The Young Girl in the hospital, landed in the bed next to me, when she fractured one of her vertebrae jumping off the rocky edge into the sea below. It was her first time in the Mediterranean, she was here visiting her boyfriend.
This morning as I was about to have my drain removed from my wrist I heard the French nurses next to me giggle as they shared a secret… The way they looked at each other I knew it was a juicy sweet secret, and not about my battle wound. Their girlish secret struck my curiosity, giving me something fresh to focus on rather then the imminent pull about to happen on my wrist.
I watched them instead of listening to the doctor telling me what to do before he pulled my drain out, "Breath, then hold when I go to ….. "
The older nurse poked the younger nurse, edging her around the curtain to the Young Girl's bed, I heard her say to the Young Girl who looked sixteen, but earlier she told me she was twenty, "If you want when we are finished with Madame Broken Wrist, we can give you a sponge bath…. Unless you would prefer your boyfriend to sponge you?"
They giggled, nodding an harmonious yes at the same time my doctor pulled the drain out of my wrist. Instead of "Breath, then hold…" I gasped, "Oh!" Perfect timinig, perfect distraction.
Later, when the nurses and the doctor left the room. A thin curtain was pulled between the Young Girl's bed and mine, a sponge bath occurred on the other side: A sponge being squeezed into a pail of warm water, the gentle footsteps around the bed, the curtain gently moving with the breeze, and the Young Girl's first happy sighs.
Leave a Reply