my life appalls me. After breakfast next day another doctor appears, somewhat older and bearing the label ' Registrar.' He looks at my ankle, feels it and says: "Not much we can do With that; I make no promises, it's been left too long." By now I am close to tears. I ask a few questions which he answers tersely, obviously bored by the whole thing. In less than three minutes he's gone. I lie there wondering what kind of a leg I shall have when they've finished with me. Since the day of the injury every doctor I've seen has said something different. 'No problem, as good as new . . . it's too late . . . an operation will put it right . . . we never guarantee these things . . . oh the tendon just needs shortening." Who is right? Or is anyone?

After the operation I am given painkillers for two days and the pain wears off. I request to be taken to the lavatory in a Wheelchair. I find the same dried excreta Still on the lavatory seat and still, though Wearing off, on the chair in the bathroom. The nightly question: "Bowels opened today?" only exacerbates as one feels unable to perform such an action under these conditions. By this time I am becoming somewhat costive. The third day I am to go to Physiotherapy to be fitted with some crutches. Hooray! I am to be independent again. I am helped into a chair which because of a pigeon-toed idiosyncrasy of its front wheels can only be drawn backwards. There is nothing to rest my leg O n even though the plaster has been made deliberately light and I have been admonished that it is not to touch the floor. I must be very careful for it will not bear any weight. I stick my leg out as best I can. Every bump is agony and every lurch terrifies me.

We enter the lift. My back is to the indicator and the other occupants. We go down: jerk. I clutch my leg and grit my teeth. There is some laughter and another Jerk. With each jerk the plaster cast slides and scrapes the wound. More laughter, more jerks. I ease myself round, still holding my leg which by now feels as if it is on fire, to find the porter and a maid are having a merry game of up-a-floor, downa-floor. I scream at them. They stop laughing and proceed to the correct floor. As we enter the Physic) room the combined efforts of porter and chair contrive to bang my leg against the wall.

A tall blonde girl comes up. "What .are You here for?" she asks. By this time I can't take any more and burst into tears. She lets me recover my composure and I tell her about my journey. She gets another Chair and says she'll push me back her self. I have my crutches fitted, and as I am about to go back to the ward I have an

inspiration. "May I use the lavatory down h. ere?" It happens to be in the men's changing room but the seat is clean at last. I return to the ward clutching my new crutches with my leg supported on a

Proper rest. On trying to comfort the bused leg I find that blood is now seeping through the plaster. I show it to a nurse

ho dismisses it airily and, when I Fcrnplain about the porter, answers: "Oh naut John is a very good porter." I wait one rid a half hours for my pain-killing tablets.

On the fourth day I set off down the corridor to visit my friend the knee injury. I have gone about twelve yards when the left crutch disintegrates. Nobody has tightened the butterfly nuts. I fall heavily, fortunately managing not to land on the plaster. I sit in the middle of the corridor, watched by two maids, and reassemble the crutch.

My locker now has three days' dead newspapers on it and remains as dirty as ever. Whatever is dropped on the floor lies there until next morning when the 'cleaner,' a misnomer if ever there was one, comes round. My bed is made only once a day; the rest of the time, if I become too uncomfortable and hot, I get out of bed and try to make it myself, hopping around on one leg. Sometimes two or three nurses standing in the corridor watch with amusement.

I have bathed myself in the long bath every day since my operation, which is dangerous as I must keep one leg out of the water. Nobody knows about this for no one has bothered to inquire about my ablutions or lack of them. I take the little 'abortion' from the next bed with me to see I don't slip. Apparently I'm a bit of a nuisance as I don't come into the right category. So I get very short shrift, as does a pathetic little Egyptian girl who weeps all day. She is considered a misery and I am not ill, only incapacitated.

When I knew I was to enter this hospital I asked my doctor for a medical certificate. "Oh they'll give you one there," he said grandly. I have asked for one every day since I arrived, as my firm is very exacting in these matters. I have now been discharged after five days (so much for the estimated three weeks) and still no certificate.

On the last night in I made quite a nuisance of myself on this score. "Ask your own doctor," they said. "He'll give you one." I would if I could get there.

The writer was a patient at Westminster Hospital from September 27 to October 2 of this year.