August 10th 2008
And yet it had all started so promisingly. A glittering career in Sports Events Organising could have been hers in the bag….. if only it hadn’t come to this… The only way forward, the Specialists reasoned, would be to continue to gently coax her memory back to the awful, actual day three months ago, relive it, and then to ease her through it, in a positive light, trying to put good what had been bad. This kind of cognitive therapy had worked so well for other patients and Race Directors, why was she not responding in the same way? Christ, it must have been a real toughie.
Martha, one of their most experienced nurses, would do just this, as they had discussed at the hand-over that very morning. The night nurses described just how Cat had been over the early hours:
Mary: ‘’She had a really bad time last night, muttering in her sleep, despite her higher dose of medication. She kept cowering under her blankets from imaginary rain, screaming ‘drizzle, showers, deluge, cats and dogs, drops, clouds, downpours’…she’s getting worse, its obsessional.’’
Martha had heard enough. She approached Cat in the day room slowly – any sudden movements and it could blow the whole morning. Even a gentle breeze could mean more pills. ‘’Cat’’, Martha soothingly asked her, ‘’are you ready to move forward’’?
She had once been quite attractive. Now she rocked slowly back and forth, hugging her knees to her chest, an ancient old running number still pinned to her Hay Hotfooters top. Cat turned to her, eyes wild with terror ‘’Move forward in a Running kind of a way’’? she asked, voice panicked.
‘’No, we don’t have to run anywhere’’, Martha reassured her kindly. God this took some patience, even for her, ‘’not until you are ready. Let’s just talk about the weather, say’’ As soon as she heard the word coming out of her lips she realised her error.
‘’NO, NO NOT THE WEATHER, ANYTHING BUT THAT’’ Cat’s pain was palpable, as vivid images from the ‘Magic Roundabout’ race came flooding back, only not ‘flooding’, mercy be – that really would tip her over the edge.
‘’Cat, you’ve got to go back there, they were conditions anyone has to put up with, albeit appalling. We are here to help. You must start to talk to us’’, Martha implored.
‘’But but…’’ Cat managed to stutter between sobs, ‘it happened to me TWICE: 2008, AND 2007.
‘Why hadn’t anyone ever mentioned this to Martha before she wondered’? My goodness, no wonder the poor girl was in such a mess. Evidently, no one had questioned Cat about it properly.
‘‘Cat, you only need to look in the Runners World forums to see it can happen to anyone, they always….’’ Cat ran screaming from the room. Martha realised, maybe too late, that she had really gone too far……… Maybe she was losing her edge. She’d been in this job for too long, perhaps. Maybe she just needed to book herself a holiday in the sun. Cyprus always looked nice in the brochures….
By Quaking Cat
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