The Duchy of Jerald

"The new arrival looked over his shoulder, and saw a looming threat of
'hard luck' rivalry." - George Toles
"The new arrival looked over his shoulder, and saw a looming threat of 'hard luck' rivalry." -
George Toles, Facebook post excerpt, March 3, 2018
I arrived in the hospital in an ambulance, entering into an awareness of a new world of hard
luck rivalry. The hospital competition is fierce but not between the patients, as you would expect.
The first instance was an ambulance driver who wanted to complain about how his team
fucked up in some massive way. I tried to walk away from his loud and intrusive voice, that's
when I discovered that my leg no longer functioned, and fell, I still have the scar. Where are you
going he wanted to know, away from you was my response, I find you really intrusive. Well sit
down before you hurt someone ya rude fuck...
In the almost 6 months I spent in hospital, the scenario was often repeated, usually by visitors
claiming for their patients greater hard luck than mine. I'd ask my colleague to take their visitor
to a family area, saying I'd like to take a shower or a nap. Fuck off, in other words, your patient
had a stroke, yes, but I imagine he's gonna walk out of here, and right now I don't know if I will
use my right side of my body ever again. I don't want to hear how terrible his life is.
But mostly it was just the visitor claiming his life was really horrible. One guy who discovered
his wife had taken a kind liking to me, in direct competition to his relative, a stroke victim, called
me 'that thing' when my first attempt with the water flosser sprayed him inadvertently. I mean I
was early recovery and half my body was flacid, on my dominant side, and my speech was
almost unintelligible. The fact that I found it amusing while I apologised didn't help I suppose. I
mentioned it to the male nurse that night when he asked why I seemed so down. He said they had
zero tolerance for patient abuse, and the visitor wasn't allowed back. Cool.
Later when on the rehab ward, rapidly recovering, it was the nurses who had the hard luck
stories. I was formerly an addictions counsellor, empathetic and I knew how to listen. Problem
was, they didn't want tools for their misery, they wanted to win the competition for hard luck.
Later, if I asked if I could chat, as I was feeling lonely, or worse, the response often was: when I