As He Walked Down The Corridor

As he walked down the corridor to the single room he had been lucky enough to have been allocated, one of the nurses, the friendly Irish one, stopped him and handed him the leaflet that came with Clozopine, his medication. He hurried back to his room, closed the door decisively, and began to read the leaflet. He checked his condition off against the list of side-effects and was relieved to find that this time he had none, except a slight pain in the chest. Then he read that the drug was only meant to be taken once a day, while he was being administered it twice, 5mg in the morning and 10mg at night. At first he ignored this but then began to worry, thing ‘if it’s important enough to be written down it must be significant’.

He went back into the corridor with its lime green walls and walked all the way down to the end where another nurse sat in an armchair, guarding the door. He was thin, with a baggy but neatly ironed shirt and octagonal glasses and took a while to glance up form the crossword in a cheap magazine that he had over his knee. So J had been hovering just within speaking distance some time before he could speak. He asked this nurse about the dosage. The nurse told him that if Dr W had decided that then there must be a reason. J couldn’t argue with this and anyway the nurse had done all he could, so he turned away awkwardly somehow giving the impression that he had broken off the conversation rudely, and went back down the corridor.

The first nurse was walking towards him. As the dosage was still on his mind, J stopped him and asked again about the pills. The nurse was indignant about it, saying it should definitely be taken only once a day, was dangerous in any other prescription and that he would write the matter down in the diary and bring it up at the next ward round. J thanked him and walked back to his room. He would have to wait for Tuesday for Dr W to make the decision. J himself was between two sets of facts and was completely confused, in limbo.

Jo Twist © 2003