Thursday, August 04, 2016

Buckets of Tenderness

My favourite poet, Paul Durcan, has a poem about a stay in hospital, where the nurses are,

Emptying buckets of tenderness over your head. 

Don't you just love that?! I experienced such nurse-y dedication and kindness this week, (+ NHS gratitude), along with an op to remove an ovary and a cyst that was causing pain - thank goodness that's over (-y).

I've still got one left and a woman of my tender age, should manage on that. I suppose I've nothing much more to say on the topic other than quiet praise for my gender, these women on the ward, getting on with it: a girl much younger than me having a hysterectomy after scary test results. Eighty-one year old Violet in for yet another op and still making jokes.

She says - my husband always said I should get running shoes, and I says, naw, they're for the young, and now he's dead and buried and here's me with ma trainers! 

Whereupon she guffawed, stuffed her thin ankles into a pair of new Nikes and shuffled off merrily to get changed into a surgical gown. Oh, the human spirit.

I'd like to thank the garden for being there to welcome me home. And the family.



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