You never know

“When you wake up in the morning, you never know what the day will bring,” she said. This came from a friend I have not seen in ages, and whom I had not noticed seated in the corridor full of people waiting for service at the Accident and Emergency Department of the Mt Hope hospital. Flustered and anxious, I had come in with another friend who had been trimming bougainvillea in my backyard and had a horrible accident with his electric saw that gashed his upper arm badly.

I’d freaked out at the sight of blood everywhere, and when I helped him remove the jacket he was mercifully wearing over his clothing and saw the gaping wound, I panicked. Fortunately, my first-aid memory kicked in and I raced indoors and got something to use as a tourniquet and took him to the hospital. I thought it was going to be the nightmare experience you hear about, and the complications with just getting him into the waiting area made my anxiety soar.



Perhaps because he was bloody, they took him in, gauzed him up, instructed him to register and then wait for his name to be called. He asked for water and I went in search; that was more complicated than you would imagine. There were vending machines, but as I searched my bag for money, a woman told me not to even bother—see if I could buy it from someone inside.

By the time I returned, he was sweating profusely and his head was slumped. He was not responding when I called his name. I raced off and found someone.

As he saw him, he immediately went for a wheelchair and with some difficulty we managed to get him into it, and he was taken in to check his vitals and so on. He was then taken to a recovery room, where I could not follow. I waited and shortly, he was wheeled out—looking more alert, with someone who seemed like a doctor—and taken to another room where they gave him some morphine and told us that he was lucky his artery had been spared and he would be okay.

Then came the suturing process; internal stitches; then the ones on the skin. I couldn’t look, and they didn’t want me in there anyway. So I went off in search of the water that had been abandoned earlier.

He told me afterwards that he had got five injections. He also told me that he watched all of it and he was very impressed by the skill and care of the doctor. He’s a ­stoic, that one.

But more than that, he is one of those people who pride themselves on being unfazed and unshaken by injury. When the doctor had told us that in about an hour he could go (with medi­cation), and that in about ten days he should go to a health centre to have the stitches removed, I was relieved, and told him that I would take him home, and he could collect his vehicle the following day. He refused, point blank, and despite my insistence that he should not drive, he was adamant.

I noticed that the doctor did not seem to object to his determination, but I promised myself I would try to persuade him when he was discharged. By the time we left, he was very animated, insisting he was fine, and that he could manage himself because he was a Rambo. Inwardly, I was wondering if this was a macho thing and if I could trust that he was really capable of being on his own.

All he would let me do is get him some food at his favourite place in Silvermill, on the Eastern Main Road, where he engaged in such a lively conversation with the proprietor that it was clear he was a little pumped by the drugs. When she heard what had happened, she showed us her palm and recounted her story of a nasty ­injury she had sustained, and another, and soon they were swapping tales. I gave up.

When he’d left, I cleared away the tools and hosed down the blood from the backyard. Then I had a shower, washing away the blood that had got on me as well. I remember thinking of the colour and texture, how his jacket had remained with puddles on it when I picked it up from the ground.

And I wondered how people must feel to see the life blood of murdered loved ones on concrete, on grass, on beds, on roadways. Nothing can erase that stain on the memory, on the soul. I had already prepared my column notes, but as I sat down to write, I kept hearing the voice of Ms A, as she sat there in that corridor of patience with all the others waiting to be attended to.

I know she was there for after-care ­because she had recently had major surgery. Everything had gone by in such a blur that I had not had a chance to see if she was still there when I left, but her words have lingered. I am grateful for the prompt and efficient care he received.

I sympathise with the staff and the patients—it is a distressing space. When you wake up in the morning, you never know what the day will bring. —Vaneisa Baksh is an editor, writer and cricket historian.

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