Page 40 of The Flowers of Bay C
Oh no. Not that. Dr Chowdhury mentioned it yesterday, or was it the day before? The days bleed together in here, hours go by without you realising, then drag by until you want to grab them and concertina them all together so they go quicker.
I don’t like bronchoscopies. We’ll sedate you, they always say, but the sedation is never enough to mask the cold scope shoved down my throat, choking me, the suction through parts that sting with the pain of it. It’ll help us see what’s going on down there, he says, and clear you out a bit more in the process, get rid of that deep seated stuff that refuses to budge with even the most violent percussion Dan has to offer. That’s great, I say, as if I can’t wait, as if it’s a trip to the cinema.
As the porter wheels me out of the ward, I notice Violet lying still in her bed, an oxygen mask pressed over her face, which is devoid of its usual blotches of high colour.
‘She is very poorly,’ Amina says. ‘She was very sick in the night and could not breathe.’
I must have slept through it all.
Amina looks worried, her brows pinched as she watches Violet’s chest rising and falling too quickly. ‘She seemed so much better, yesterday. She was – how you say it – sprightly? She was saying she could go home soon.’
‘She has COPD,’ Kat puts in, and I immediately feel guilty that I don’t even know that, that I’d never bothered to ask. ‘She had Covid really badly too, last year, she nearly died and it made her COPD worse.’
‘Oh no,’ I say, staring at her, lying there in her polyester nightie, a blue waffle blanket tucked in around her, eyelids quivering, arms still at her sides, all exposed and pale and floppy.
‘We need to go.’ The porter pushes my chair out of the bay into the cool breeze of the corridor, and I brace myself for what is ahead.
???
My throat aches.
I’m taking a sip of some insipid hospital tea when Dan strolls in with a chart in one hand, pushing a walker with another. ‘Right, Penny! Hope you’re feeling energetic. We’re going to get you walking up the stairs today.’
I swallow and my throat is too small and I gag. ‘Just had… bronchoscopy.’
‘Ah, nice. You must be feeling nice and clear.’
‘Nice and sleepy.’ The sedation still hits me in waves. It seems stronger than usual because I barely remember it, only the feeling of the cool scope hitting my throat, the feeling someone was trying to drown me, the desperate need to cough, to get it out of me, but then nothing. I woke up back here in my bed tasting something metallic. There’s blood on my lips.
‘Ah no,cariad. It’s hours since you had it. Let’s get you up.’
‘You sound like thingy,’ I say blurrily.
‘Thingy?’
‘FromGavin and Stacey.’
He laughs. ‘You ready?’
No.
I teeter behind the walker, gripping on for dear life, fighting through the fog. ‘Good girl!’ Dan says, as if I’m a schoolgirl who’s just got all her spellings right. I glance at Violet again on my way out, but she’s barely moved from her prone position, and her face seems whiter still. I’ve not been very kind to her. What if…?
The stairs stretch out before me, all concrete and frigid with cold, like the outside has nudged its way into the building and been made to feel too welcome. ‘Brrr,’ Dan says, hugging his arms round himself, ‘bit chilly in here, isn’t it?’
The stairwell is always cold, in summer and in winter, but just now the temperature feels too much, it feels like alien terrain impossible for me to traverse. The cold hits me in a stab of agony and I stumble.
‘Okay?’
I swallow and nod, clinging to the walker.
‘Righto. So, leave this here at the bottom and just hold on to the rail. Anytime you need to stop, then just tell me, we won’t go further than you can. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
He keeps hold of my arm as I pick up my foot and place it on the bottom step, grabbing hold of the cool metal rail. My leg shakes as I lift my other foot. One at a time. One foot on the step, drag other foot to the same step, rest a moment, next step. I can do this.
‘You’re doing well,’ Dan says, and I wonder where he gets his chipper patience from, that he can hang round cold stairwells with wobbly middle-aged women all day and never get frustrated.
