Some people make me mad

I went out today on my power chair on my own. This was the first time I did that, just me and my chair and the radio on my mobile phone. I'm not really supposed to go out alone but enough people know me in this town that I'm fairly sure that if I got in some difficulty there would be somebody to throw a blanket on me or get help or something. It was cold but dry.

Coasting around the town was fun, what was even funnier was the tussle I had with an oil truck. This idiot cut right across me and blocked the only ramp onto the footpath, so I wheeled in front of him and stopped so he couldn't go forwards anymore and made him back up out of my way. I never did like bad drivers.

Another thing I don't like is people who find the most pathetic reason to moan and whinge and make out that they have life so bad and everyone else has it good. I met a gem just like this in hospital last week. I know that people cope differently with problems and that it's not really my place to judge but this guy got up my nose.

He was in for one night for a check up on one or other of his innards that was playing up and we got talking about sport. I asked him what he was in for and he began. Every year he had to come to hospital for one night to get himself checked up, for a condition that could never do him any harm but did mean that he couldn't drink. He explained to me that his life was destroyed since getting ill and found it very hard to cope. Of course I had to ask how much he drank before he got this condition and he said 'never touched the stuff'... This is a quick immediate recap, his life is destroyed because he couldn't drink, which he never did anyway, and had to come to hospital one night a year for a mild condition that at worse would mean he might have to take a tablet every day. Now I don't want to sound like a moaner or anything but I found that a bit hard to take.

I really felt like exploding at him and pointing out that there are worse things in the world that could have 'destroyed his life' and he has kind of got off lightly but I just sat there in silence as he complained and moaned that he could never plan a holiday on that week every year because he had to come in for a night, and how he has to loose a days pay and had no way of claiming it back, or if they do put him on the tablet every day how this could upset his day and his routine, and everyone around him felt sorry for him because he has to go to hospital one night a year.

Yes I sat there in silence while he told me that this was the second year he came in and the food was getting worse and the nurses were not helping him with anything, even though he could have probably lined out for Shannon first team on the wing that weekend.
(Just a quick byline; the food in Cork University Hospital is great, and I'm qualified to know.)
Yep this guy waffled on for three hours, yes three hours about how bad it was and all the time I just sat in my wheelchair and said almost nothing.


The ward I was in saw 15 patients in the five days, I was the only one who stayed the full five, I get to meet a lot of people and I like that, and that's why I sat there in silence. Eventually we were joined in our chat by other patients as they returned from treatments or physio or whatever. The first was a guy I mentioned in a previous blog, he explained that he had less that two years to live, and had a smile on his face all the time. Next up was my deaf and dumb friend who kept us all smiling, then was a man who had early onset altzimers and shook our hand and told us how nice it was to meet us...you can see where this one goes by now. All the patients came in and each one with their own set of problems that they never seemed to complain about. At this stage my new room mate was onto me and tried to make an exit but he found a seventeen stone thug in his way, me. There was no way he was going to be left wallow in self pity in the quiet of his bed, no way. I told him about what was wrong with me, even though he never asked. After that I told him about some other friends of mine that I meet in hospital, the 28 year old who had a massive stroke and wasn't found for three days, the 22 year old who carries an oxygen bottle with her everywhere because her cystic fibrosis is so bad, the many brave people who have to come for hours and hours of dialysis three or four days a week but carry on with their lives without so much as a mention of it, all the time knowing that if they do get picked for a new kidney that someone has to have died to give them back their life.

I didn't shove this information down his throat, I just steered the conversation in the right direction. I didn't want to make him feel guilty or sorry for anyone, I just wanted him to have a look at what happens in the world outside of his little box.

The next morning he wished us all well and hoped we get better and off he went for a year. I don't know if our chat will ever change him but it changed me, the next time I meet someone like that I won't sit in silence, I'll just leave them alone to wallow in their own self pity and I'll talk to people who nave a great outlook on life and live for today, like all my friends do.