Today has been a looong day, the kind that are often part of my life these days... appointments to keep which involve some medical procedure or other that lead to me beginning to feel oft times redundant as me the human being and obviously 'only' the patient with number and illness.
This feeling is rarely embraced by me instead I look around in the waiting rooms I find myself before consultation or procedure and actively set out to note those around me offering a smile and a nod in recognition.
Today has been a looong day but making another patient laugh and relax as we sat waiting our trips in the noisy washing machine - MRI scanner, let me be the human being I hope to be at least for a moment each day.
I have journeyed in the noisy washing machine more than a few times so no terror for me save a small one of falling asleep and snoring as loudly as the machine or better still forgetting there's a microphone in there and singing the drum and base track I am composing with the machines insistent beat and vibration as the first layer only to have the radiologists voice quip 'nice groove, now can you just try and not wiggle your body along to' - yes both have happened.
I had a fairly major incident whilst there which was 'interesting' but was also really a huge gift. Suffice to say that I needed help and the kind of help that would leave some of my self worth/dignity in tact. Today I had the gift of a nurse who hadn't lost sight of her humanity in the overstretched department she does twelve hour shifts.
She didn't just go through the motions but offered not only a helping hand but recognised and smiled at me the human being. She found replacement everything and after the scan appeared with two other colleagues and the radiologist to make sure I didn't fall off the scanner bed as I made my less than graceful way to upright position. After which she linked her arm through mine and walked with me the ten minutes it would take for me to reach the main entrance where a friend would be waiting to take me home.
I wished her a gentle rest of her shift and thanked her for her kindness. She smiled and thanked me for my role in getting the woman I had made laugh into the scanner as she had been sitting there for two hours before I arrived so frightened that she was unable to follow the nurse into the scanner room.
She then laughed as she said she wished she could tell the story I'd told, my friend asked what had I said - in the way someone who has encountered my humour would, so I quickly said oh I just talked about the great drying day it had been having managed to get two loads of bedding and various nightshirts etc washed and dry by sun and breeze at which my fellow traveller brightened and described actually managing not only to wash and dry a load of wash but iron it too, then she said quite sadly, 'Then I had to come to the hospital' to which I responded...
' Oh god yes I would have had to come to the hospital too after that experience as I gave up ironing probably thirty years ago' she really looked shocked but her eyes were dancing so I seized the opportunity to cut straight into a riff about imagining herself as a pair of big airtex pants needing to be clean fresh and ready for comfort again and how liberating the short time in the washing machine made the pants feel, it got embellished and opened up into a whole world where big airtex pants were the all powerful wonders of this world.
My fellow patient laughed, gasped in amusement and left the waiting room for a moment as a pair of big airtex pants; then the nurse came over and said to her do you think you'd manage to come and look at the machine now, hesitation and loss of colour meant the answer was about to be no so I just gently touched her arm and said quietly go on just hang on to those big airtex pants and tell the washing machine what destination you wish to travel too.
The nurse appeared ten minutes later to say I'd have wait an extra twenty minutes....:0)
I don't know why this woman was there nor she I but as two human beings we could travel together for a moment that made her 'brave' and me thankful for a brain that veers towards the absurd with way too much ease and delight.
Strength comes in many forms but for me, this day, it is the ability to make someone smile even laugh and find they don't need courage or bravery just a big pair of airtex pants:0)
(pants here by the way mean knickers)