(Royal Victoria Infirmary, age 13)
I kept calling for the nurses. The pain in my broken leg wouldn’t settle—it came in waves, sharp enough to make me press the buzzer again and again, as if someone might be able to switch it off if they came quickly enough.
I had been woken too early. I’d already slept too much. Now there was nothing to do but lie there, awake, waiting for the next pulse of pain or the next round of hospital routine.
I was in a room on my own, but on an adult ward. No one to talk to. No distraction. Just the bed, the walls, and the distance to the window—which might as well have been another country.
A hospital bed can feel like a prison. You’re fixed in place, working to someone else’s timetable, eating their food, waiting to be told what happens next.
The pain and the boredom merged into one thing. I wondered how long it would last, whether this was normal, whether I was making a fuss. But it hurt—a great deal—and that was all that really mattered.
No more pain relief would be administered. I had to live with it.
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