Stroke Ward

Full of ideas after talking to the understorians yesterday, and attacked that MS with concerted effort first thing. I got up at seven and began work, as I was lying in bed thinking about it.  

Off this afternoon to Brighton, to the county hospital, to see Will, who is in the stroke care unit. Found myself rather dreading the visit, as it pressed many of my hypochondriac buttons as I made my way from the bus stop.  He was pleased to see me, and surprised me by saying how brilliant he thought my poetry reading had been as the first thing he said. While entirely recognisable as Will, his mind is wandering somewhat and he told me he feels lonely and depressed. And has idées fixe about not getting enough medications, and needing the bedpan and so on. He also began describing the garden party he wanted to have, and that he was getting married and the business success of a close friend.  Callum and Will's mum Mavis arrived about twenty minutes or so after I got there. His mum stroking his head, and Will becoming quite childlike for a while. Later he began describing the plot of Lady with a Lapdog, a short story by Chekov in enormous detail. I read it again before I went to sleep, and he was spot on with his description. He declared it was the finest piece of writing he knew. Callum, who visits him often, left, to collect his car, and I walked with Mavis to the lift and down from the tenth floor to find Callum. I liked her immediately. 

A slightly surreal feeling as, apart from on the evening of my reading in Lewes, I hadn't spoke to Will for years. To find ourselves together ten floors up by a big window in a new ward in the newly rebuilt hospital was a bit surreal. I was 19 when I first met him, and despite finding him exasperating at times, was always very fond of him. 

The sun out by the time I took a bus ride home, but seeing Will again took a lot of processing.