Sick Kids

The children’s hospital was on the edge of our town in those days, though now of course the town has quite swallowed it up. When I was five years old I had to live in the hospital for a few weeks having been stricken with the worst bout of asthma that I had ever known even though I was, by that time an experienced asthma sufferer. It refused to yield to vapour rub and red flannel, the treatments I had had up until then and so I was taken to the hospital to see the specialist.

In telling me this, my mother adopted the slightly hushed but emphatic tone she used when speaking about an eminence of the Church. As a child, of course, I accepted this unreserved and uncritical respect for such people as natural but as time passed, I learnt, as most people do, that such feelings are simply an example of the awe which we humans are apt to experience in the presence of anything arcane and mysterious. Unfortunately, my mother never lost her innocence in this regard and so, as I grew older, we often quarreled about it.

My father told me in his straightforward way that he would soon be taking me to the hospital where I would stay for a while so that the doctors could make me better. Having never been away from home before, I felt odd about it. I liked the idea of a trip but I was nervous about being away on my own and sure that I would miss my family. I asked my father what I would do at the hospital. He said that the doctors would try different treatments until they found one that would help me. I asked if they would put the vapour rub on my chest; he rather doubted it.

I was sad to hear that because having the vapour rub put on was extraordinarily pleasant. I used to squirm with delight as my mother rubbed the slightly sticky stuff onto my chest. It smelled of mothballs but the feeling of it oozing across my body was thrilling. And after I had experienced it once or twice even the smell became pleasant because it heralded relief from the awful, gasping, chest-wrenching fight for breath which I so often experienced when an attack happened.

My father took me to the hospital in the car. I loved driving in the car. We had a Buick with a bench seat in the front, which in those pre-seat belt days, meant that I could sit right next to him as we whizzed along. Even now I like to drive fast but now I understand why I like to experience the primitive thrill of speed but when I was a child it was all sensation; like being on a rollercoaster or tobogganing downhill.

When we got to the hospital, I was surprised to see that it was set in a park. A vast green field edged with trees surrounded it and grassy slopes led down from the building onto the field. On our way to the carpark, we passed quite close to the edge of one of the slopes and it was then that I saw that, what I had taken from a distance to be blue blobs were actually children all dressed in blue shorts and shirts. Accompanied by nurses, they were running around on the field and rolling down the grassy slopes. I did not know what to make of this and asked my father who the children were. He told me not to bother him; he was looking for a parking space and needed to concentrate. I waited impatiently until we were parked and then asked him again but by then we were headed into the hospital building and he was preoccupied again.

Eventually, we reached an office where a nurse welcomed us. My father answered her questions, then handed me over to her, told me to be a good boy, said he would return that evening and left. I worried at first but the nurse was kind and I soon felt quite happy. She told me that the children I had seen outside were also patients, then explained that patients meant children who, like me, were at the hospital for a while because they were sick and had to be made better.

The hospital smelled clean and disinfected. The smell reminded me of how our house smelled after Mrs. Breitling had cleaned it but other homely smells were missing, no coffee or tobacco, for instance. The nurse showed me around but the little ward kitchen was odourless and too white. Our kitchen at home was yellow and red; colours that made me feel warm, and even when no one was cooking, it smelled of spices and the green herbs my mother grew in pots and kept on the window cills.

The nurse told me that her name was Anne-Marie and that she would look after me in the daytime and that another nurse, called Josephine, would look after me at night. Anne-Marie told me that it was just about time for lunch and took me to the room where everyone ate their meals. Most of the tables and chairs were child-size but there were a few bigger ones for the nurses. The children in blue were crowding into the place by the time we arrived but to my intense disappointment they ignored me. Anne-Marie took me to a table, found me a place and told me to remember it. “This is your place, Anton,” she said, “Until you leave, this will be reserved for you.”

I liked the food. We had a stew of meat and vegetables which tasted warm and smooth and which almost filled me up but when I saw that there was apple-strudel for pudding, I found my appetite again and took a big piece because, next to gooseberries and custard, strudel was my favourite pudding. I took a big mouthful and savoured it. At home my mother always told me to chew everything seven times and then swallow. But I loved the rich cinnamony taste of strudel too much to do that with it. I looked over my shoulder at Anne-Marie; she just smiled at me and said nothing about chewing or swallowing. I relaxed and chewed slowly and lightly, just letting the strudel disintegrate in my mouth before swallowing small amounts of it.

After lunch we were all taken to our wards for an afternoon rest. As I fell asleep, I felt warm and easy in my mind and I remember thinking that I didn’t mind too much about being in hospital.