Sharma knows about Frank’s medical care, of course, but he still likes to go through the motions. I nod.
‘It was thought we’d try and encourage him to breathe independently, check his diaphragm function, so we tried a reduction but he suffered another minor stroke.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
Sharma likes pliant nurses. He decided Frank was in a Permanent Vegetative State after a few minutes of looking at his scan results and less than two minutes of being with Frank. The protocol for diagnosed PVS requires approval from two other consultants. Sharma only has approval from one. If Sharma gets his diagnosis that would be the end for Frank; he’d be moved to a facility, a morgue waiting room, kept alive until he got an infection and the antibiotics stopped working. I have to hope for something better for him; otherwise, what’s the point?
‘I recall he doesn’t have any family to speak of. None that are involved in his care anyway?’
I wish I could shush him up; Frank is just a couple of feet away.
‘He has a daughter.’ I speak quietly. ‘Her visits are infrequent. He’s estranged from his wife; a couple of his friends and his mum visited once or twice but she’s now moved abroad. She wanted to come over for Christmas, but I think it was too expensive. But, no, apart from them, I don’t know about anyone else.’
Sharma looks down at Frank and then back at his notes, his forehead creasing. ‘Well, as you know, he’s been here a long time. It’s a huge drain on resources. I’m afraid it’s the times we live in; we have to find somewhere for him to move on to. I heard a care home in Reading is looking to invest in new equipment. I’ll make some enquiries.’ Out comes the blue pen and, with that, rounds are over until this afternoon. I imagine Sharma, retreating to his office, doing sums with his red pen, working out how much money Frank’s life is costing.
I peer through the square window leading to the little nurses’ room at the end of the ward. Carol – a middle-aged matron with short, permed hair, a quick laugh and big boobs that give her back ache – is sitting behind her desk, which overflows with policy and procedure manuals, lists and memos. On the far wall of the small, windowless room Carol has framed a photo of all the permanent ward staff on the ‘Nines’. Everyone on the ward hates the photo, our tired faces ghoulish and aged by the strip lighting, but we all like Carol too much to take it down.
With five years under my belt, I’m the second-longest-serving nurse on 9B. My friend Mary – who is, this morning, sitting opposite Carol, eating a half-price mince pie and drinking a cup of tea – brings home the medal with twenty years’ service on 9B.
Nearing retirement, Mary is small and, in her words, ‘shrinking fast’; she’s thin but always eating. She has short, grey, cropped hair and huge, goggly eyes, which she says grow the more she sees. Even the consultants revere Mary, who’s been known to diagnose patients faster and more accurately than the most senior practitioners. In the safety of the nurses’ room, Mary treats them with a mixture of pity and disdain, calling them the ‘Ist’s’, her catchment term for the Intensivists, Neurologists, Chemists, Oncologists, Cardiologists and so on who visit the ward daily, most of them like nervous insects, hovering by a patients’ bed before scurrying back to the safety of their desk and their books.
Carol and Mary both give me a hug. We ask about each other’s Christmases, and then Mary gets back to the rant I interrupted.
‘The Ist’s don’t get it. They don’t get it at all.’
She’s angry; she’d been nursing Caleb with her usual painstaking care and attention when he died over Christmas. Caleb’s wealthy family sent the consultants tickets to an England rugby game as a thank you for looking after Caleb. The nurses got a dozen crispy cremes.
Mary, as usual, keeps talking. ‘They think everything they could possibly need to know must be in a book. Most of them don’t even bother looking properly at the patient, let alone speaking to them. But here we are, day in, day out with our patients, their families; we see it all. Nurses are like hospital furniture. Everyone else constantly moves, the Ists get promoted, patients go home or die but we stay, steadfast, waiting to be sat on, leant on, perhaps kicked about a bit.’
Carol chuckles at Mary and Mary rolls her round eyes at me. I turn to the rota board so neither of them see me smiling; I know how irritated Mary gets with Carol’s perpetual jolliness. She comes round to stand next to me and squeezes my shoulder with her thin, strong hand that has lifted, wiped, squeezed and caressed so many sick and dying over the last two decades.
‘Here we go again, eh? Happy New Year.’ With that Mary walks back out on the ward and starts calling to the ward technician, ‘Sue, hey, Sue!’, before the door shuts behind her.
I take the seat opposite Carol, where Mary had been. Carol’s shaking her head at the door and beams at me as she says, ‘Something about old dogs and new tricks, huh?’
Carol, who is already wearing one pair of glasses, starts fishing in her permed hair for her reading glasses, which are, as usual, roosting somewhere in her thick hair.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘She keeps talking about retiring, you know. I can’t tell if she’s doing it for attention or if she’s serious. Either way, I can’t imagine this place without her.’
Carol nods at me as she swaps her glasses and, opening a file, she says, ‘So, what’s happening today?’