Lactobacillus casei shirota!

The curtains. The tables on wheels. The tv that you can barely see. The visitors' bell. The blue aprons with no backs. I don't like hospitals much. Hospitals are one of those things that make me feel very uneasy. Gran Reid has been in hospital since last friday and Ka and myself have visited three times since then, taking in the traditional gift of grapes. Not sure why it is grapes that are THE fruit to take in to a hospital. The second time we went in we took plums and Gran quickly rejected them. Maybe she has been warned by some sort of hospital fruit adjudicator, that goes round the beds inspecting their edible gifts. That hospital smell is another factor of immediate recognition and dread. Perhaps I'm being too pessimistic with it all though? Hospitals ,generally, are places where you go to get better after all, usually, hopefully. The only experience I've had as a hospital patient (touch wood) was to get some fangs removed from the top section of my mouth that were growing in. These oddly formed incisors were threatening to replace my front teeth with a rather neat pair of fangs that the Count himself would have been proud of. The main memory I have of that is of lying helpless in the surgery as I slowly fell unconscious. It was a horrible feeling, being deliberately knocked unconscious by drugs, and those memories still occasionally bob to the surface in my mind.
My Gran was in Ward two and as Ka and myself sat down at her bedside all the usual hospital features brought me the usual sense of unease. However, after a while I began to wonder whether my Gran was being kept in the correct part of the hospital. We were surrounded by slightly odd, elderly patients. One, directly across from Gran, was an elderly lady, with manic grey hair framing her head lying lop sided on her massive pillow. She seemed to be reading the ingredients of her Yakult through a terrible frown and would occasionally yell out an additive vehemently.
'Skimmed milk!'
'Sugar!!'
'Lactobacillus casei shirota!!!'
Like some health conscious Father Jack, she sat there mumbling quietly to herself, then interupting our own conversations with her sudden yells, causing us to jump in our seats. The other poor lady opposite us, beside the first shouting woman, I don;t think even knew where she was really. At one point she started pulling the drip tubes from her arms and started shouting in alarm when the blood started squirting out of them. As a nurse moved to help the woman made it clear she needed the toilet rather desperately and we tried to carry on with our conversation as the lady's curtain was pulled over. We were then almost immediately interupted by an enormous 'OH NO!', a moment of silence, and then a loud sigh from one of the nurses. From behind the curtain the lady then went on to go on about how her mattress was now soaking. It was all distinctly depressing.
My Gran was taking it all in her stride though and is, as always, determined to fight on. Since then she has been moved into another ward thankfully, which we visited on Wednesday. A slightly more comfortable ward. Again, not without its characters. Ka and myself were there with my Dad and sister, Lynsey Ann, sitting at Gran's bedside chatting away, when suddenly I felt eyes on me. I froze. A shadow loomed over my shoulder. Very slowly I looked round, only to find another wee old lady standing over me... staring at us. She had silently hobbled up behind me and, as we sat conversing, was now standing, leaning over my shoulder. Staring. We made polite conversation with her only to get some barely audible mumbled responses and then tried to go back to our own conversation. She then hobbled round to my Gran's table and started shuffling her fruit and books about. Unsure what to do we hesitantly continued our conversation. As this continued and I came perilously close to losing my patience and chasing the crazy old bat away we all breathed a sigh of relief when a nurse finally came in and quietly ushered the mumbling lady away. Surely some of these poor ladies should be in another ward. One that has more nurses and better care. One with the word psychiatric before it maybe? Is this what happens when we become old and ill? We get thrown into any old hospital ward and left to wander about aimlessly? Thankfully my Gran has no such mental problems and was voicing her frustration with her staring friend on our next and most recent visit. Thankfully the mumbling lady had visitors of her own to which she barely spoke. Quite right though as they didn't even bring her any grapes.