For a uni project a group of us are volunteering to paint a mural on my old hospital ward within our group were going to come up with different ideas.
Imagine walking through the doors of a ward you once insisted you'd walk through with confidence, being grabbed by the nurses and canteen staff with tight gripping hugs of love and praise
''You've done so well! look at you!!''
A smile appears, trying to stop tears streaming down my face..
Imagine sitting in a day room you once refused to sit in because you couldn't stay awake long enough to even watch television and anything you'd watch on tv before your stroke you'd just cry at because it's 'not the same as before' you 'can't remember the stories within the programme'
We sat in the dayroom with an Occupational Therapist, do you remember the people who'd drag you out of bed to teach you to 'learn how to cut your food' or 'make a cup of tea' do you remember, the dark green trousers that would be so baggy they'd drag along the floor.
do you remember? because i do.
We share our 'stories' of why we are helping the patients..
Our main reason
'To give something back'
to give something back to the; staff that taught me to walk
the staff that would persistently try and drag me out of bed to learn to cook with one arm/hand
the staff who'd feed me
the staff who'd put up with my impatience of not being 'normal' and almost blaming them
the staff who'd cheer me on when I finally stood on my own two feet and took my first steps
''Right i'll show you around the garden and everything else the patients can access, we are a ward of 19 beds so it's quite small''
*Oh my god! the garden.. the tight throat feeling you get before you want to cry appeared*
The strange excitement of revisiting a place that was so cheerful but so depressing at the same time. The only bit of 'freedom' you could have away from your stuffy hospital bed.
A different view from the dull dark blue patchy purple and black curtain that closes around your bed.
you know the ones that look as if they've been the same design for about 100 years? not even the splashes of random colours that clash SO bad could make it nice.
To get to the garden we had to walk down the long beige corridor with the wards built off of the corridor.
I remember peeping around the corner of the bed trying to see who my next visitor was, watching the nurses walk past and patients aimlessly walking around trying to 'escape'.
This time I was one of the 'visitors' peeping into the wards, to be curious of why these people were here. The patients laying in beds all with different neurological conditions, some even trying to transfer from a wheelchair from their bed, possibly celebrating being able to move again.
Once I was one of those patients that people were so curious to see, but not understanding why.
We saw the garden, this time I took a deep breath of the fresh air and made sure I remembered the fresh smell, as I knew i'd be returning back into the wards to leave.
When leaving the ward we sat in the cafe to 'have a drink'
As I chose my drink, hot chocolate.. we sat down.
somewhere I was taken too to 'escape the ward' where my visitors would talk at me thinking I understood them and trying to make me feel positive.
This time I was walking in and walking out..
That was my goal nearly three years ago and it's complete.
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