Open wide and say eeeek!

Press, 26 April 1988, Page 6

Open wide and say eeeek!

He could have been a doctor or a re rigerator delivery man. Anyway, he was prowling the hospital! | corridcr and pounced on m; with a "Can I help you?’ - smile from the Jack the Ripper School of Chanjn. I "No thanks/' I bleated, totally lost in a rabbit warren of disinfected corridors. buf determined' not to be shown the way by someone who knew the local on of; the nearest Operating theatre. | I was looking for . an office to collect some papers to i Feporti a speech. But the feeling of just being in a i hospital meant I woluld nave gladly exchange*! credit cards and wallet for an exit. . ' j i Old memories. ' you see. j I

Hospitals are essential amenities, but my ionly experience of being a patient in one implanted memories that three decades have failed to exorcise. :

Wilson was seven years old. Thinner, no beard, no mortgage hassles. very innocent. An easily pleased soulj who thought paradise ' was Dunedin because ■ that was where the chocolate factory lived, j This same child had a! set of tonsils! that jwere red, inflamed,! thoroughly uncontrollable; and, in the words of Ithe doctor, should be cut [out. After I was i coaxed I from the coal shed, he (told me all about anaesthetic. I

A bundle of War P icture Library comics to fortify morale, and the promise of icecream after j the knife, was needed! to ensure that the ! lad was deposited in a i ward

Wilsons Week...

of Dunedin Public Hos pital.

Tqe other patients were very old men who seemed to specialise in formation coughing at four in the morning. One old | chap said he had been gassed on the Western! Front, which! the chijd envisaged as somewhere near Mosgiel.

All this took place around 1957,1 at a j time wh|en hospitals were imposing, almost frightening run on military lines by nurses who could- give sergeant-majbrs lessons in, barking orders. [ [When a large nursing sergeant appeared and told the boy. “Go take a bqth!” he would I have taken it anywhere she demanded.

! Alone in the bathroom, he child hurriedly went through his ablutions for fear of missing lights out and facing the prospect Of tunnelling back to his bed. ! Out of the bath now, time to get dry. Oops. Forgot the towel. Even at the age of seven, modesty prevailed and a chubby little nude chap was not about to streak down the corridor. What to do?

i His eyes lit upon a bundle of folded bedsheets on a shelf in the bathroom. Bedsheets, yes, but in dire emergencies also convertible to ■towels.

Next problem, what to do [with |a[ very soggy bedsheejt held by a dry boy? ! Al Window' Dump the evidence! Out itj went, caught the wind and [ majestically sailpd | away i over the rooftops. Its’ little “Property of the Otago Hospital [Board” triangle stamp was gradually lost to view.!. i I Amaring what stays in the[ memory;! fiext morning a nursing) major lined up the panentk and thundered. "Who threw the bedsheet out of the bathroom windog?" Everybody looked guilty, except the cherubic infant who clutched his : throat and cried. I

Theiji came the operation. A man smothered my face with a chloroform I pad and )[ said, “Count backwards from 10.” "Ten ... ni." Zap. Darknpss, then) the gradual awareness of people: nearby. Noise, movement. Life as we knew it! I tried to wave an arm to I attpct attention, not knowing a stainless steel bowl fjull of blood was on the bed beside me. It hit the floor with a crash.! |"Oh that little (expletives deleted). Just lobk I what! the little (more;' deleted expletives) has done!") screamed a; voice.) I had at least attracted their Attention.

The recuperation was marked by the insistence of [the occupational therapist that the child should at least try to make a wicker basket; the boy demanded to be left in peace to read his war comics.

Anyway, i the secret cache of [ chocplatecovered pineapple chunks in the cupboard was j good ) enough therapy, in ) the view of the seven-year-old. ) Today, the 37-year-old is still nervous about going ! into a) hospital. Not because of operations and surgery* and all that.

! I I They I are mere . bagatelles.! ! I h!. : i The | real fear is that' an nurqe will recognise me as the ) brat who' launched [one of her bedshjeets as an experimental hang glider:) The passage of years) [only makes her more formidable. I DAVE: WILSON i ! I I 'I :