If you have to be in hospital, pick one with room service and a foot masseuse. I may have just glorified my recent stay at the Mater Hospital, at South Brisbane, but that proverbial silver lining is always brighter when the clouds are at their blackest.
This was an unexpected sojourn spanning several weeks, having gained a significant infection from some fairly straight forward surgery. I was, I admit, pretty crook, and there in reality to receive drugs through a drip, to have the infected site attended to and to donate my stomach as a human pincushion.
On the flip side, there is a certain decadence in being in hospital. Where else do the troubles of the world condense themselves to just one thing and that is to get well – and of course to get home.
Mornings were about medication, getting the update from the doctor and getting the morning jab, but there was the newspaper to read, showers to prepare for and the daily patient trundle. Zombie-like, we would lope through the ward in our orange socks (supplied), gown flapping, concentrating on getting up and out.
Breakfast was served 45 minutes after ordering it through room service (no, I am not kidding). Best of all was the volunteer with that little bucket of foot lotion. Who was I to deny them the pleasure? My feet would twitch delightedly and the reason why I was there forgotten for that little while.
- Linda Muller
