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Day 15—past the two week mark

In many ways our cubicle is like a terminal. It has times of high activity and times, usually in the evening, when it stills. It is in the quiet times that you notice its size and shape. It is a square room, with a bed in each corner. On one wall there are windows and the sky and closer along the ledge, birds. On the opposite wall is a wide doorway and through that a corridor. This is where the activity comes from. All day long there is traffic up and down—the rubbish man, the linen man, the tea lady and her trolley, the orderly with the x-ray trolley, the nurse with the toilet chair, the physio with sticks, the OT with helping hands, the blood lady, the pink ladies, the surgeons, the registrars, the house surgeons, the pregnant nurse. Up and down the corridor and in and out of our room. Arrivals and departures and those just passing through.

The other important feature of our room is the curtains. At intervals a nurse will walk in and pull the curtain behind her like a long tail. She does it without looking—a bit like a robot. It may start off with curtains round one bed. Then two beds. Never usually more than two. A flick of her tail and we're quarantined.