This incident happened on the night of 24 July 2012.
I had been hospitalized with Bronco Pneumonia and ended up in a ward with, at that point, 4 other ladies. As you enter the ward you have a total of six beds. Three on the left and three on the right. I was given the last bed on the left. In the middle lay, Elaine, who I became friends with during that week. I never found out who the lady next to her was because she was gone the next morning. Across from me lay the sweetest little old Lady, named Louise. I liked her very much. The bed next to her was empty and there was a lady who appeared to be late 20's to begin 30's in the last bed.
When I was shown to my bed, the nurse checked the remote to make sure it was in working order. As it turned out, the new-fangled electronic bed wasn't functioning, so she took the bed next to the little old lady and replaced it with the one that wasn't working. This was a normal, manually adjusting hospital bed. I went through the pages upon pages of questions they had, signed all the necessary forms, had seen the doctor and eventually had my drip in and could rest. I did not speak to anyone during that first day. That evening my parents brought my kids to visit, and, thanks to my dad, Elaine got pulled into the conversation. When my family had left, Elaine and I kept chatting, becoming friends quite fast. We were up and chatting until after 11:00PM when we finally went to sleep. I struggled to settle down, my chest was painful and I struggled to breathe properly.
I had a dream about the exact ward we were in, but I knew that things were not right because suddenly, there was an exceptionally angry man in the bed next to Louise. He was looking at me and he was very agitated, but I never heard a sound from him. One moment he would be sitting on the bed, his legs off the right side and his feet on the floor. Then, he would be pacing up and down next to the bed, again, on the right side of the bed. Always gesturing toward me, seeming very upset. I was woken up at 5:00AM for meds and looked at the bed, it was empty. When we got our early morning cup of coffee, Elaine sat and looked at me and said, "I had the weirdest dream last night. I dreamt that there was a very angry man in the bed across from me". At this point I looked at her and asked her what he looked like. She said he seemed to be in his early 40's, average looking, with a slight stomach, a full beard, and short brown hair. I almost dropped my cup. That was the exact same man I had seen in my dream. I told her as much and told her about my dream. She then told me that the man didn't just pace up and down next to his bed in her dream, he walked to the bed I was sleeping in, but, in her dream, there was a dark haired woman in that bed (I'm blonde) and he was fighting with her. Just as in my dream, she saw his gestures, but never heard a word he was saying. We found this both freaky and interesting. So, she told me she'd ask her husband, Tim, if he could sense anything from that side of the room. When 15:00 visiting hour rolled around, Tim arrived. He walked to Elaine's bed, took a chair and put it so that his back was turned directly to the bed in question. This was before we had told him anything about the dream.
When Elaine had introduced me to her husband, she then told him about our dreams and asked him if he could sense anything from that bed. He then gave her a look and said "Why do you think I put my back to that bed?" and he proceeded to tell us that the man was still there, sitting on the bed. I asked him to tell us what he looked like, and he gave the exact same profile as the man that we had dreamed about. To say that I was completely freaked out, is putting it mildly. I hate hospitals; there is always a lingering feeling somewhere. Tim said the man was upset, he had died completely alone and he still waits for his family or anyone he knew to come see him.
By that evening, I was beginning to dread going to sleep, afraid that I would be having more dreams of the man. To my utter relief, a woman came in that evening, and, since it was the only open one, she took that bed. We did not have any more dreams of the man for the rest of the week.
I did however; have to have my drip reset the Wednesday night. It had infiltrated before dinner (which is 5:00PM) and my right hand was swollen and painful. The nursing staff finally got to me and reset the drip after 10:00PM that night. I am not a fan of needles and this was the third drip in 2 days, so, I am not ashamed to say I cried when they redid it. I finally settled down by 11:00PM and fell asleep. At some point during the night, I woke up, and heard the distinct sound of a metal bedpan clanging on our floor. However, no footsteps, no movement in the room. The curtain was still drawn between myself and Elaine, so I couldn't see past my bed. I decided, since I had had such a rude awakening, I might as well get up and go to the toilet. When I got round my bed and could see the space leading to the door, two things hit me. One, there was no bedpan on the floor; and two, the door was closed. I wheeled the drip stand along and walked to the door. Opening it, I was greeted with a dark, silent passage. The nurses were all at the nursing station down the hall to the right; no one was even close to our room.
I chalked it up to having an over active imagination, mostly due to the fact that I hate hospitals, but I still wonder...
Loading comments....
