Sylvia, Phyllis and Mary, all aged over 90 years, all treated after having fallen. A broken wrist, broken hip, and just broken. My roomies for a week at Royal North Shore Public Hospital. 

Sylvia                    

A glorious tribute to the potential of aging, former figure skater, 95 years yet didn’t look a day over 70. She captured the full depth and breadth of my sympathy from the outset. She had slipped on a drain at Chatswood Chase all disorientated after an appointment with her physio. She ended up even more disorientated in the hospital bed adjacent to me. I offered her my mobile phone and an old copy of New Idea.

 

Sylvia is in her 95th year of a seemingly fulfilled life. After losing her husband to an unsaid illness (apparently he was never the same after returning from the war) she remarried an acquaintance. Turning up to a war veteran’s dinner she was subtly delighted to find out that his wife, like her husband, now peacefully rested on the other side. She married Rick at 87, a cougar of these times, he is five years her junior.

 

She maintains a certain independence playing poker with girlfriends every Friday, they still gamble with one and two cent pieces. Her strength and independence exemplified by her husbands’ difficulty accepting her fall. It truly had affected Rick, a man once no different in appearance and strength to his Casablanca namesake, was now visibly shaken.

 

One day he came to visit, she was always surrounded by love. He sat there sturdy not saying much, walking stick clutched between boney knees. She asked if he’d slept well. Yes till 8 am. She commented without surprise that he is usually awake by six. The patient in the adjacent bed picked-up on this… it made no sense at all.

 

He stood up suddenly, he sat down again. His hand reached across his chest. His heart was flailing. I was witnessing a heart attack, minor enough to need a pacemaker. The head nurse was handy but he claimed it was nothing. They wheeled him away, to eventually reside in a bed in the private hospital across the road.

 

Sylvia, stronger than ever, yet ever so delicate, applied lipstick liberally. How did her grey locks stay so perfect? If you can’t let it all hang-out in hospital, when can you? I found myself brushing my own hair, she had set the standard. Freshly manicured eyebrows thanks to her daughter and they wheel her out on her last day. She will visit Rick before she heads home.

 

Phyllis

Phyllis made a grand entrance late one night. She highlighted the presence of an infantile nurse who I was yet to have a run-in with (about pain killers… and there not being enough). All pale and bland she looked dead already. Her palms curled with arthritis seemed more like claws than hands. The nurse tried to take her temperature and her blood pressure. She refused. Told her to sod off. She managed to remove an initial peg from that feisty young nurse; she needed to come down one or two.

 

Phyllis broke my heart from the start; she had no next of kin. She could not sit-up, could not walk… if she didn’t walk soon she would also have no home. They said she won’t be allowed to return to her nursing home unless she can walk, in hushed tones loud enough for Phyllis to hear.  No next of kin, no home. It’s a common mistake, one I’m sure most people make with my own grandmother. Their bodies decrepit their pieces falling apart, their hearing not even slightly impaired. How condescending to be spoken of in the third-person. Like you’re already dead, not even there.  

 

Her sense of humor had thinned over the years, her skin too, literally and figuratively. They came in the middle of the night unrelenting unsuccessfully attempting to insert the drip in a desperate hunt for a single vein. But to no avail… “Geez you people are rough” she cursed until they scurried away. Only to call the Doctor who arrived with backups an hour later. A skilled operator in manner and at inserting fine metal into even finer veins.

 

Phyllis - “I don’t think you can get it in that side”

Doctor - “How come?”

Phyllis - “How would I know?”

 

He had fixed the drip but Phyllis was still broken. What color there was left in her cheeks had evaporated overnight so they ordered a blood transfusion.

 

I tried to cheer her up. “I wonder why I’m not allowed to have a glass of wine too” I questioned as she timidly sipped from her apple juice. But she looked stone-faced back… she did not know who she could trust. Especially not the friendly “pink lady” who offered her services one day, she catered in friendly banter. We all gave and received in that room but as she walked toward Phyllis a voice from shrunken lips proclaimed “You talk a lot don’t you?”

 

“Oh, do you find that annoying” she replied good naturedly.

 

And then Phyllis in her 92 year old monotone… “Yes I do”.

 

The ruder she was, the more I was entertained. A simple “I wish you’d go away” to an unsuspecting nurse brought a much needed smile to my face. So on Melbourne Cup Day, the day of my departure, I bought a place in the sweep. Number 15. I gave it to Phyllis. This simple offering softened her a tad. Her horse apparently was winning for the entire race but then came last (according to the nurse anyway). A metaphor for her tough life? I doubted Phyllis was going to win this time either. I was hopeful I may have cracked a little of that shell. Even if it was only a hairline fracture.

 

I tried to say goodbye when I left but she was laying there all pale, head cocked back and shrunken mouth agape. I looked to her chest and noticed a faint rise and fall. She would be harassing the nurses for a little while yet.

 

Mary

Before Sylvia there was the irrepressible Nancy… and I witnessed Mary’s one good day. She had noticed Nancy’s grandchild bring her baby to visit the previous day.

 

Mary - “Is the baby coming along today?”

Nancy - “Can’t hear you, I’m deaf”

Mary - “Oh yeah, very good”

Nancy - “How long have you been in for?”

Mary - “Yes, its not very good weather is it? I think it’s going to rain again”

 

This conversation quite literally transcribed from my horizontally scrawled notepad, took place across the ends of their beds ones morning. By that evening Mary wasn’t saying much at all.

 

Mary - “Are you taking it easy today Betty so you wont over-do-it?”

Betty - oblivious she is being spoken to, snuggled-up in the adjacent bed, with eyes tightly shut.

 

While Nancy continued to make ridiculous announcements like: “I don’t mind how soon it ends though, you understand this?” and “What Id really prefer most of all is to die”; Mary lay quietly in the bed opposite her appearing to be doing just that.

 

While Nancy continued to tell the world one hundred times (in reference to using the toilet): “It’s very uncomfortable because I’ve got no flesh on the bottom”. Mary continued to degenerate. First vomiting on herself (I had to call the nurse, she was too frail) then shitting herself night after night. An army of nurses breaking my drug-induced sleep every hour to turn Mary and clean her up.

 

“Mary… can you hear me Mary…? What happened in 1945? What’s your birth date Mary?”

 

The questions were repetitive and eventually Betty began to reply instead. Mary had stopped answering. They moved her to a room by herself, but that wasn’t until her shit started hitting the floor.

 

Age is an issue of mind over matter.  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.  ~Mark Twain