The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #161867   Message #4038353
Posted By: keberoxu
08-Mar-20 - 03:17 PM
Thread Name: BS: stay afloat while others don't
Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
In the in-patient residence at the clinic, there are two wings. Actually this residence is a centuries-old Stately Home converted into a clinic residence. The Stately Home itself had these two wings to begin with.
They have been organized into:
an east wing, which has various community areas on both the entrance floor and in the basement.
The upper two floors of the east wing are 'admit' rooms, for which the newly admitted patients have priority in housing.
a west wing, with two upper floors of larger, more gracious housing. Mostly those west-wing rooms are suites which have got one bathroom shared between two bedrooms, and access to said bathroom is through the bedrooms and no place else. The long-term, settled patients are there, moved there from the admit wing.

I'm in an 'admit room' in the east wing. And, as previously stated, when the delivery truck brings the weekly delivery before dawn during a weekday morning, the service loading dock and entrance is directly underneath one window of my tiny room. Like the other 'admit rooms', my room has got a sink and mirror [NO cabinet to hide meds in], and the toilet/bathroom facilities are in the hallway and are shared by the patients in neighboring rooms.
When the truck rolled up last week, in addition to the long time interval of metallic rolling, engine idling, doors slamming, and so on, there was a moment when a man raised his voice and began shouting, seriously shouting. Well, one makes allowances for the fact that the noise continued uninterrupted, and so, right, the man has to shout in order to be heard above the noise. I had a surprise coming, though.

Community meetings (voluntary, but strongly encouraged) take place every weekday. The meeting held that same day, another east-wing, admit-room patient vented their indignation at being awakened before dawn by the truck doing the delivery ... and went on to volunteer that this person, themselves, had inquired about what reason there could be for a delivery at that hour when people are trying to sleep. And went on to relate 'what the delivery men said.'
I put two and two together, and silently thought:
that was YOU?! A fellow patient?
You got up from your bed, threw some clothes on, left your room, went down the stairs, out of the building, over to the service entrance, and SHOUTED AT THE DELIVERY MEN? You, one of the patients, before 5:30 in the bleeping morning??

Their room and my room are on the same floor of the same wing. I didn't hear doors opening and shutting, or footsteps in the hall, and by the time I heard that shouting, I was quite wide awake and fully vigilant (if disinclined to leave the bed), and my ears were on full alert.

I didn't utter a word at the community meeting, only listened.
In the days between then and now, I have been afraid to venture the topic with the person who volunteered those statements during the meeting. But I have discussed it with the nursing/support/community staff, and at one much smaller group I have brought up my experience among the other patients (which do not include the person I suspect of doing the shouting).

If I want to really put this behind me, I will have to have a word with the fellow patient who spoke up in community meeting... what if I get my head bitten off ... but I am imagining all sorts of frightful things, and I fear that only the facts and the truth will put my imagination in its place.